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384 pages, Hardcover
First published April 23, 2024
"Miles looks up at me.
“They,” I say, “suck.”
“She’s the love of my life,” he says.
“The love of your life sucks,” I tell him."
"Would he take her back? I find myself wondering, before seamlessly transitioning into Would I take Peter back? “Definitely not,” I say aloud."
"Petra was the exception, not the rule, for me. So if she wanted to get back together? I don’t know. But it’s not worth thinking about, since she’s engaged to your ex-boyfriend.”
"And then Petra called, and she was sobbing. So hard I couldn’t understand her. I’d never seen her cry before. I honestly thought someone had died. She asked if I could come see her, and I said yes. Because I was worried. I still care about her.”
"I didn’t mean to tell her first.” The tops of his cheeks redden. “That I’m in love with you."
’It’s easy to be loved by the ones who’ve never seen you fuck up. The ones you’ve never had to apologize to, and who still think all your ‘quirks’ are charming.’
‘The scene has to change things. Because every scene has to change things.
And that’s it. As close as I think I could get teaching someone to write (or rewrite) a sex scene. You have to treat it like any other scene, because that’s what it is…It has to move the story. It has to shift the emotional landscape. It doesn’t have to be universally deemed sexy (it can’t; people like different things) and it doesn’t have to avoid the territory of cringe (it won’t, for the aforementioned reason). It simply has to be true to the story.’
‘Trust people’s actions, not their words.
Don’t love anyone who isn’t ready to love you back.
Let go of the people who don’t hold on to you.
Don’t wait on people who don’t jury for you.’
‘Im not sure which parts of me are him and which parts are genuinely my own and I want to know. I want to know myself, to test my edges and see where I stop and the rest of the world begins.’
what’s the point of a contemporary romance if by the end of it i am not even convinced that the male protagonist loves the main female character more than his —beautiful, accomplished, heartbreaker, full of life— ex ?
“The same universe that dispassionately takes things away can bring you things you weren't imaginative enough to dream up.”
“You can’t untell someone your secrets. You can’t unsay those delicate truths once you learn you can’t trust the person you handed them to.”
“Life, I’d learned, is a revolving door. Most things that come into it only stay awhile.”
“It’s easy to be loved by the ones who’ve never seen you fuck up. The ones you’ve never had to apologize to, and who still think all your ‘quirks’ are charming.”
“Trust people’s actions, not their words; Don’t love anyone who isn’t ready to love you back; Let go of the people who don’t hold on to you; Don’t wait on anyone who’s in no rush to get to you.”
“Life’s short enough without us talking ourselves out of hope and trying to dodge every bad feeling. Sometimes you have to push through the discomfort, instead of running.”
“I don’t think there’s a right way to feel. And you can’t control it, anyway. Feelings are like weather. They just happen, and then they pass.”
“You can’t force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don’t.”
“I don’t know how to talk along the surface of things, but I also don’t want to unearth the ugly stuff, over and over again, for people who are just passing through my life. It’s depleting. Like every time I dole out a kernel of my history to someone who’s not going to become a fixture in my life, a piece of me gets carried away, somewhere I can never get it back. You can’t untell someone your secrets. You can’t unsay those delicate truths once you learn you can’t trust the person you handed them to.”
“You can’t force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don’t. Trust people’s actions, not their words. Don’t love anyone who isn’t ready to love you back. Let go of the people who don’t hold on to you. Don’t wait on anyone who’s in no rush to get to you.”
“It’s easy to be around people who don’t know you. But as soon as someone starts to figure you out—as soon as you can’t be perfect—it’s easier to move on. Find someone new to be the cool, fun, laid-back one with.”
“I want to kiss you, every time you take a sip of something and make that sound. I want to kiss you every time I walk past your bedroom and hear your laugh through the door. I want to kiss you every time I hear the shower turn on and know that you’re in there. I want to kiss you all the time, Daphne. Sometimes it’s just easier to find an excuse.”
“That's what happens when your life partner leaves you for the nicest, sunniest, prettiest woman in the state of Michigan.”everyone is going to talk about this book on all platforms, so instead of me telling you more about this book, let me tell you some things i really loved about this story with some bullet points (besides the michigan bias, obviously):
“You can't untell someone your secrets. You can't unsay those delicate truths once you learn you can't trust the person you handed them to.”
“I need it to be okay. Because I need to be okay. As a kid, I just felt so fucking scared and powerless, all the time, and now, I just need to be okay.”
“To me, libraries have always represented the best of humanity. The way we all share knowledge and space, and... and how we find ways to look after each other. It's not a perfect system, but it's powerful.”