Sweet Tea

“The act of writing itself was so vulnerable. It was strange to witness someone in those moments of privacy.”
― Katie Holt, Not in My Book

“You don’t have to lower your expectations. You deserve more than your highest one. Any guy you’re with should be falling over himself to make you happy.”
― Katie Holt, Not in My Book

“I don’t know how to feel,” I say. It’s the truth. How do I tell people I barely know that I’m angry and sad, but also embarrassed? That I feel that anger along my spine, holding up the very shape of me, and in my fingertips like a curled fist. That the sadness is like a dull ache, heavy in the muscles fighting to keep my head up. That I feel ashamed that Black people are both the agents and the victims of this chaos, and I don’t want to be thought of like that. But I’m also ashamed of myself for thinking I’m somehow better. The shame I feel in my guts, pulsing, spiraling; but also everything feels very far away. I’m Black, but my Black is different from that of those rioters on TV.”
― Christina Hammonds Reed, The Black Kids

“No matter how bad life got in the romance novels, there would be a Happily Ever After that proved nothing was unfixable.”
― Katie Holt, Not in My Book