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.