Lavana+&+Paige's+Quotations+Page

Page 17

//"I shook my head, all the frustration of life with my dad coming to the surface. "Im sick and tired of hearing about coins!" I shouted at him. "I never want to hear about them again! You should sell the damn collection and do something else. Anything else.""//

​~LaVana~ When i read this paragraph out of the book i felt a tight squeeze in my heart for his dad. I felt a numbing in myself. John should have never said this. I know its like "teenage years" kicking in him. But I think that his dad will never forget that he said this to him; and if John really cared about his father the way his father cared about him he wouldn't have said this. Also when i read this i thought about some stuff that i have said to my parents or older siblings that i know that some day i might never get to take back. I thought this quote was important because it really showed John and how he used to be. But in this reading he claims to have "changed". I will have to read farther on and see if he really has!

~Paige~ Yeah, that made me so angry when I read that, but teenagers will be teenagers...sad to think though. It's also sad his dad was afraid to even mention them after that.

Page 115 // "When you asked me why I was here, I made a joke because I thought it was obvious. Spending time with you just feels. . .right somehow. Easy, like the way it's supposed to be. Like my parents. They're just comfortable together, and I remember growing up thinking that one day I wanted to have that, too." She paused "I'd like you to meet them one day" //

​ ~LaVana~ When I read this the first time i was thinking about all of the messages that Savannah was sending through what she was saying. She is in this for the long haul. I thnk John is too. But Savannah is alot more vocal about her feelings. I like how she right away wanted to meet his dad, and how Savannah wants John to meet her parents. Sometimes when i read passages in the book I can make connections and i feel so much closer or alike to Savannah when she expresses her feelings. :)

~Paige~I see what you mean about being closer to her because she expresses her feelings openly, but I can also relate to John when he isn't as fast to express his feelings. I'm glad that he was able to tell her he loved her first.

Page 115

//​ "I was thinking that I wished you'd been with me the last couple of days. I mean, I enjoyed getting to know everyone better. We ate lunch together, and the dinner was alot of fun. But it just felt like something was wrong, like I was missing something. It wasn't until I saw you walking up the beach that I realized it was you."//

~LaVana~ You can tell in this reading that Savannah's heart is already so attached to John that she feels the seperation when they're apart but she can't really tell what it is. I wonder how it is going to be when John goes back to Germany...?

~Paige~I agree with you that she was so attached. I don't know if I would be able to take that very well either. I think that it would be really hard for her to be in a long distance relationship, especially in her circumstance.

Page 134

//When the sun began to rise from the sea on Sunday morning, I sat up beside Savannah. Her face was lit with the glow of dawn, her hair was fanned out over the blanker. She had one arm across her chest and another above her head, and all I could think was that I would like to spend every morning for the rest of my life waking up beside her. ~John~//

~LaVana~ In this paragraph John expresses in so many ways how absolutly beautiful Savannah is and how in love with her he is. It seems almost to good to be true to John. He wants to marry her. To wake up to her beautiful face every morning.

~Paige~ It does almost seem too good to be true, doesn't it? I was trying to picture myself in their situation and in a way a think it would be really cool to have that kind of relationship, but in another way I think it could be way dangerous.

Page 153

//"Would you mind if i asked you a favor?" "Go ahead." "Don't break Savannahs heart, okay? I know she loves you, and I just want her to be happy." I knew just then that I'd been right about his feelings for her. As he walked to the car, i watched him from the window, certain that he was in love with her too. ~John and Tim~//

At the begging of the book John could tell by the way that Tim referred to Savannah as a "sister" and by the way he looked at her he could tell that Tim had mor feelings for Savanah then he would express or even sometimes show. It didn't seem as if it bugged John, but now he was positive that he ahd alwyas been right from the begging about Tim. He was in love with Savannah also :)

~Paige~It made me feel proud of John to realize what true love really was and that sometimes it doesn't turn out the way you want it to and sometimes you have to make sacrifices. I think it was really cool that Tim was willing to show John about that while he was enforcing it.

These are my five:

pg 37 // In the distance, the moon, full and glowing, had begun its slow rise from the sea, and I saw Savannah staring at it. When the waves crashed and spilled, they flared silver, as if caught in a camera's flash. //

I really loved these two sentences; they just kinda left me shivering and awed. I know it has nothing to do with the book, but it was still one of my favorite sections from the book because of the image it gave.

This is beautiful! I didn't catch it in the reading i'm going to go back and read it :)​

pg 100

//"Hey, Dad," I said over my soldier. "I thought I'd make us dinner tonight." "Oh," he said. It seemed to take him an instant to grasp the fact that he wouldn't be cooking for me. "Okay," he finally added. "How do you like your steak?" "Medium," he said. He continued to stand near the sliding glass door. "It looks like you haven't used the grill since I left," I said. "But you should. There's nothing better than a grilled steak. My mouth was watering all the way home." "I'm going to change my clothes." "Steaks will be done in about ten minutes." When he left I went back into the kitchen, took out the potatoes and the bowl of salad--along with dressing, butter, and steak sauce--and put them on the table. I heard the patio door slide open, and my dad emerged carrying two glasses of milk, looking like a cruise ship tourist. He was dressed in shorts, black socks, tennis shoes, and a flowered Hawaiian shirt. His legs were painfully white, as if he hadn't worn shorts in years. If ever. Thinking back, I'm not sure I'd ever seen him in shorts. I did my best to pretend he looked normal.//

I absolutely loved this passage as it showed how much it meant to his dad that he would cook him dinner. I mean, he even dressed up in his best clothes...well, maybe not __best__, but it was nice. I especially loved how thoughtful John was to think of this idea in the first place.

pg 156

//I doubted whether I would ever learn the truth, but I really didn't care. I did, however, care about my father, and if he was afflicted with a bit of faulty wiring his brain, I suddenly understood that he'd somehow formed a set of rules for life, rules that helped him fit into the world. Maybe they weren't quite normal, but he'd nonetheless found a way to help me become that man that I was. And to me, that was more than enough. He was my father, and he'd done his best. I knew that now. And when at last I closed the book and set it aside, I found myself staring out the window, thinking how proud I was of him while trying to swallow the lump in my throat.//

This was just after Savannah had given him the book, he'd fled with a fight, and finally decided to look through the book. I love this part because it really shows John's acceptance of his father, something he wasn't able to find until this point of knowing there was a chance his dad might have Asperger's. I especially loved it when he said he was proud of his dad.

pg 166

//Dinner with my dad was quieter than usual. I didn't have the energy to attempt a conversation, and even my dad realized it. I sat at the table as he cooked, but instead of focusing on the preparation, he glanced my way every now and then with muted concern in his eyes. I was startled when he turned off the burner and approached me. When close he put a hand on my back. He said nothing, but he didn't have to. I knew he understood that I was hurting, and he stood without moving, as if trying to absorb my pain in the hope of taking it from me and making it his own.//

This was the dinner right after Savannah and John said their fist good-bye and before John left for the first time. I was really proud of John that he decided to spent the eventing with his dad, especially since he had promised and I loved this part because it shows how much John's dad really did love and care for him this whole time. It would be very hard not to know what was going through his head though, and I found myself wondering more and more about it.

pg241

//The realization was crushing, and in the cap from the airport, I tried to convince myself that the doctor was exaggerating. But he wasn't. My father was unable to rise from the couch when I pushed open the door, and I was struck by the thought that in the single year since I'd seen him last, he seemed to have aged thirty years His skin was almost gray, and I was shocked by how much weight he'd lost. With a hard knot in my throat, I put down my bad just inside the door.//

This is after John's dad experienced his second heart attack and when John came home to see him. I know I keep on bringing up passages with John's dad, but for some reason they felt like the bigger love story to me. It almost made me cry when I read this part because I knew how much it would hurt to see your father lying helpless on his deathbed (well, his couch that looked like a deathbed). My heart just goes out to his father and to John, especially at this part in the book.

I know this is six, but...

pg 320 //I spent the rest of the evening alone in my hotel room. Outside, I could hear strangers passing by my door, wheeled luggage rolling behind them. When cars pulled into the lot, my room would be illuminated momentarily by headlights casting ghostly images against the walls. People on the go, people moving forward in life. As I lay on the bed, I was filled with envy and wondered if I would ever be able to say the same.//

This was right after John left the house from being with Alan and Savannah. It really made me wonder more about how much John really loved her and how he'd stopped his life for her. It also made me wonder if he would be able to move on, if he would be able to "say the same." Plus, I really liked it how he described the images cast on the walls from the lights of the cars driving into the lot.