Wednesday Words: Is that what they’re calling it these–oh, that’s just what it’s called

[They were] known to make out while eating shepherd’s pie, which is not a euphemism[.]

– Maureen Johnson, THE NAME OF THE STAR

Wednesday Words: Survival of the misfitest

I will laugh about this one day, I told myself. I will laugh about it with people so clever and sophisticated I can’t imagine them properly now.

– Jo Walters, AMONG OTHERS

Wednesday Words: Obvious truths newly learned

I whirl around to face him — again, surprised by how confident I sound, considering that my heart is rushing, tumbling. Maybe this is the secret to talking to boys — maybe you just have to be angry all the time.

– Lauren Oliver, DELIRIUM

(Side question: why is YA so full of constructions like “rushing, tumbling”? Have you ever seen this in a book for adults? Now that I think about it, I think this is even more quintessentially YA than the long-short cadence I wrote about recently. What are the other stylistic quirks of YA?)

Wednesday Words: They can add that to that?

Shiny, overconfident clothes you could never imagine yourself wearing hung along the walls. I felt some sort of clothes-store consumer shame creeping up my insides. It was all the insincerity of high school with the added humiliation of mirrors.

–Deb Calleti, THE SIX RULES OF MAYBE

Wednesday Words: Necessity-Only Sex Ed

“I don’t know many rules to live by,” he’d said. “But here’s one. It’s simple. Don’t put anything unnecessary into yourself. No poisons or chemicals, no fumes or smoke or alcohol, no sharp objects, no inessential needles — drug or tattoo — and… no inessential penises, either.”

“Inessential penises?” Karou had repeated, delighted with the phrase in spite of her grief. “Is there any such thing as an essential one?”

“When an essential one comes along, you’ll know,” he’d replied.

– Laini Taylor, DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE

By the way, I cannot recommend this book enough, but I warn you: the first couple chapters make it seem like it’s going to be a less good book than it is. Just keep going, and then thank me (and Bethany, who told me) with all appropriate effusiveness.

Wednesday Word – It’s good to have a skill

Aunt Emily had spent a lifetime interfering–days–weeks–years.  There was nothing she could do better, or that she enjoyed more.  To thrust her finger into somebody’s pie and wreck it–that was Aunt Emily for you.  Lucinda’s grandmother, having died when her mother was a very little girl, had left Aunt Emily the oldest of the family; and to her had descended that divine right of putting her finger into family pies.

–Ruth Sawyer, ROLLER SKATES

P.S. Just so there’s no confusion with regards to the name, I’d like to state for the record that the above quote is not about me.  You can tell because I have no siblings.

Wednesday Words: From this week’s episode of The Simpsons…

…in which Bart and Homer form a tween fiction writing team.

So many vampires, with the fangs and the capes and the medals – nobody knows how they earned them.

- Professor Frink (weird scientist guy), The Simpsons

Wednesday Word: The Important Questions

“Miss Binney, I want to know — how did Mike Mulligan go to the bathroom when he was digging the basement of the town hall?”

Miss Binney’s smile seemed to last longer than smiles usually last.  Ramona glanced uneasily around and saw that others were waiting with interest for the answer.  Everybody wanted to know how Mike Mulligan went to the bathroom.

- Beverly Cleary, RAMONA THE PEST

Wednesday Words: Oh, what a surprise — my problem is I talk too much

The difference between a brilliant punster and a groan-inducing punster is mostly a matter of how high the threshold is set for public utterance.

– Matthew M. Hurley, Daniel C. Dennett, and Reginald B. Adams, Jr., INSIDE JOKES: USING HUMOR TO REVERSE-ENGINEER THE MIND

Wednesday Words: I want to plagiarize this sentence in a romance novel of my own.

He stiffened for a moment but then she felt his muscles loosen as he shitted on the ground.

– Susan Andersen, BABY, I’M YOURS.

…Okay, fine, it’s a typo. Although frankly, putting a typo like this in your book (and then blogging it) is not a bad viral marketing campaign.