Noticing Sentences

Bluestem Book 2021 Shade  I just feel like there is a lot of shade in this book. It's could easily be a lot of different leaders, but the timing.... the whole episode of p 110-111 "But cowards seldom fight their own battles." p227 (Reading this on June 2, 2020 really hit.) "A king must be strong." p255 (The king himself says this.) What it means to be a hero "I'm not a hero," I say. "I didn't even know what I was DOING half of the time." p278-279

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...

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 ...

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...

*****I am avoiding spoilers for this particular book, but if you want to avoid spoilers for the SERIES, I suggest you do not read this post. LOL Her mother had said she needed to find her bliss. Who'd have thought it would be on an island in the middle of nowhere? p90  (irony) Perhaps it was his choice of famous residence that had brought him to Goddard's attention. Grouseland was, after all, the first brick home in the Indiana Territory. Damn. p200 Nietzsche, aside from having a name that was painfully difficult to spell... p200 (I feel like this is Shusterman putting his own little aside in here-- about having to type that name over and over.) "Maybe because I want you to use your hands for something more than pleasuring yourself." p362 Shade "With all due respect, it sounds like the world has been duped by a very charismatic and self-serving monster." p100 Because, after all, a thousand people gleaned in a mass even was such a small drop i...

Note- Since this is part of a series, there may be spoilers for the SERIES, even if they are not spoilers for this BOOK. World-building There are lands across the ocean that no longer exist, now either frozen over or sand swept, flattened by the wrath of a few and the ignorance of the many. p8 bombs discussion- note on p 8 weather/ catastrophe p9 I am particularly concerned by man-made climate change, an easy trap to fall into, especially for advancing societies. p11 How could servants create such beauty and still be considered inferior? They are capable of wonders different from our own. p64 Because the war is not a war at all. It is an extermination. p108-109 Silvers aren't used to being denied anything, and they don't react well to hardship. p225 Shade Some texts vary in quality of preservation, and to my surprise and chagrin, many seem to disagree on the severity or magnitude of events, particularly those regarding climate.  p10 "And fewer Silve...

Description I only see the top of her Sisterlocks. The rest of her is hidden behind her Nikki Giovanni book. Occasionally she goes "Mmm" at some line the same way my grandma does during a sermon. Poetry's Mrs. Murray's religion. p4 Compliments like that are part of the parental responsibilities she took on when she evicted me from her womb. p9 Ever since that boy got killed, my heart races whenever I see a cop. I could've been him, he could've been me. Luck's the only thing that separated us. p237 Society and Expectations   Every single time I get sent to her, she asks me questions that sound like they cam from some "How to Talk to Statistical Black Children Who Come to Your Office Often" handbook. p7 ______________________ "Carrying the torch for Law, huh?" Not really. More like making my own torch and carrying it. I say, "Yeah," though, because that's what I'm supposed to say. It's part of being ro...

Description If there had been a clock in the room, it would have stopped. Occasionally, there are minutes that get extra seconds. Moments so precious the universe stretches to make additional room for them, and this was one of them. People don't get pauses like these very often. Some people never receive them at all. p3 He looked the way she would have imagined a vigilante who had a secret identity as a gentleman botanist. p56 "But I don't want to feel differently. I want to feel love in its every form. I used to be so scared of it, but now I think love is another type of magic. It makes everything brighter, it makes people who have it stronger, it breaks rules that aren't supposed to exist, it's infinitely valuable. I can't imagine my life without it. And if you felt any love in your heart, you would understand." p187 Love it "Just because I don't like you doesn't mean you're not pretty." p17 And by proper, Tella imagined...

Perception/ Descriptions The young handsome white guys are always fun They're the ones who are naturally given things, who find that gates swing open before they touch them. These guys take advantage. Sometimes they don't know they're doing it. Most of the time they do. They are harder to erase because they like their lives. but I stay in there anyway, because I like their lives, too. p28-29 It takes me about two periods in school to realize she's one of the only black girls in class-- a point brought home in third-period history, when both the teacher and other students keep looking at her when they're talking about Selma, as if her skin colors makes her an expert on something that happened decades before she was born. I would guess they don't even realize they're doing it-- when people are thinking about a difference, their eyes will usually wander to someone they think embodies the difference. p42 Gwen's parents are there, as well a...