How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
When I was little we used to sleep in each other's rooms the night before all special occasions: Christmas, trips to Europe, first days of school, and birthdays. We stopped when I was nine or ten. I don't remember which one of us decided we were too old or if anything was said. It just stopped. Special occasions now come and go without our marking it by sleeping in the same room. (1.35)
Sometimes getting older can feel bittersweet and melancholy. Like, it's a bit sad that they don't celebrate special occasions with sleepovers anymore. It feels like a missed opportunity for them to continue getting to know each other as they mature into early adulthood.
Quote #2
Mom and I have radically different ideas about what looks good on me. We spend almost four hours buying five dresses, three of which I will never wear, four skirts, three pairs of pants, two pairs of jeans, four sweaters, and seven tops. Mom says I am impossible to shop for because I am too tall for things that should fit. That and the fact that she still thinks I am nine. She vetoed every short skirt I wanted, and the only tops we could agree on without a fight have little collars and button up to my chin. Ugh. (5.4)
Show us a girl who says she hasn't gone through this with their mom, and we will show you a girl who is lying to your face. This is the age-old struggle between moms and daughters (or dads and daughters, whoever happens to be holding the purse strings when back-to-school shopping comes around again).
Quote #3
How is it that my father, whom I think I know so well, has picked the wrong—the ignorant—laws to follow? How would Link—how would I—ever follow laws different from Dad's if his are the ones we learn first? (7.67)
This is one of the toughest parts of growing up. There comes a time when you have to decide to disagree with your parents—who up until that point have seemed infallible and omniscient. It is a sign that you are coming-of-age when you can finally see your parents for who they are as flawed adults rather than the superheroes you grew up with.
Quote #4
I had a growth spurt in the seventh grade: four and a quarter inches in five months. I went from being average height to two inches shy of the six feet I currently am. My hips hurt, I slept a lot, and I only had one pair of pants which fit, but other than that there was no obvious change. I saw myself every day. There was no way to notice how tall I was until I went to the pediatrician and she said, "Ellen, you've gotten really big." (9.1)
Ugh, the teenage years are tough. Isn't it funny how hard it is to see changes in yourself simply because you are too familiar?
Quote #5
I settle into the kitchen and confront my school books. Thanks to my various reading projects (Wuthering Heights, books about art, and books about sexual identity), I am hopelessly behind in all of my classes. I will manage a B minus in French and chemistry. English will totally depend on the essay question. History and math are beyond the pale. I give them up as lost, figuring that the worst that can happen is for Dad to realize that he is more than one step behind who I am. This is something I have, in fact, wished for. My exams will reveal a truer picture of the girl my parents think they know. (10.47)
What is it about Link and Ellen that they keep hoping their tests will somehow reveal their true selves to their parents? Has their communication shut down to such a degree that her parents are now forced to guess at how their kids feel based on the grades that they get? Would that ever be accurate or fair?
Quote #6
We are sprawled across his bed, surrounded by drafts of his essay. I know that if James were somebody else, I would not fearlessly lie around on a bed with him. It amazes me how I have turned into a girl who worries about sex. Both having it and not having it. Less than a year ago, I was a girl bringing home notes that detailed my inability to socialize. And now James and I navigate around each other's bodies, trying to establish boundaries even as we erase them. (10.57)
Ellen has certainly come a long way from the Ellen of yesteryear, but probably not as much as she thinks. She's no social butterfly, she's just obsessed with James, and although that has broken down several barriers, she still has a long way to go before she should start patting her own back for her social skills.
Quote #7
Without any warning, the dinner hour (which suddenly reemerges the night of the recital) morphs into a family meeting. This is the new drill: Link is sixteen years old and lives at home. They respect his maturity and growing autonomy, but in the end, as long as he lives under their roof, he will comply with their authority. He will see a shrink.
"You can do as you please with your exams," Mom says. "But you cannot do as you please with your life. Not while I still have a say in it." (15.4-5)
It wouldn't be coming-of-age if there weren't some battle for autonomy involved. It's normal for parents and teens to battle about new boundaries regarding who is in charge, and we think in this case they've done an admirable job of hashing it out.
Quote #8
If I were not afraid of Adena and what I envision she knows, I would pull her aside and ask if it is normal to be in love with someone who has made up his mind that sex will not happen. Not, repeat, not. I would ask her if I missed the class when they explained love and sex. Was I reading through that bit? How else would I know so little about what makes the body—mine and his—tremble, leak, and break open? How can there be no written laws—none at all—about how to love someone? And how come the only laws I can find written down about how to have sex concern not getting pregnant or caught or dead? (18.2)
This is yet another example of why communication within a family is so dang important. Ellen's parents should be the ones teaching her about sex and love (not the particulars, mind you, because ew, but you know, the basics). That, and she needs some girlfriends stat. That's where you get the good stuff on love and sex and everything else when you're a teenager exploring these domains for the first time.
Quote #9
I guess what happens now is because neither of us wants to say anything or cry in front of the other. It hurts a little, but not as much as the books say. There's not even a tearing feeling, more a feeling of oh, how unusual, until oh, this is it. It's nothing like drawing. I don't feel pulled into another place. I am here, finally here. I belong, completely and totally, to this particular beautiful face.
And then it's over. In less than four months I'll turn fifteen, but this will loom larger in my mind, I think. (20.20-21)
Losing your virginity has become something of a rite of passage for American teens, and we think the fact that Ellen's not disappointed, hurt, or confused is a major win for her. It's no surprise that this event will feel more important than her birthday; after all, you can only lose your virginity once.
Quote #10
It will be amazing in the way that girl walking through the park is. I see her in her hideous green skirt, acting as if her mind isn't beating with what her body knows. Although I'm still in the process of meeting her, I've already decided to like her.
Not because she's curious, careful, kind, and intense. But because she's let somebody else discover that about her and love her for it. (20.58-59)
Compare this confident, glowing young woman to the cautious, quiet Ellen from the beginning of the book and you can see how much she's matured over the course of less than a year.