"Character building, my father said" (Chapter 1, p. 1).

"Meet my father: Coporate Tool. He'd always been a hardass, but since his latest promotion, he'd dialed it up" (Chapter 2, p. 5).

"Meet my mother: pet photographer, cake baker, nice lady who smells faintly of gin" (Chapter 2, p. 6).

"And then I made the mistake of looking at Dad. He shook his head, just a little bit, from side to side. I closed my eyes and let my enemy win" (Chapter 5, p. 17).

"I watched the replays obsessively, trying to figure what the kid's last second felt like. Did he feel anything? Did he feel everything? Which would be worse?" (Chapter 19, p. 57).

"We danced to two more songs, then my angel started dropping. When she led me up the stairs, I suspected we were headed for the Pearly Gates" (Chapter 45, p. 122).

"Yeah I did it. I rolled away from her. I counted to twenty...