“Sometimes patrons ask if my full first name is Benjamin. Then they ask if I know what my name means…They are surprised to find out I’m the oldest of two sons and not the youngest of twelve. They look at me as if I’m wearing the wrong name tag, wearing the wrong name,” (Robinson 31). …
“The central tragedy of childhood is never getting what you want,” (Easton). Easton’s memoir explores their life growing up in the West as a Mormon, queer, Autistic individual. Following them as a child in the Mormon church and a student at an Anglican boys’ boarding school to be “reformed,” to mall bathrooms, rodeos, bathhouses, and Catholic …
“If God gives yoyu meaning, if God makes you good, if God makes you real and worthy and powerful, then that’s my Ralph. Ralph made my suffering better, healthy and righteous. He made my suffering want only good things: make the pain stop and I’ll be the best wife in the world,” (Hogarth). After Abby’s mother-in-law …
“The future is a fluid thing, Susie. Little is definite. We’re born and therefore one day we’ll die. That’s unavoidable. As for everything in between…Just do your best, dear. That’s all any of us can do,” (Scott 55-56). After Susie’s beloved aunt dies she is given her house and is excited to start renovating it. But …
“The Hunger Games are a reminder of what monsters we are and how we need the Capitol to keep us from chaos,” (Collins 343). On the morning of the reaping of the tenth annual Hunger Games, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow learns he will be mentoring the female tribute of District 12, Lucy Gray Baird. While unfortunate, Coriolanus …
“Do you know what happened to her already? Did you catch it in the papers?…Did you listen to the podcast? Did the hosts make jokes? Do you have a dark sense of humour? Did that make it okay? Or were they sensitive about it? Did they coo in the right places? Did they give you …
“What about us?…The young ones. The next generation. The future…we trusted you to care for us. To love us. To make the right decisions for us. And you did. We’re alive today because of you…But for a long time, you didn’t tell us everything about what happened when we were little kids…We asked you, over …
I’m a simple girl, you tell me there’s an anthology of YA stories adapted from Shakespeare’s plays and I’ll read it. That Way Madness Lies doesn’t disappoint, it’s an excellent collection of stories that Shakespeare lovers will love and many of the stories work as a great introduction to Shakespeare’s works that reluctant teens may be …
“Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures,” (Van Pelt 350). Tova Sullivan is a woman who knows how to cope. Thirty-years ago her eighteen-year-old son Erik vanished on a boat in Puget Sound, and only a few years ago her husband Will died of cancer. …
“‘I feel alone,” she says, ‘when I’m with other people.’ ‘Ah,’ Ernest says. ‘The worst kind of lonesome,’” (Lockyer). In the rural town of Burr, Ontario thirteen-year-old Jane’s dad has just died. She spends her time fantasizing about becoming a worm that will burrow into his body, buys tarot cards and tries Ouija boards to …
Sarah O'Connor 