One-Star Romance

I mean... There have been moments when I read something in a book that feels like it was written just for me. Like the author reached inside my brain, took all the thoughts I didn't know how to express, and put them into a perfect paragraph. And in those moments, I've felt so utterly connected to a person I didn't know that it made me think, 'Yes, the world can be hard, and people can be awful to each other. But there is also so much beauty in the fact that we can recognize each other like that.'" She diffled with her straw. "I want to be able to give that feeling to other people.

What is life for, if not dancing?

Sometimes when you're in the middle of it, it's easy to forget that academia is not the center of the universe.

Natalie knew enough now to realize that nothing lasted forever—no bliss, but no sadness either. Happiness followed pain and pain followed happiness, and all you could do was hang on and feel every bit of it for as long as this world would let you.

Cancer didn't take only those who weren't willing to fight it. It was an indiscriminate monster. Rob knew that too, but sometimes you had to say things you don't fully believe.

Love—axis-spinning, all-consuming, eye-opening love—had stunted her intellectual agility. All her blood was flowing to her heart, none left for her brain.

Not everyone is lucky enough to love someone as infuriating and interesting and alive as Natalie Shapiro.

You're having a baby.' They both spoke in whispers. Somehow the news felt so big that all they could do was whisper in the face of it. Like walking into a cathedral, reverent.

Hatred and passion shared such a fine line.

Things weren't supposed to be perfect and manicured at this age, not when you were bravely pursuing what you loved despite the difficulty of it.

He could tell his mother. He could tell strangers on the street. He could even tell Satan, because Robert Kapinsky could go to hell