Pumpkin (Dumplin' #3)

by Julie Murphy

Why do all shoes that are basically pillows for your feet always have to be ugly? Is it some sort of sick universal law?

Hannah is a small person with big energy. I can’t imagine she’s taller than five three, but honestly anything shorter than five nine and I lose my ability to discern height. You’re either shorter than me or much shorter than me.

When Grammy, Cleo, and Bernadette bought this place, they decided it would finally be the house of their dreams, unfettered by their husbands or the needs of their families.

Once you come out of the closet, there’s no going back in. The freaking closet door disappears, and you’re left totally unprotected in the middle of the world at the mercy of everyone else’s goodwill, hoping the people you’ve known your whole life really are decent and kind and that all that unconditional-love Bible stuff people spew is the real deal.

(Mimi Mee once said that Halloween is a drag queen testing ground.)

leaned over and pulled her into my arms. “Trying to steal my spotlight, sis?” She laughed through her tears and poked me in the side, tickling me. “I could never. Your spotlight is so bright, I’d burn.”

Some people might say that’s a lot of PDA for two high school dudes in a tiny Texas town, but this room—the choir room—is a little microscopic queer-kid haven in a kingdom built for cis-het white good ol’ boys.

This is what I get for saying Facebook is beneath me. (Honestly though, any platform where my own mother is sharing memes is not a safe space.)

“Patrick Thomas and all the assholes who followed his lead might get to choose how this story begins, but I get to choose how it ends.”

Dad doesn’t think that just because you can afford to have bigger and better things, you should. I, however, find comfort in material possessions and refuse to feel ashamed of it.

its flaws you’re usually indifferent to. “Y’all are, like . . . really dressed up. Way more than usual.” “Be the class you wish to see in the world,”

She always said men made their objects women because the only thing we teach boys about girls is that they’re objects.”

A dog is high on my list of priorities once I’m a fully functioning adult.

You’ve been doing it ever since you lost weight. Well, good for you! You’re not fat anymore. But some of us are and some of us are okay with it! My body contains me and that’s what makes my body good. That’s enough.”

“It’s earnest,” she says. “Not everything has to be sarcastic or edgy. It’s okay to be vulnerable and sincere.”