She Wanted Out Of The Decorating Scheme.

I Was Aware That You Weren't Supposed To Write About Suburbia, That It Was Undignified In Some Way, The Subject Matter Not Momentous Enough. And So, For A Long Time, That Kept Me From Writing About It. But Once I Began, I Realized It Was Just As Interesting As Anywhere Else.

I'm Hopefully Making The Reader Feel A Lot About The Characters And Then About Their Own Life.

Though At This Moment She Felt Abused, Abandoned, And Ashamed Of Herself, Madeleine Knew That She Was Still Young, That She Had Her Whole Life Ahead Of Her--a Life In Which, If She Persevered, She Might Do Something Special--and That Part Of Persevering Meant Getting Past Moments Just Like This One, When People Made You Feel Small, Unlovable, And Took Away Your Confidence.

All Sixteen Mentioned Her Jutting Ribs, The Insubstantiality Of Her Thighs, And One, Who Went Up To The Roof With Lux During A Warm Winter Rain, Told Us How The Basins Of Her Collarbones Collected Water.

We Realized That The Version Of The World They Rendered For Us Was Not The Version Of The World They Really Believed In.