I said nothing—I hadn’t known Marya, and anyway, “listening quietly” was my general social strategy

A novel is a conversation between a reader and a writer.

My stomach sank. JP had come so close. His immigrant parents had sacrificed so much.

The joy you bring us is so much greater than the sadness we feel about your illness.

And then we were kissing.....The space around us evaporated, and for a weird moment I rally like my body; this cancer-ruined thing I'd spent years dragging around suddenly seemed worth the struggle.

The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.

I don't know where people got the idea that characters in books are supposed to be likable. Books are not in the business of creating merely likeable characters with whom you can have some simple identification with. Books are in the business of creating great stories that make you're brain go ahhbdgbdmerhbergurhbudgerbudbaaarr.