Every Day - David Levithan (1)

I watched as she picked everything out of the picnic hamper. Cheeses. French bread. Hummus. Olives. Salad. Chips. Salsa.
   "Are you vegetarian?" I ask, based on the evidence in front of me.
    She nods.

    "Why?"
    "Because I have this theory that when we die, every animal that we've eaten has a chance at eating us back. So if you're a carnivore and you add up all the animals you're eaten-well, that's a long time in purgatory, being chewed."

    "Really?"

She laughs. "No. I'm just sick of the question. I mean, I'm vegetarian because I think it's wrong to eat other sentient creatures. And it sucks for the environment."
     "Fair enough." I don't tell her how many times I've accidentally eaten meat while I've been in a vegetarian's body. It's just not something I remember to check for. It's usually the friends' reactions that alert me. I once made a vegan really, really sick at a McDonald's.

You know where to find me - Rachel Cohn

I preferred books to people. Laura was my exception. We had out own secret language, nonsense words to communicate when adults were present. Me-oh-my-oh-milo, eh foo manchu mysteryahoyatolah, in the car ride back from gymnastics class, could translate as, " Miles, since I'm allowed to check out more then two books a week from the library, I snuck some Nancy Drews into the tree house for you." Aiieeee, hersheyhialeaLauraho spaghetti-o-sautus was easily understood as "I swiped some chocolate bars for us from 7-Eleven, Laura. Meet you up there after dinner." 

Every you, every me - David Levithan (3)

"What is the answer, Ewan?" Ms. Granger asked.

Giraffe, I wanted to answer. It was on the tip on my tounge.
Giraffe.
This was in math class.

Every you, every me - David Levithan (2)

Instead I thought about the world profile and that a weird double meaning it had. We say we're looking at a person's profile online, or say a newspaper is writing a profile on someone, and we assume it's the whole them we're seeing. But when a photographer takes a picture of a profile, you're not only seeing half the face. Like with Sparrow, whoever he was. It's never the way you would remember seeing them, You never remember someone in profile. You remember them looking you in the eye, or talking to you. You remember an image that the subject could never see in a mirror, because you are the mirror. A profile, photographically, is perpendicular to the person you know.

Every you, Every me - David Levithan (1)

My mind became a brief history of empty boxes.
The big cardboard ones I'd find as a kind and turn into a fort. Or a house, drawing in windows on the sides. I would cut out the windows and ruin it.
Boxes that sweaters would come in. Boxes from department stores that I would keep in the bottom of my closet until they could be filled with some kind of collection.
Coffins.
The Cracker Jack box when I was all done, when the prize had been revealed to be something plastic, something worthless.
An empty sandbox, looking like it was waiting for sand.
A mailbox always looks like it's full of envelopes. But you never know for sure. Most of the time when you open it, it sounds hollow.
What did Pandora do with her box after she'd unleashed despair into the world? Did she keep it on her mantel, as a reminder of what she's done? 

Are We There Yet? - David Levithan

David Levithan and I have a good relationship. I think this is the eight book from him I read. I like his way to write a lot. Two brothers traveling in Italy. Watching art and trying to get on together. What's not to like?



Elijah moves over in his bed and Cal lies down beside him.
"Do you wonder...? she begins. This is their game  Do you wonder? Every night - every night when it's possible - the last thing to be heard is the asking without answer.
They stare at the glow-in-the-dark planets on the ceiling, or to turn sideways to trace each other's blue-black outlines, trying to detect the shimmer of silver as they speak.
This night, Cal asked, "Do you wonder if we'll ever learn to sleep with our eyes open?"
And in return, Elijah askes, "Do you think there can be such a thing as too much happiness?"
This is Elijah's favourite time. He rarely know what he is going to say, then suddenly it's there. 
Above them. Liftning.
A few minutes pass. Cal sits up and puts her hand on Elijah's shoulder.
"Goodnight, sleep tight," she whispers.
"Don't let the bedbugs bite," he chimes, nestling deeper under the covers.
---


Morning.
Breakfast.
"You fool," Elijah says, glancing at the menu.
"What?" Danny grunts.
"I said, 'You fool.'"
Danny looks at the menu and understands.
"No," he says. "I won't quiche you."
"Quiche me, you fool! Please!"
"If you say that any louder, you're toast."
"Quiche me and marry me in church, since we cantaloupe!"
Elijah is giddy with the old routine.
"Orange juice kidding?" Danny gasps.
"I will milk this for what it's worth."
"You can't be cereal."
"I can sense you're waffling..."
Danny looks up triumphantly. "There aren't any waffles on the menu! You lose!"
Elijah is surprised by how abruptly disappointed he is. That's not the point, he thinks.
He turns away. Danny pauses for a second watching him, not knowing what he's done.
---


Elijah watches the chair disappear around the corner and immediately feels loss.
He can't believe that you can meet a person in this way and then lose touch with them forever.
He could check all the hotels in Venice and look for a Greg and an Isabel, but he knows he won't.
He wants to, though. Because he wants to believe in sudden fate.

The Fault in Our Stars - John Green (2)

This book is good in so many way, but one thing I find hictarical is that John Green has inclued some Swedish rapers and mentions Swedish songs from farely famous Swedish bands in Sweden. I know of them of course but I don't know how John Green came across them(maybe I should ask him on twitter). I have bookmarked the pages where this is mentioned, but I will not quote it here because it's just greater when you know the bands and the songs.

Instead I will share this:

Once I'd recovered, we went inside and sat down on the couch right next to each other, the laptop half on his (fake) knee and half on mine. "Hot," I said of the laptop's base.

"Is it now?" He smiled. Gus loaded this giveaway site called Free No Catch and together we wrote an ad.

"Headline?" he asked.

"'Swing Set Needs New Home,'" I said.

"'Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home,'" he said.

"' Lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks the Butts of Children,'" I said.

He laughed. "That's why."

"What?"

"That's why I like you. Do you realize how rare it is to come across a hot girl who creates an adjectival version of the word pedophile? You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are."

The Fault in Our Stars - John Green (1)

I've just read "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green, a book that I wanted to read since last summer when I found out about it. I then pre-ordered it. I didn't know I was going to move to Berlin at this time so the book arrive back in Stockholm and got sent here from there. This book has traveled quite a bit.

I read it in one day. I got it yesterday afternoon and was done today afternoon. It's a great book. Writing about terminally ill cancer teenage and make it this fun, serious and good can't be easy but Green pulls it of. I laughed, I cried and I recognize places in Amsterdam, where parts of the books takes place.

And I have some many bookmarked pages, so let's start.

Augustus glanced away from the screen ever so briefly.

"You look nice," he said. I was wearing this just-past-the-knees dress I'd had forever.

"Girls think they're only allowed to wear dresses to formal occasions, but I like a woman who says, you know, I'm going to see a boy who is having a nervous breakdown, a boy whose connection to the sense of sight itself is tenuous, and gosh dang it, I am going to wear a dress for him."

---

Augustus stepped toward him and looked down. "Feel better now?" he asked.

"No," Isaac mumbled, his chest heaving.

"That's the thing about pain," Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. "It demands to be felt."

---

"Why are breakfast foods breakfast foods?" I asked them. "Like, why don't we have curry for breakfast food?"

"Hazel, eat."

"But why?" I asked. "I mean, seriously: How did scrambled eggs get stuck in with breakfast exclusivity? You can put bacon on a sandwich without anyone freaking out. But the moment your sandwich has an eggs, boom, it's a breakfast sandwich."

Dad answered with his mouth full. "When you come back, we'll have breakfast for dinner. Deal?"

"I don't want to have 'breakfast for dinner,'" I answered, crossing knife and fork over my mostly full plate. "I want to have scrambled eggs for dinner without this ridiculous construction that scrambled eggs-inclusive meal is breakfast even when it occurs at dinnertime."

"You've gotta pick your battles in this world, Hazel," my mom said. "But if this is the issue you want to champion, we stand behind you."

"Quite a bit behind you," my dad added, and Mom laughed.

Anyway, I knew it was stupid, but I felt kind of bad for scrambled eggs.

Dash & Lily's book of dares - Levithan & Cohn.

Some month ago I read this book. I love both Levithan(best young adult writer in our time!) and Cohn as writers and when they put their heads together they're even better. The Christmas in New York,the dares, Dash's yogurt addiction, that they spend much time at Stand and all that Levithan & Cohn write about is just genius.

I got remained about this book when I read a Swedish blog about it and also reminded about a quote in that book that I loved and laughed about way to long about in a train.

"You were in Sweden?" Boomer asked.

"No," I said. "The trip got called off at the last minute. Because of political the unrest."

"In Sweden?" Priya seemed skeptical.

"Yeah-isn't it strange how the Times isn't covering it? Half the country's on strike because of that thing the crown prince said about Pippi Longstocking, Which means no meatballs for Christmas, if you know what I mean."

"That's so sad!" Boomer said.”