But I didn’t hear her, couldn’t, was already gone, turning and walking out the door with the food in my hands to the parking lot before I even knew what was happening. Over the years I had perfected removing myself from situations. It was kind of like automatic pilot; I just shut down and retreated, my brain clicking off before anything that hurt could sink in.
– Sarah Dessen, Keeping the Moon, page 26
Musing Mondays is a weekly meme, hosted by Ambrosia at The Purple Booker, that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:
I’m currently reading…
Up next I think I’ll read…
I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
I can’t wait to get a copy of…
I wish I could read ____, but…
I blogged about ____ this past week…
THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: How does reading making you feel?
I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)… I got some book merch recently for the new house and I’m so excited about it. It’s all Raven Cycle merch, but I got a print and some throw pillows off Redbubble.
I’m not at the new place right now, but tomorrow I’ll come back here and add pictures of the stuff.
I got:
How does reading making you feel?
Well, it’s a satisfying experience no matter what, but when the book is really good it’s way better. Like it empties my mind and my stress and fills it all back up with another world and a kind of ultra-contentment. There’s nothing at all like it. Which is probably why I consider access to reading material pretty much the most important thing in life.
There are some things in this world you rely on, like a sure bet. And when they let you down, shifting from where you’ve carefully placed them, it shakes your faith, right where you stand.
– Sarah Dessen, Someone Like You, Chapter 12
Something was changing, something I could sense even though I’d never been here before, like the way baby turtles know to go to the water at birth, instinctively. They just know.
– Sarah Dessen, Someone Like You, Chapter 11
He was carrying flowers, his usual, and wearing yet another tweedish, threadbare jacket with patches on the elbows. But this time I didn’t need Scarlett to point out the newest sign of Vlad’s emergence: boots. Not just regular boots either, but big, leather, clunky boots with a thick heel and buckles that I imagined must be clanking loudly with each step, although my window was up and I couldn’t hear them. Warrior boots, poking out from beneath his pants leg as if they’d just walked over the heads of dead opponents.
– Sarah Dessen, Someone Like You, Chapter 10
The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda’s Voice and the rules are simple:
I heard the patio door slide open, then footsteps as my father walked out onto the deck. A breeze blew in — hot and sticky-wet — before the door slid shut again. When I looked outside, through the glass, he was standing with his back to me, looking up at the few stars visible through the fast-moving clouds.
First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
First Lines:
A young queen stands barefoot on a wooden block with her arms outstretched. She has only her scant underclothes and the long, black hair that hangs down her back to fend off the drafts.
“You may not see it now,” said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo’s puzzled face, “but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way.”
– Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
“You’ll find,” he remarked gently, “that the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that’s hardly worth the effort.”
– Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
Darkestwings Reads