That is the rule of the Wilds: You must be bigger and stronger and tougher. You must hurt or be hurt.
Lauren Oliver"And I love you too." His fingers skate the edge of my jaw, dance briefly over my lips. "You should know that. You have to know that."
Lauren OliverTwo weeks until your cure" she says finally. "Sixteen days" I say, but in my head I'm counting: Seven days. Seven days until I'm free and away from all these people and their sliding superficial lives brushing past one another gliding, gliding, gliding from life to death. For them there's hardly a change between the two.
Lauren OliverThe house, the pond, the tree-it was all both overwhelmingly familiar and different from what she remembered-smaller and shabbier, somehow. It was like waking up to find that your reflection in the mirror had aged overnight, or had sprouted a new mole: You were forced to admit that things changed, whether you gave them permission to or not.
Lauren OliverAnd even if she isnโtโeven if by some miracle, she survived the escape and has been squeezing out a living in the Wildsโshe would never join forces with the resisters. She would never be violent or vengeful. Not Lena, who used to practically faint when she pricked a finger, who couldnโt even lie to a teacher about being late. She wouldnโt have the stomach for it.
Lauren OliverBut...books are so much more. Some of them are webs; you can feel your way along their threads, but just barely, into strange and dark corners. Some of them are balloons bobbing up through the sky: totally self-contained, and unreachable, but beautiful to watch. And some of themโthe best onesโare doors.
Lauren Oliver