A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult

"True, she believed all artists were restless, but they weren't always running in pursuit of something. Sometimes they were reunning away from where they had been."

"(This other woman) believed the polar opposite of what she believed, yet with the same strength of conviction. She wondered if the only way any of us can find what we stand for is by first locating what we stand against."

"Plus, federal funds already were legally prohibited from being used for abortions. They covered gynecological care; abortions were self-funding. In fact, they were the only procedure reproductive health clinics offered that didn't operate at a loss. If Planned parenthood was defunded, it wouldn't stop abortions. Abortions would literally be the only things they could afford to do." 

Life in a Fishbowl by Len Vlahos

"It was forty minutes of uninterrupted lack of interruptions three times a week." 

"Glio leaped a metaphorical chasm. Until this point in his short life, he had been singularly occupied with the internal destruction of Jared's brain. Of course, Glio didn't think of it as destruction. He was merely fulfilling his preordained purpose in the world. he had no more choice in the matter than does the tide in the ocean. had Glio stopped to consider the arguments for and against free will, he would have come down heavily on the side of determinism." 

Triangles by Ellen Hopkins

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Fred Hampton.
Marcus Garvey.
Bobby Hutton.
Nat Turner.
Huey Newton.
Emmett Till.
Khalil Harris

"You know none of this is your fault, right?" Momma asks. 
How in the world did she do that? "I know."
"I mean it, baby. It's not. You did everything right."
"But sometimes right's not good enough, huh?"

Bring Me Back by BA Paris

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

"The truth is the truth, the only prize worth having. If you deny it, you're only showing that your unworthy of it."

random words i noted/looked up/researched
while reading: refusenik, peristaltic, anodyne, fascism, mycelial, kalimba, nascent, disavow, solmnolence vs. somnolbulist, baleful, hinterlands, spavined, en passant, (bychance?), scion, assiduously, Bezier (curves), pith, metronomic syncopation, skeins (of fuzz & smoke), sardonic

Yard War by Taylor Kitchings

"So people can throw bombs in other peoples' yards and still be good. As long as they keep their yards nice and go to church."

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers

I have a refrigerator magnet that reads, "I don't mean to be an elitist; I just am."...please take that as a warning. There are very few authors who write romance, religious fiction (or "religious" anything, for that matter), or anything that could be counted as self-helpy or "inspirational" that I read. I tend to get on a soapbox or a high horse, if you will, when it comes to any o' that business. While I'm working on being a gentle, quiet-spirited sentimental type gal, it just isn't the core of who I am or how I express myself.

That being said, this book was alright. (I hope you're laughing.) A conversation with a roommate a few months ago led to this book ending up on my nightstand. (She didn't thrust it upon me or put it there, I took it.) I really liked the first 75 pages. Then came another character....and another storyline....and another character....which ended up with a whole lotta predictability. The characters' prayers being included in italics throughout the story also drove me nutballs.

This is essentially a morality tale about abortion. It made me think, resulted in a few conversations, one of which was a commiserating about how much we didn't like this book in comparison with some of Rivers' others. Since I tend to be cynical and belittling, I'll stop. I finished the book, which is an indicator that it wasn't horrible.