Hannah

“Dude, this is what I hate about rich old white men.” Nyota sags forward. “They never fail to embody the stereotype, and they’re so damn boring. They have their little midlife crises, and do they decide to invest in sustainability projects? Do they publicly advocate for women’s reproductive rights? Nope, they get married to a girl who was barely potty trained by the time they’d embezzled their first million.”
― Ali Hazelwood, Problematic Summer Romance

“It’s awkward, too. People try to put forward their best traits, but a lot is at stake, and they are nervous, which is counterproductive. It’s the trial-run nature of it. Like there’s something to prove, a new level to graduate to. The need to discover whether a subeffective dose of someone you barely know might be compatible with your system, then slowly increase the intake, see if your organism tolerates it…it’s the kind of shit you do to get accustomed to poisons.”
― Ali Hazelwood, Problematic Summer Romance

“She nursed it back from the brink of death, and then I had the cutest little grape-sized gherkins to snack on, and a future sister-in-law with whom to sit on the couch for hours, doing schoolwork while she read her dry nonfiction books. Every once in a while, we’d look up, exchange a small smile, and go back to being alone, together”
― Ali Hazelwood, Problematic Summer Romance

“The sky is starless, pitch black except for Mount Etna, which spits out little bursts of fire, then large waves of smoke. Everyone makes Mordor jokes. Paul brings up the apocalypse. Axel asks what Mordor is. Avery laughs a little too loudly.

There’s a prehistoric flavor to this. Beautiful, yes, but also a reminder of the insignificance of our little lives. Job interviews and marriage certificates and normal range of iron levels and tax extensions and a fifteen-year age gap and even the Friedman doctrine…do they matter, when the earth is sputtering fire like a giant dragon?”
― Ali Hazelwood, Problematic Summer Romance