“No one's family is normal. Normalcy is a lie invented by advertising agencies to make the rest of us feel inferior.”

“[Ava] had always thought the main relationship in the family was the one between Nancy and her daughters. To have a family, you needed a father, of course, and Jimmy had played that role perfectly well, if you were okay with an old-fashioned interpretation of the job. But the Nickerson family was all about the women and their noisy, bickering, gossiping, interfering relationships with one another.And now it seemed that maybe she ahd been looking at it all wrong. Maybe she and Lauren were just the icing, and the basic, underlying cake of the family was the couple in front of her who had a shared history she knew very little about.”

“I want a tutor,” Layla said. “It would make doing homework so much easier.”“Me too,” said Kaitlyn. “If Layla gets one, I get one.”“No daughter of mine will ever have a tutor,” Dad said.“What if we’re failing a course?” asked Layla.His graying eyebrows drew together. “If you fail a single course, young lady, we will pull you out of school and get you a job scrubbing toilets for the rest of your life.”

“Basically, the world is a giant shithole. But some of us are capable of imagining something better.”

“He only invited me because of you and Chase.''Right,' she said, following me inside. 'He's never shown the slightest interest in you before. I mean, he's never stared at you like you're the only person in the room when we're all together. Or sulked around for days because you turned him down for a dance. Or touched the sleeve of your sweater when he thinks no one's looking-''He's never done any of that,' I said. Then, less confidently, 'Has he?”

“He can’t ground her if he’s already killed her,” I pointed out when Juliana quoted this to me. “Well, he can, but it wouldn’t have the same impact.”

“Man, I hated not being able to figure someone out.And from the slightly uncertain look he gave me as we all went to class, I suspected he felt the same way.”