How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Someone asked us later, "Didn't you wonder why no one came across you sooner?"
Did I wonder?
When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they're some kind of garbage, don't you know?
Wonder dies. (Prologue.5-8)
And this, folks, is the happy note our story opens on. Dang. If that doesn't set the tone for the amount of suffering that's going to follow, we don't know what does.
Quote #2
At that time Webb thought nothing would make sense ever again. The pain was worse now because up till then Narnie and Tate and Webb had all just felt numb and if it hadn't been for Fitz's spirit blasting them out of their grief, Webb honestly believed that the three of them would have made some crazy suicide pact. (2.72)
If Fitz hadn't ridden by on the stolen bike and saved them all, this story could have had a very different ending. Ditto for if he'd saved them, but decided not to stick around. It's his presence that keeps the three survivors from wrapping their thoughts too much around the idea of death—or even suicide.
Quote #3
Tate had lost her younger sister as well as her parents in the accident. "We were playing Rock Paper Scissors," she said. "I was paper and she was rock so I lived and she died." (2.72)
Whoa. When you think about it, that's probably how a kid in this position would come to understand death. Maybe the results of a Rock, Paper, Scissors game don't really determine whether someone lives or dies, but we can definitely see how Tate could get there.
Quote #4
But the worst photos are those of the parents. Their faces are so drawn and grief-stricken. They want their children back. I look at the faces of the girls around me and wonder who would look that grief-stricken for half of them. If something happens to me, whose face will be on the front page of the paper begging for me? (4.44)
What's really sad about Taylor's observation here is that a lot of the students who are morbidly fascinated by the serial killer—including Jessa—are probably asking themselves that same question. Maybe it's the idea of leaving people behind that would miss them that causes Jessa in particular to so closely follow the case.
Quote #5
"My father cried… I'd never seen him cry… He told me that the Hermit had a kid."
I feel sick. Up till now the Hermit had never possessed a life. He was just this madman who lived in the bush. But to know that he left someone behind… (8.132-133)
It's easy to look at eccentric people like the Hermit and just see their weirdness, not the story that lies below it. Personal details, though, can help them become human and real. Of course for Taylor, learning about the kid is what brings her one step closer to seeing the Hermit as Fitz.
Quote #6
"Do you know why I couldn't count how long it took my mother to die? […] Because she flew out that window […] And I knew she was dead straightaway because she didn't have a head, Jude, and I stayed in that spot […] Because if I moved an inch, Webb would see her, and I would have died right there if I knew that Webb saw her like that." (14.120)
Narnie's decision to shield Webb from her mother's body shows that while she's extremely fragile, she has an inner strength and bravery that she probably isn't even aware she possesses. Perhaps it's this strength that enables Hannah to go on with life after her brother's death and to guide other young girls at the school.
Quote #7
"Do you ever wonder how someone our age can possibly be dead? There's just something unnatural about it […] If you saw the photo you'd understand. You'd want to say to the kid in it, 'Why weren't you strong enough to resist death? Didn't that look in your eye stop anything bad from ever happening to you?'" (16.92)
Like Jessa and her serial killer clippings, Santangelo finds himself questioning death in his own way through Webb's photo in his dad's police files. Unlike the original five, who faced death head-on on multiple occasions, the idea of losing someone his own age is foreign and terrifying to the present day Santangelo.
Quote #8
This is what I know. I look like my father. My father disappeared when he was seventeen years old. Hannah once told me that there is something unnatural about being older than your father ever got to be. When you can say that at the age of seventeen, it's a different kind of devastating. (18.49)
The common denominator among all the present-day teenage characters seems to be their inability to deal with the idea of someone their own age dying. For Taylor in particular, knowing that she's now older than her father was when he died puts life in an entirely new perspective.
Quote #9
We sit next to each other in silence while the emergency crew comes in and out and the ambulance officers begin to arrive. Sometimes I see Murrumbidgee faces at the door but Santangelo's dad instructs Richard to take them updates to the senior rooms. Because he thinks they're going to be wheeling out bodies through the door and he doesn't want the kids to see them. For the billionth time I feel sick. (25.114)
There seem to be two responses of characters in this book to death: The first is to address it directly, the way Jessa seems to with her serial killer scrapbook, while the second is to try to shield the weaker characters from it. Along with the Murrumbidgee students, Hannah blocks Webb from seeing their mother's body and the divers at the scene of Webb's disappearance try to use Jude to take Hannah away in case they find a body.
Quote #10
And life goes on, which seems kind of strange and cruel when you're watching someone die. But there's a joy and an abundance of everything, like information and laughter and summer weather and so many stories. (27.1)
Tate's life ultimately comes to a bittersweet end. Taylor gains all the answers she's wanted, hears the whole story of her origins, and gets to know her mother in a way she never has as she approaches her final days.