How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
One time he told me that my hair looked Byzantine […] My Buckner hair had just started to grow out and it was getting wavy so I thought Byzantine meant curly or something. (1.27)
Branson collects (and misuses) vocabulary words. When Jamie looks up "Byzantine," he sees pictures of people in togas, which makes him imagine feeding people grapes and having orgies.
Quote #2
At Buckner there was this Pakistani kid Abdus who they called Bin Laden even though he was fat and could barely do ten push-ups and he was mad short too like five feet two even shorter than me and the real Osama Bin Laden is supposedly like seven feet tall and has anorexia. (5.11)
The white Buckner students, locked away at military school in the Middle of Nowhere, Missouri, automatically associate the new brown kid with the first brown person they can think of—who is, of course, a terrorist. Ugh.
Quote #3
I mean I was glad that she got back into shape or became more fit or whatever but part of me wished she would've gotten fatter just to spite that f***er. (5.22)
One of the ways Jamie's dad beats his mom down is by applying military intimidation tactics when she gains a few pounds. Note to the Major: basic training and your wife's thighs? Two separate things.