Sam's Notes Taken Along the Way
Part One:
I will admit that if this had not been a book club choice I would have put it down after the first few chapters in Part One. The story did start getting much more interesting at the end of Part One in the Olden Days section. I have no interest in real politics so I am even less interested in fictional politics, not to mention that I am oblivious and therefore cannot relate to much of the things discussed in the first section of this book.
Andrew resenting the small "fairy tale" type town and dreaming of asphalt and graffiti is a mindset I can relate to. "A life that matters."
I find it ironic and amusing that the social worker, Kay, is in a clearly toxic relationship with Gavin.
The awkwardness of the song "Umbrella" playing at the funeral reminded me of the awfulness at Amandalyn's mom's funeral where the funeral coordinator said "Hotel California" was inappropriate and instead played "If I Die Young".
What in the Hell is up with Andrew Price comparing interrupting his best friend's dad's funeral to interrupting his best friend taking a crap?
Part Two:
I think Colin "Cubby"'s obsession with Barry and Mary is bizarre.
I find it interesting that Krystal Weedon's grandfather had a memorial in his honor at St. Thomas's school.
Part Three:
I was shocked by Colin "Cubby" admitting he never wanted to adopt Stuart "Fats".
What is with all these different kids understanding SQL injections/hacking?!
Part Four through Seven:
The idea that Krystal Weedon had never tasted a banana til she was a teenager depresses me.
I love that Samantha Mollison sent the anonymous letter about Miles not being fit to fill Barry's shoes.
What in the Hell. She finally gives Robbie a point of view, and then she lets him drown in a river. I was so pissed.
I do feel bad that Miles and Samantha are always witnessing death,
I'm glad Stuart "Fats" finally acted human when Robbie died.
Overall, this book was okay. I really only care about the story, or felt anything at all really, during the bits with the teenagers and their crazy lives. The adults and their politics bored me almost to tears.
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Quotes Worth Mentioning
Part One:
"Their reward for enduring the awful experience [riding in the ambulance with Barry Fairbrother] was the right to tell people about it."
"He sounded frustrated, as though the medical profession had, yet again, bungled the business by refusing to do the simple and obvious thing."
"Parminder hated sudden death. The long wasting away that so many people feared was a comforting prospect to her; time to arrange and organize, time to say good-bye..."
"Colin had driven too fast into Yarvil, as though he might bring Barry back if he could do the journey in record time; outstrip reality and trick it into rearranging itself."
"The body that Tessa had so often envied, slim and petite, had quaked in her arms, barley able to contain the grief it was being asked to bear."
"These familiar objects - his key fob, his phone, his worn old wallet - seemed like pieces of the dead man himself; they might have been his fingers, his lungs."
"There was nothing, as far as Howard could see, to stop the Fielders growing fresh vegetables, disciplining their sinister, hooded, spray painting offspring, pulling themselves together as a community and tackling the dirt and shabbiness, cleaning themselves up and taking jobs. So Howard was forced to draw the conclusion that they were choosing, of their own free will, to live the way they lived."
"Every hour was a tiny foretaste of the eternity she would have to spend without him."
"Ruth had taken an immediate dislike to Samantha with her loud laugh, and her boundless cleavage, and a fine line in risque jokes for the schoolyard mothers."
"It would be much easier to resist chocolate if her life were less stressful. Given that she spent nearly all her time trying to help other people, it was hard to see muffins as so very naughty."
"Never would it have occurred to Sukhivinder to tell either of her parents about the ape grunts or about Stuart [Fats] Wall's endless stream of malice. It would mean confessing that people beyond the family also saw her as substandard and worthless."
[Andrew Price thinking] "...of his father as a pagan God, and of his mother as a high priestess of the cult, who attempted to interpret and intercede, usually failing, yet still insisting, in the face of all the evidence, that there was an underlying magnanimity and reasonableness to her deity."
Part Two:
"If only their relationship could be distilled into simple, wordless gestures of comfort. Why had humans ever learned to talk?"
[Kay thinking about loss] "she had never been able to afford to fall apart."
[Colin]"Reentering the room with a cup of tea. He had not offered Tessa one; he was often selfish in these little ways, too busy with his own worries to notice."
"Colin's only understanding of love was of limitless loyalty, boundless tolerance: Mary had fallen irreparably, in his estimation"
Part Three:
"Barry had eclipsed Mary in company. Not that she ever appeared to dislike her supporting role; on the contrary, she had seemed delighted to beautify the background. Gavin doubted that Kay had ever been happy to play second fiddle in her life."
"Andrew Price had always seen his parents as black and white, the one bad and frightening, the other good and kind. Yet as he had grown older, he kept coming up hard in his mind against Ruth's willing blindness, to her constant apologia for his father, to the unshakable allegiance to her false idol."
"Gaia could hardly bear that Marco de Luca was still physically alive in the universe, and separated from her by a hundred and thirty two miles of aching, useless space."
"Gaia had sex with Marco four times before leaving Hackney, each time stealing condoms out of Kay's bedside table. She had half wanted Kay to know to what lengths she was driven, to brand herself on Marco's memory because she was being forced to leave him."
Part Four through Seven:
The moment when Mary Fairbrother rejected Gavin was so heart wrenching, even if he is a jerk for leading on Kay. "Even if i wasnt greiving for my husband, i still wouldnt want you" ouch!
I definitely started crying when Krystal overdosed and "joined her brother where nobody could part them."
