Noticing Sentences

God sent the plagues because Pharaoh wouldn't let the Israelites go. And Pharaoh wouldn't let the Israelites go because God hardened Pharaoh's heart. What am I supposed to say to a God who does this to people? p217 They would let me move back in. But if I stayed, they would want me to play nice and go to church and pray to a God I don't believe in and/ or like before every meal. I can't do that. But if I didn't play along, I'd have to tell them the truth and let them believe I will burn in hell for eternity. I really want to find some middle ground, but I don't know where to look. There is only cold, dark air between me and the parents' house. p 217 I don't care if you like me or not. And it doesn't matter if you trust me. No one watches reality TV to see everyone get along. No one wants to see the nice guy finish first. You all want to see conflict. You want to see drama. You want arguments and hurt feelings and stupidity and tears. I do

As always, I've tried to avoid spoilers for this book itself, but this may include spoilers for book one, Carry On. American Magickal Culture "It could be anything!" I say. A wraith, a leach, a ghoul. Something specifically American: a gun demon, a prairie mog, one of those sirens who live in wells. Can coyotes drive cars? I know they can play poker, the Mage told me. p127 American Culture And why hasn't something shot us yet? Even toddlers in America have access to guns. p143 Boyfriend Comments I'll be damned and drawn and fucking quartered before I watch some devil-eyes goat feel up my boyfriend right in front of me. p142 Crowley, if this is what it takes to keep Simon in my arms-- gunshots and Quiet Zones and high-speed chases-- I'm here for it. I'll swear to it. I've found my vocation. p148 Other Baz is truly frightening when he's not pretending he's not a vampire. p146 "The Next Blood," he says, "are phy

I'm having a hard time with this book. Do we need biographies of Confederate leaders? Yes. We need to know about and understand that history. Do we need to be really careful about what/ how they say things? Yes. Here are parts that I marked to think about as I read this book. _____________________________ Some people see Jefferson as a hero who led a brave fight to keep the Southern states free. Others see him as a stubborn, foolish leader of a war that resulted in death for more than 600,000 Americans. p4 Varina was a mature, intelligent 17-year-old woman. p15 (This is the GIRL/ CHILD that Davis married.) Jefferson felt strongly about slavery. He believed that Southerners had the right to own slaves and that the North should mind its own business. He reasoned that slaves were simply property that some Southerners owned. Jefferson feared that freed slaves would take white people's jobs or property, marry white women, or become criminals. He believed freed slaves could no

They ask us to reset their milk-white bones. They ask us to use our gilded tools to recast every curve of their faces. They ask us to smooth and shape and carve each slope of their bodies like warm, freshly dipped candles. They ask us to erase signs of living. They ask us to give them talents. Even if the pain crescendos in waves so high it pulls screams of anguish from their throats, or if the cost threatens to plummet them into ruin, the men and women of Orleans always want more. And I'm happy to provide. I'm happy to be needed. p12 Gender The only other boy I've spoken to outside of a treatment salon was the son of Madam Alain, House Glaston, who I caught in the Belle storeroom powdering his face and smothering his lips with rouge-sticks while waiting for his mother to finish her treatments. He wanted to be a Belle. We were eleven and had laughed more than we'd talked. p24 "...And not to worry, girls, there's nothing I haven't seen." p68  Thes

Racism/ Discussions Jared: Ah, here we go. Not every white person who kills a black person is guilty of a crime. Pretty sure the courts proved that yesterday. p27 The cop shoves him to the ground beside the police cruiser as he asks if Justyce understands his rights. Justyce doesn't remember hearing any rights, but his ears had been ringing from the two blows to the head, so maybe he missed them. He swallows more blood. p7 I thought if I made sure to be an upstanding member of society, I'd be exempt from the stuff THOSE black guys dealt with, you know? Really hard to swallow that I was wrong. p12 There are people who don't see a man with rights when they look at me, and I'm not real sure how to deal with that. p37 Me: It's a conundrum: white people hold most positions of authority in this country. How do I deal with the fact that I DO need them to get ahead without feeling like I'm turning my back on my own people? p49 Excellent discussion on privi

Young Readers Edition Love it "My mom always says, 'Our ancestors fought too hard for us to give up now.'" p37 If you have no critics you'll likely have no success.- Malcolm X p121 "If he doesn't say anything positive to you when you win, then he doesn't get to say anything to you when you have a bad day. Period." p190 Bullying/ Prejudice "Those girls don't know what they're talking about, and their parents should be ashamed of themselves for letting them think that way," she said. p38 p112-114 p128-129 I desperately wanted my students to know that I wasn't their enemy, that we had a shared history in common, that they had descended from greatness and didn't have to ignore their education, but every attempt I'd made to get them to listen had failed. p145

Politics/ Systemic Racism/ 10 Stages of Genocide p20-21 p23- using Buddhist temples for relocation (relate to Holocaust) p36 p119 p122 p127 p149 Map/ Diagram p22 Democracy/ Hope p45 p121 p162 Duality of Experience p49 p116- question 27 p200 How to pronounce Takei p186

Description I let her talk because I didn't mind letting her fill the space between us in the way feathers filled a pillow, in that light and breezy kind of way that gave my brain a break from overthinking everything. p19 Friendship How did the simple routine of calling your best friend go from being something you did every day without thinking to something you sat on your bed worrying about? p172 That wasn't the Sara I knew. Maybe she wasn't really the Sara I wanted to know at all anymore. p195

Poems I Saved Lovebrarians p26-27 ignorance p83 strawberry-blonde fairy tales p129-131 if it please the court p153-156 conspiracy p169-173 blowing up p177-179 collective p180-184 emergency, in three acts p185-187 inappropriate dictators p190-191 innocence p192-193 triptych p210-212 Lines/ Pieces I Loved __________ "Can I take out all the books?" and she answered quite seriously "Of course, dear, just not at the same time." p27 _____________ Cold War nuclear-family meltdown p44 _________ Auntie Laurie says follow your nightmares instead cuz when you figure out what's eating you alive you can slay it p160 _____________ "Aren't you supposed to be competitors?" Walter took the mic and smiled "No," he said. "Not competitors. We're coconspirators, and we like it that way." p173 ______________ an unholy competition that no one wants to play. p179 ______________ a vengeance of pup

The dedication is just beautiful and should absolutely not be missed. Adults-- I am feeling, increasingly, like this would be an amazing book to pair with The Catcher in the Rye  I have lived a great deal among the grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them. p5 I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man. p5 _________ On making the discovery, the astronomer had presented it to the International Astronomical Congress, in a great demonstration. But he was in Turkish costume, and so nobody would believe what he said. Grown-ups are like that... p15 _______________ Children should always show great forbearance toward grown-up people. p17 He did not know how the world is simplified for kings. To them, all men are subjects. p41 It is only with the heart that one can see

Character I think VanLeer is an excellent character for a character study. There are some great parts to study here p125 p130 p142 p162 p188 p195 p209 p230-231 p235-236 p260-261 p333 Thought-provoking "Even the guilty recognize innocence when they see it. But you, Krensky, you must be in a place of ugliness all your own. Not going to be easy to rise out of that." p127 "Hmm... it's because of me. I know that's not the same thing as my fault." p185 What home means The whole book is great for this discussion, but here are a couple places I marked that were particularly good. p188 p199-200 p229 Quotes from ARC. Check with final copy.

Description Some of us camouflage our scrawny bodies in baggy shirts and slouch, just waiting for the day when we can fold into ourselves and vanish completely. p5 Love it "We don't have to be chosen ones or whatever to do good." p33 acceptance/ family p87 World-building crimes against celestials- p51 slippery slope of loss of rights p220-221 Shade I don't understand celestials who become bodyguards for politicians who are campaigning against their existence. p112 Powerful I shouldn't get to be crowned as the hero when everyone's suffering is my fault. And maybe we're not the saviors this city needs. p164 "Your humanity is what makes you heroic, not your powers." p168 "You've got a lot of blood on your hands for someone who cares so much about life." p253 I didn't grow up with powers, but I've been a brother for eighteen years. p263 Uncaught Typo Its red beak is sealed shut with iron, preventi

Great examples of journalistic bias throughout. Check out in between chapters and discuss how different the articles are from the story we're getting from the victim. Discussions It doesn't matter that the person I murdered was the most miserable excuse for a human being to ever walk this earth, shy of Hitler. It's knowing he didn't have a chance to find some humanity, that I took it from him. p18 Every day since-- all 588 of them-- his deep voice fills my head with hate-filled words. I don't share his hate. I really don't. But that doesn't stop the thoughts from creeping into my mind. p19 (A powerful thing to discuss. Just because a prejudices or racist thought comes into our minds, that doesn't mean we have to believe it or hold it. We can and must reject it.) Not that I'm much different-- seeing as how my first inclination was to kill her, too. But I didn't want to do it. My reaction was instinct, hers is ... judgement. p26 It sm

Shade And besides, it wasn't like the world was waiting with bated breath to read yet another essay about the importance of characterization in Spoon River Anthology . p22 Description ...that Joaquin's family tree seemed to have way too many scraggly branches and not enough roots, not the kind of roots you would need when the storm was strong. p53 He wished they would go away, because nothing was worse than someone wanting you to talk when the words you needed to say hadn't even been invented yet. p84 It felt a bit like she was heading toward a firing squad, except worse, because she knew she that instead of dying, she was going to have to stay alive through the whole day. And then the next one after that. p97 She said "You're the worst" in the way girls say things when they want boys to think that they're teasing, like, "You're the worse, but I still like you enough to hook up with you, even though you're the emotional equivalent

"Of course I love you," [he] insisted. "I'll always love you. But love isn't necessarily enough. You can't build a life on it." p387

"People want to be able to be themselves," she [Roxane Gay] says. "It's just important to show a range of different ways of living and moving through the world and different kinds of bodies and different backgrounds and cultures. We're not all the same, and there's nothing wrong with that." p29 "When you can't find someone to follow, you have to find a way to lead by example." Manal al-Sharif p 29 "Owning who we are is power. Yes. We've got to dare to stand out."  Janet Mock p53

World-building You're not guilty of anything. But these days, actual guilt is an afterthought. p4 Even worse, although David got booted, too, only my parents and I were called in for a lecture about how I should know my place at school, keep my head down, and be grateful for the privilege of attending classes there. p6 Our military is diverse, but not this shiny, new branch. They're all white, it seems. A victory for nostalgic racists longing for the "good old days" of segregated units and separate bathrooms. p47 One detail that's impossible to miss? Just like in the train station, every person with a gun is white, and not white like maybe they're Bosnian-- the kind of white that thinks internment camps are going to make America great again. p64 I wonder what else they've built. What else can they do to us when America isn't looking? p80 Bystanders vs Upstanders I thought our little liberal college town would fight it longer, hold out. S