Sean - Looking for Alaska by John Green (221 pages)

She looked at me and smiled widely, and such a wide smile on her narrow face might have looked goofy were it not for the unimpeachably elegant green in her eyes. She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning and said, "Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die."

Sean - The Film Club by David Gilmour (217 pages)

"There are a couple of inviolate principles in the universe," I said, suddenly chatty (I was delighted to be where we were). "One is that you never get anything worth getting from an asshole. Two is when a stranger comes toward you with his hand extended, he doesn't want to be your friend. Are you with me?"

Monica: A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket 190 pages

When you were very small, perhaps someone read to you the insipid story - the word "insipid" here means "not worth reading to someone - of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. A very dull boy, you may remember, cried "Wolf!" When there was no wolf, and the gullible villagers ran to rescue him only to find the whole thing was a joke. Then he cried "Wolf!" when it wasn't a joke, and the villagers didn't come running, and the boy was eaten and the story, thank goodness, was over.
The story's moral, of course, ought to be "Never live somewhere where wolves are running around loose," but whoever read you the story probably told you that the moral was not to lie. This is an absurd moral, for you and I both know that sometimes not only is it good to lie, it is necessary to lie.

Monica: A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket 162 pages

"You, Klaus, and you, Sunny, will play some of the cheering people in the crowd."
"But we're shorter than most adults," Klaus said.
"Won't that look strange to the audience?"
"You will be playing two midgets who attend the wedding," Olaf said patiently.

Sean: Born to Rock by Gordon Korman (263 pages, Advance Reading Copy)

I was stuck. Literally. There was no going forward, no going sideways, and no going back. If this had been Pompeii – a volcano preserving us in lava for all time – archeologists would have driven themselves insane trying to figure out what some tourist was doing there with luggage in the middle of a huge public event.

Monica: Dial-a-Ghost by Eva Ibbotson (176 pages)

Monica: Pretties by Scott Westerfeld (370 pages)

'"Okay, Andrew. But let's leave today. I'm in a hurry."
"Of course. Today." He stroked the place where his slight beard was beginning to grow. "These ruins where your friends are waiting? Where are they?"
Tally glanced up at the sun, still low enough to indicate the eastern horizon. After a moment's calculation, she pointed off to the northwest, back toward the city and beyond that, the Rusty Ruins. "About a week's walk that way."
"A week?"
"That means seven days."
"Yes I know the god's calendar, he said huffily. "But a whole week?"
"Yeah. That's not so far is it?" The hunters had been tireless on their march the night before.
He shook his head, an awed expression on his face.
"But that is beyond the edge of the world."'

Monica: The Misfits by James Howe (274 pages)

"Addie does not help matters. She is like a cross between the chief executive officer of the world's largest corporation and the chief executive officer of the world's second largest corporation."