“Ocean had given me hope. He’d made me believe in people again. His sincerity had rubbed me raw, had peeled back the stubborn layers of anger I’d lived in for so long. Ocean made me want to give the world a second chance.”
― A Very Large Expanse of Sea
― A Very Large Expanse of Sea
“The more I got to know people, the more I realized we were all just a bunch of frightened idiots walking around in the dark, bumping into each other and panicking for no reason at all.
So I started turning on a light.
I stopped thinking of people as mobs. Hordes. Faceless masses. I tried, really hard, to stop assuming I had people figured out, especially before I’d ever even spoken to them. I wasn’t great at this—and I’d probably have to work at it for the rest of my life—but I tried. I really did. It scared me to realize that I’d done to others exactly what I hadn’t wanted them to do to me: I made sweeping statements about who I thought they were and how they lived their lives; and I made broad generalizations about what I thought they were thinking, all the time.”
― A Very Large Expanse of Sea
So I started turning on a light.
I stopped thinking of people as mobs. Hordes. Faceless masses. I tried, really hard, to stop assuming I had people figured out, especially before I’d ever even spoken to them. I wasn’t great at this—and I’d probably have to work at it for the rest of my life—but I tried. I really did. It scared me to realize that I’d done to others exactly what I hadn’t wanted them to do to me: I made sweeping statements about who I thought they were and how they lived their lives; and I made broad generalizations about what I thought they were thinking, all the time.”
― A Very Large Expanse of Sea
“But sometimes a kiss is not a kiss is not a kiss. Sometimes it’s a poetry.”
― Tell Me Three Things
― Tell Me Three Things
“You can stop swimming now, Lily. We finally reached the shore.”
― It Ends with Us
― It Ends with Us
“One of the worst parts about someone dying is thinking back to all those times you didn’t ask the right questions, all those times you stupidly assumed you’d have all the time in the world. And this too: how all that time feels like not much time at all.”
― Tell Me Three Things
― Tell Me Three Things
Tasneem’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Tasneem’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Crime, Historical fiction, Music, Mystery, Non-fiction, Poetry, Psychology, Romance, and Young-adult
Polls voted on by Tasneem
Lists liked by Tasneem
















