I live in a world where two truths coexist: where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand

I stared at her black hair. It was shiny like the promises in magazines.

I fell in love with you again; While you were away - Jack Salmon

Books and novels in particular that grapple with quite a few things are difficult to explain, so I think that first line can come in a substitute for trying to form a longer sense of what the book is about.

I knew something as I watched: almost everyone was saying goodbye to me. I was becoming one of the many little-girl-losts. They would go back to their homes and put me to rest, a letter from the past never to be reopened or reread. And I could say goodbye to them, wish them well, bless them somehow for their good thoughts. A handshake in the street, a dropped item picked up and retrieved and handed back, or a friendly wave from the distant window, a nod, a smile, a moment when the eyes lock over the antics of a child.

My father had not been outside the house except to drive back and forth to work or sit out in the backyard, for months, nor had he seen his neighbors. Now he looked at them, from face to face, until he realized I had been loved by people he didn't even recognize. His heart filled up, warm again as it had not been in what seemed so long to him- save small forgotten moments with Buckley, the accidents of love that happened with his son. ~pgs 209-210; Buckley, Lindsey and Jack on Susie

All you have to do is desire it, and if you desire it enough and understand why -- really know -- it will come.