Latest Posts by alphareader - Page 7

I wish we could go back in time and climb trees together again. I love you, Vera. I always will.

'Please Ignore Vera Dietz' by A.S. King

I fall in love with these kids over and over again and my heart aches for their tragedies and marvels at their friendship.

'On the Jellicoe Road' by Melina Marchetta

All those people who are chained here thinking that their reputations matter and this little shit matters are so freaking shortsighted. Dude, what matters is that you're happy. What matters is your future. What matters is that we get out of here in one piece. What matters is finding the truth of our own lives, not caring about what other people think is the truth of us.

'Ask The Passengers' by A.S. King

I bury my face in my hands. And then Ryan does such a nice thing. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in against him. I can feel his body heat through his cotton T-shirt, and directly in front of me are the worn, faded knees of his jeans. But most of all, I can smell him. And he smells sandy-warm, like a beach. No one can see my face in there protected by his chest. Which is good because I can’t stop crying. I mean, I’m really going for the world record in terms of an inappropriate public breakdown. But it doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter. I’m sheltered.

'Raw Blue' by Kirsty Eagar

I guess love's kind of like a marshmallow in a microwave on high. After it explodes it's still a marshmallow. But, you know, now it's a complicated marshmallow.

'Graffiti Moon' by Cath Crowley

I howl. I howl at the roof like a hotted-up bomb doing donuts, full of screeches. I howl like an air-raid siren, my arms stretched out wide. Howls are like songs. They can’t be summoned; they just happen. They come from a place that I barely understand. And then something else climbs to the surface, something black and jagged, something from the deep. Imagine all your worst feelings surfacing. Imagine coughing up razor blades. Imagine not being able to stop the pain from coming out, and not knowing when it’s going to end.

'This is Shyness' by Leanne Hall 

But I figure if the world were really right, humans would live life backward and do the first part last. They’d be all knowing in the beginning and innocent in the end. Then everybody could end their life on their momma or daddy’s stomach in a warm room, waiting for the soft morning light.

'The First Part Last' by Angela Johnson 

The statesman's pocket my new cage, he called me a spectre then stole my dialect to wrench the core of men, made me the Braille, dots beneath skin, of a blindman's game.

'The Possibility of Flight' by Lia Hills 

I’m glad it was Dylan who laughed first. Once he did I felt myself unravel. I giggled and he giggled. We were the experiment. And then there came a time when we weren’t laughing. When we locked eyes and breathed each other’s breath. Ohmystars! The firmament shakes and then everything settles. In the end everything settles.

'Everything Beautiful' by Simmone Howell 

“Because without our language, we have lost ourselves. Who are we without our words?”

'Finnikin of the Rock' Lumatere Chronicles #1 by Melina Marchetta

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee

We would have babies and get fat and quit drinking and not spend every waking moment together. We would turn up to events for which we had accepted invitations without texting absurd excuses. We had grown up. It was an essential part of letting go, deciding which ribbons of the past we wanted to tie around our fingers and which were best left on the maypole. I could weep for the unfairness of it all now. For the necessity in closing the door on the travelling salesman of youth. I could weep with such fondness for us all.

- 'You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead' by Marieke Hardy 

I am a dreamer too, and I must wake into a world of dreamers. You can feel it – can’t you? – the peeling off of me, another small loss you have to bear. We all bear it, as best we can, this infinite chain of miniature losses, a hundred thousand stories, a hundred thousand endings. A rehearsal you could call it, for the last ending that’s bound to come, eventually, somewhere in the white space between here and dreaming.

'Only Ever Always' by Penni Russon

God doesn't need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves.

'The poisonwood bible' by Barbara Kingsolver 

"You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself."

'Breakfast at Tiffany's' by Truman Capote