Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.

You just walk over there and into the office and say, 'Hey, be my prom date,'" he said. "It's that simple.

But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.

But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.

Yeah. I mean, acknowledging is easy. Something happened or it didn't. But understanding... that's where things get sticky.

It was a basic plot in any number of her books: girl strikes out, makes good, finds love, gets revenge. In that order. The making good and striking out part I liked. The rest would just be bonus.

When I was in high school, I was always really envious of those girls who seemed to have everything: the perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect boyfriend, perfect life. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that nobody's life is perfect, and that those girls probably had a lot of the same problems I did.