Persephone (Into Shadow, #2)

by Lev Grossman

Evan was notorious for having been accused—but never convicted!—of stealing embalmed dead rats from the bio lab. He made a V with his fingers and stuck his tongue through it. “I’m sorry, Evan,” I said. “But I’m not going to lick your vagina.”

Up until then he’d been a pretty good dad. Like me, he liked poetry. Unlike me, he always believed in me. He always told me I was special, that I had a gift, and I just had to wait till I grew up to find out what it was.

For some people bad things happening brings them together. We were the other kind of people.

Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I was drowning in myself.

There was so much you didn’t get to choose. The hard way was going to be very hard. It would be a long, long time before I felt safe and warm again.

But I would be free, and I would be myself. Show me those fucking pomegranate seeds, I thought. Come on. I’ll eat every last one of them.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.