Sean - Dexter in the Dark, by Jeff Lindsay (303 pages)

No more gray. Life had returned to a place of bright blades and dark shadows, a place where Dexter hid behind the daylight so that he could leap out of the night and be what he was meant to be: Dexter the Avenger, Dark Driver for the thing once more inside.

And I felt a very real smile spread across my face as Rita Stepped up to stand beside me, a smile that stayed with me through all the pretty words and hand-holding, because once more, forever and always, I could say it again.

I do. And yes, I will, I really will.

And soon.

Sean - The Hours, by Michael Cunningham (230 pages)

"Come on," Julia calls cheerfully over her shoulder, over the synthetic orange brilliance of her backpack.

Mary stands for a moment, watching. She believes she has never seen anything so beautiful. If you could love me, she thinks, I'd do anything. Do you understand? Anything.

"Come on," Julia calls again, and Mary hurries after her, hopelessly, in agony (Julia does not love her, not like that, and never will), on her way to buy new boots.

Sean - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King (288 pages)

"Another argument in favor of writing courses has to do with the men and women who teach them. There are thousands of talented writers at work in America, and only a few of them (I think the number might be as low as five percent) can support their families and themselves with their work. There's always some grant money available, but it's never enough to go around. As for government subsidies for creative writers, perish the thought. Tobacco subsidies, sure. Research grants to study the motility of unpreserved bull sperm, of course. Creative-writing subsidies, never. Most voters would agree, I think. With the exception of Norman Rockwell and Robert Frost, America has never much cared about her creative people; as a whole, we're more interested in commemorative plates from the Franklin Mint and Internet greeting-cards. And if you don't like it, it's a case of tough titty said the kitty, 'cause that's just the way things are. Americans are a lot more interested in TV quiz shows than in the short fiction of Raymond Carver."

Sean - An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green (229 pages)

"What are you doing?" Colin folded his arms on the table and then put his head down.

"Well, while you were in the bathroom, I sat down at this picnic table here in Bumblefug, Kentucky, and noticed that someone had carved that GOD HATES FAG, which, aside from being a grammatical nightmare, is absolutely ridiculous. So I'm changing it to 'God hates Baguettes.' It's tough to disagree with that. Everybody hates baguettes."

"J'aime les baguettes," Colin muttered.

"You aime lots of stupid crap."

Sean - oPtion$: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody by Fake Steve Jobs (249 pages)

"It seems to me that for two hundred and fifty bucks an hour the guy could go a little easier on me. But anyway, he's right. That's how it feels. Like I'll die. It terrifies me.

"Yes, I survived the last time Apple threw me out. But this time, I'm not so sure. I'm fifty-one years old. I've had cancer. I'm not as tough as I used to be.

"And even last time nearly killed me. I was thirty years old and living by myself in a mansion in Woodside with no furniture, just a huge stereo system and pillows on the floor. For months I did nothing. I'd take acid for days on end. The record was fourteen days, and believe me, that was a life-changing episode. But mostly it was this Keebler-Kahn type period in my life, with the eight stages of mourning, like anger, denial, anger again, then more anger, then rage, vindictiveness, more anger, and then revenge."

Scores So Far:

Monica: 2,534 pages read.

Sean: 2,357 pages read.

Monica Leads: by 177 pages read.

Sean - Dearly Devoted Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay (292 pages)

"So I was doped, tightly bound, and all alone. But there's always some positive to every situation, if you just look hard enough, and after trying to think of one for a moment, I realized that I had to admit that so far I had not been attacked by rabid rats."

Sean - Lake Wobegon Summer 1956, by Garrison Keillor (291 pages)

Her beautiful buttocks rise again and under she goes and gropes for me underwater and I dive and she holds my arms tight, pulls me close, and we kiss a bubbly kiss, eyes open, her breasts like two small friendly otters. I struggle to rise to the surface but she won't let me go. She holds my hardness in her hand until I can bear it no longer. With a powerful thrust, I propel us both to the surface and hoist her onto the dock and rise dripping from the water-

It was an unfinished story.

Sean - Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay (288 pages)

"Weren't we all crazy in our sleep? What was sleep, after all, but the process by which we dumped our insanity into a dark subconcious pit and came out on the other side ready to eat cereal instead of the neighbor's children?"

Sean - "American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot" by Craig Ferguson (268 pages)

My traveling companions began to notice I was behaving oddly and asked what was wrong. I said I felt sick, maybe it was the flu or something, and I just had to go home.

But I knew in my heart it wasn't the flu. I knew instinctively that there was only one way to stop the nightmare that was occurring inside me. For the first time in my life, and I remember this as clearly as if it happened this morning, I needed a drink.

***

As soon as we got back into town, I ran to the Hurricanes bar on West Nile Street and pounded down three or four pints of lager very quickly. The sweating and shaking abated and I felt a little anxious but a lot better. In rehab, years later, I reread Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I equated that moment in Mrs. Henderson's car to the awful realization Henry Jekyll has when he grasps that he no longer needs the potion to transform into the monster, Edward Hyde.

He needs the potion to remain the ordinary Henry Jekyll.

Sean - "Paper Towns" by John Green (305 pages)

"I SEE YOU!" Ben shouted, pointing at me with the sword. "I SPY QUENTIN JACOBSON! YESSS! Come here! Get on your knees!" he shouted.

"What? Ben, calm down."

"KNEES!"

I obediently knelt, looking up at him.

He lowered the beer sword and tapped me on each shoulder. "By the power of the superglue beer sword, I hereby designate you my driver!"

"Thanks," I said. "Don't puke in the minivan."

"YES!" he shouted. And then when I tried to get up, he pushed me back with his non-beer-sworded-hand, and he tapped me again with the beer sword, and he said, "By the power of the superglue beer sword, I hereby announce that you will be naked under your robe at graduation."

"What?" I stood then.

"YES! Me and you and Radar! Naked under our robes! At graduation! It will be so awesome!"

"Well," I said, "it will be really hot."

"YES!" he said. "Swear you will do it! I already made Radar swear. RADAR, DIDN'T YOU SWEAR?"

Radar turned his head ever so slightly, and opened his eyes a slit. "I swore," he mumbled.

"Well then, I swear, too," I said.

"YES!" Then Ben turned to Lacey. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Ben."

"No, I love you. Not like a sister loves a brother or like a friend loves a friend. I love you like a really drunk guy loves the best girl ever." She smiled.

Sean - “Magic” by William Goldman (212 pages)

            This is my journal, and I can put in what I want and leave out what I want to leave out and I choose to leave out the details of the abuse. But it goes on and on and on until finally I say, “Aw Laddie, please Jesus, I was only trying to help.”

            He cut off then. Started to pace. Stopped. Started again. Slowed. Then the blinking. You could sense something. Now he stopped the second time. Little almost imperceptible pulsing in his temple area. He stood there and you could actually see the moment when the pain whipped down, descended like a snowfall.

            Do I have to tell you I had tears behind my eyes?

            Tactful comment: this is starting to seem just the least bit flitty, Fats old stick.

            Honest reply: I know, I know, and we’re not, but I can’t help the way it sounds. “Tears.” “Migraines.” Sometimes I think that if me and Corky only had one of those infinitely complicated, unceasingly sadomasochistic homosexual relationships, boy, how simple life would be…

The Wisdom According to Fats

Entry for: 10 October, 1975

Found at: 7 Gracie Terrace

                 Penthouse One

                 20 October, 1975

The Contents of this Entire Journal Will Be Listed As:

POLICE EXHIBIT D

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."

Monica: Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (271 pages)

Favorite Quote: "'How does a man with a beautiful girlfriend manage to have a blow job from a prostitute, get found out and get away with it?' I panicked. My mind went blank. 'Well?' he said. 'Well? Come on, say something!' 'Well, maybe,' I said, because it was the only thing I could think of, 'it was because somebody swallowed the evidence.'"

Monica: Looking for Alaska by John Green (221 pages)

Favorite Quote: "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia"

Monica: Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini (287 pages)

Favorite Quotes/Excerpts: "I go to the bathroom for an Appearance Check. I've been doing a lot of Appearance Checks lately. I've noticed that I'm kind of ugly. I mean, I have brown hair and brown eyes - good, right? - but under a critical light, which is how the world views you, I can see how I might resemble someone with palsy."

Monica: More Than They Could Chew by Rob Roberge (306 pages)

Favorite Quotes/Excerpts :

"I've been a drug addict, I know my ounces, my metric weights, if need be. Metric was supposed to be the thing of the future back in the seventies. By turn of the century we'd be zipping quietly from town to town in our electric cars. We'd pull into a charging station and ask how many kilometers it was to Dallas. But it didn't work out that way. The future of the past is rarely the present. Only Ed Begley Jr. has an electric car and only scientists, addicts, and narcotics officers can tell a kilo from a pound and do the math in their heads."


"I walk over and take a look at Maggot Arm Joe's arm. The inside of his arm looks like someone took a chunk of it out with a mellon baller. There's a big recess, and the skin's all slick, it catches the light, shiny as a latex miniskirt.
I say, 'So that's healed? That's how it'll look?'
Arlo says, 'That's close. Some muscle will fill back in. But when you destroy muscle, you change the shape of the body.'
I look down at the slick recess in his arm.
Maggot Arm Joe says, 'It's not so bad.'
'You are a lucky man,' Arlo says. 'Medical ingenuity- there should be a thank-you section in Hallmark for medical ingenuity. The scars that a surgery would have left in that beautiful arm of your would have been just savage. There would have been an ugly hole in that arm.'
I look down at what looks like a big ugly hole in his arm."

Monica : Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams (277 pages)

Favorite Quote/Excerpt:
"... Then what with one thing and another, I thought it prudent to jump out the window again, being fresh out of other options at the time. Luckily for me the jetcar was there, otherwise I'd have to fall back on ingenious quick thinking, agility, maybe another shoe or, failing all else, the ground."