mwaka!

“Rage didn't simmer. It burned”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Final Gambit

“Sometimes you have an idea of a person — about who they are, about what you'd be like together. But sometimes that's all that it is: an idea. And for so long, I have been afraid that I loved the idea of Emily more than I will ever be capable of loving anyone real.”

He looked at me like the act of doing so was painful and sweet. “It was never just the idea of you, Avery.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Final Gambit

“But sometimes a person’s brain starts cycling. No matter what you do, the same thoughts just keep repeating, over and over. You get stuck in a loop, and when you’re inside that loop, you can’t see past it. You’ll keep coming up with the same possibilities, to no end, because the answers you need—they’re outside the loop. Distractions aren’t just distractions. Sometimes they can break you out of the loop.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Final Gambit

“And if I’m being honest, there is something very inspiring about having a black woman running things. As a biracial woman myself—light brown skin and dark brown eyes courtesy of my black father, an abundance of face freckles courtesy of my white mother—Frankie makes me feel more sure that I can one day run things, too.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo