Denise’s Reviews > Malibu Rising > Status Update

And Nina had been carrying around this box her whole life, feeling the full weight of it.

But it was not, Nina saw just then, her job to carry the full box. Her job was to sort through the box. To decide what to keep, and to put the rest down. She had to choose what, of the things she inherited from the people who came before her, she wanted to bring forward. And what, of the past, she wanted to leave behind.

Family histories repeat, Nina thought. For a moment, she wondered if it was pointless to escape it. Maybe our parents' lives are imprinted within us, maybe the only fate there is is the temptations of reliving their mistakes. Maybe, try as we might, we will never be able to outrun the blood that runs through our veins.

Or maybe we are free the moment we're born. Maybe everything we've ever done is by our own hands

When there is only you, you do not get to choose which jobs you want, you do not get to decide you are incapable of anything. There is no room for distaste or weakness. You must do it all. All of the ugliness, the sadness, the things most people can't stand to even think about, all must live inside of you. You must be capable of everything.

Our parents live inside us, whether they stick around or not, Hud thought. They express themselves through us in the way we hold a pen or shrug our shoulders, in the way we raise our eyebrow. Our heritage lingers in our blood.

Children who grow up with money have no idea it exists. But children who don't understand that it powers everything.

Our family histories are simply stories. They are myths we create about the people who came fore us, in order to make sense of ourselves.

[i]Our family histories are simply stories. They are myths we create about the people who came fore us, in order to make sense of ourselves.[/i]

Our family histories are simply stories. They are myths we create about the people who came fore us, in order to make sense of ourselves.

"Our family histories are simply stories. They are myths we create about the people who came fore us, in order to make sense of ourselves."