Aster

“To be so lucky and so miserable, it was insufferable. I should be put down like a dog, she thought. I need to leave London. I need to leave the country, the planet, the solar system.”
― Luiza Sauma, Everything You Ever Wanted

“The mother-shaped hole became a cutout of the blackest black. Something I could only see around. If I tried to look directly at it, I saw emptiness.”
― Emily X.R. Pan, The Astonishing Color of After

“On another planet, in another universe, we’re still kids and it’s summer, and it always will be. That was the planet she wanted to go to.”
― Luiza Sauma, Everything You Ever Wanted

“It wasn’t like this in the stories. In the old tales, when a young man went forth to have adventures, he endured his trials and came forth triumphant. He became a leader, or acquired a magical skill, or at the very least wed a princess. Maybe all three. There was never any question, not even in the darkest moment, that the hero would conquer both his enemies and his self-doubt. Perhaps that was why I had been angry with Simon, because I wanted the ending of his story to be the good one he deserved.”
― Juliet Marillier, Daughter of the Forest