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Beth Goobie

Beth Goobie is best known for her quirky and dark young adult novels. She's published several of them, beginning in 1994. Her novel Before Wings won the Canadian Library Association's Young Adult Book Award in 2000, and was chosen by young readers for the Best Books list of the American Library Association.Much of the turmoil in Goobie's life has been laid bare in two books for adult readers, Scars of Light, which is autobiographical poetry, and The Only-Good Heart, a book of short stories. Both are built on the theme of cults, abuse, and emotional torture. They were, she says, both therapeutic for herself and a warning to others.


“This becomes the pattern of being alive: cut apart, heal together, cut apart, heal together. Everything breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, but I'm still able to call them all in, know their names, keep track of them.”
Beth Goobie
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“...that's what we're made of, that moaning rocking fucking dick-in-cunt motion built the minutes, the hours of every day. Our bones and muscles grew into this rhythm. The Kin sold us before we could walk—baby toys. So now it's the way the earth moves under our feet, every step we take. The sun fucks us, the moon fucks us, the wind and the trees, chemistry and the Eagles, 1+1 and Jesus Christ, everything has always been about fucking, sex waiting behind every moment, ready to unravel the picture of This Is My Happy Normal Life.”
Beth Goobie
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“You can make a decision with your head. It still takes your heart a while to catch up with it.”
Beth Goobie
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“Were you real if nobody noticed you?”
Beth Goobie
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