Us Against You (Beartown, #2)

by Fredrik Backman

their actions affect our lives. Not just the people we choose, the people we like, but all the rest of them: the idiots. You who stand in front of us in every line, who can’t drive properly, who like bad television shows and talk too loud in restaurants and whose kids infect our kids with the winter vomiting bug at preschool. You who park badly and steal our jobs and vote for the wrong party. You also influence our lives, every second. Dear God, how we hate you for that.

Younger brothers never know what they put their big sisters through. Anxiety hidden behind eyes, words hidden behind other words, keys to gun cabinets hidden under pillows at night.

Everyone else had a normal mom, but I had a role model. All the other moms have to say to their kids that they can be whatever they want when they’re older, but you don’t have to say that, because you’re demonstrating it every day.”

He’s already wondering about how he’s going to find a tree beautiful enough for his mom to sleep under. That’s when he becomes an adult.