I remember being intrigued by the idea of school-in-a-box, just-add-water-and-Sam.

It was a strangely disorienting feeling, to have something you'd relied on for so long start to change, like finding out that gravity no longer worked on Mondays.

In a culture defined by shades of gray, I think the absolute black and white choices in dark young adult novels are incredibly satisfying for readers.

I lost a horse today.' 'That sounds careless. What happened?' 'She jumped off a cliff.' 'A cliff! Is that normal?

He was full of the restless, dissatisfied energy that always seemed to move into his heart after he visited home these days. It had something to do with the knowledge that his parents’ house wasn’t truly home anymore — if it had ever been — and something to do with the realization that they hadn’t changed; he had.

It was nothing, but it was Adam Parrish's nothing. How he hated and loved it. How proud he was of it, how wretched it was.

Nothing had changed. Nothing.