

“People are like this too, you know,” he says eventually. “We break. We put ourselves back together. The cracks are the best part. You don’t have to hide them.”
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein

“But the people who did get that love, they grew up to be different from us. More secure. Maybe they’re not as shiny or successful as you and I feel we have to be. But it’s not because they’re not interesting. They just don’t feel they have to do the tap dance, you know? They don’t have to prove themselves all the time to be loved. Because they always were.”
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein

“Everyone I know is either more successful or more interesting than me. This realization is nothing new. In fact, it used to feel like everyone I didn’t know was more successful and interesting than me too. I still remember the sensation of watching a talent show on TV as a child and realizing that the girl dancing was a whole year younger than me. She was wearing a red sequin dress and patent tap shoes. She looked like a ruby, a human jewel spinning across the stage. I was in my pajamas from T.J. Maxx eating cereal for dinner, already destined for a life of mediocrity. Why didn’t I just pull myself together back then? I was five! I could have turned it around!”
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein

“She’d learned early that it was quicker to bond with another person over what you didn’t like than what you did, and that the easiest way to feel close to someone was to do something transgressive together. That’s why smokers always made friends.”
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― The Song of Achilles
― The Song of Achilles
Alex’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Alex’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Alex hasn't connected with their friends on Goodreads, yet.
Polls voted on by Alex
Lists liked by Alex