Of course we all know that's not how life works. The novel that is our life can end at any time. Sometimes even on page one.

Sometimes you just have to try, even if you know it won’t work.

As a Dominican man, you're socialized to be a playboy. You spend a lot of time being taught that women are important, but without the really positive framework of why. You figure out quickly it's because of culo (ass). But there is a sense that it's not that simple.

For me, the battle isn't Hillary [Clinton] vs. [Bernie] Sanders. And I understand that for some people that's the battle. But for me, more than anything, it's stopping a Republican president.

A first lesson in the fragility of love and the preternatural cowardice of men. And out of this disillusionment and turmoil sprang Beli's first adult oath, one that would follow her into adulthood, to the States and beyond. I will not serve.

The Prisoner's Wife echoes Edwidge Danticat's Farming of the Bones in the urgency in which it reminds us of the possibility of love even amidst the ruins. This is a terrifying, heart-breaking and, ultimately, important book.

Sadness at being caught, at the incontrovertibe knowledge that she will never forgive you.