How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The vase of dead flowers and the pathetically filthy toy polar bear lay crumpled and dirty on the roadside memorial. Right after the suicide, the road had been lined with flowers, balloons, and hand-drawn posters declaring how much everyone had loved Amy. It was all such bull. The same people had never given her the time of day when she was alive.
The scent of lime drifted up from the unattended memorial. Someone had visited the spot recently and had left a bowl of something green. There was a little sign next to the bowl that read "in case there's no lime Jell-O in heaven. Love D." I stared at the bizarre tribute for a second then headed home on foot. (1.3-4)
Jake is really annoyed with the hypocrisy surrounding Amy's death. People who never cared about her in life are paying tribute to her in death. Maybe if some of those people had reached out to her while she was still alive, she never would have driven over that cliff. Just a thought.
Quote #2
Amy had already been in the ground a week before the beer bellied owner of the cheesy motel we'd been staying in knocked on the door to deliver the message as if he were telling us our laundry was done. "Some chick named Amy is dead. Suicide or something like that," he'd said and returned to his office. Mom and Grammie had had a horrible fight about it, and we ended up missing Grammie's funeral as well. I'd had no money to go on my own. After that, I'd told Mom that when she died I wasn't going to her funeral either and that would mean only two people would be attending, and she would be one of them. The grave digger would be the other. We didn't speak for three days. (4.7)
This is a pretty big blow. Dani loses her best friend and beloved grandmother within a few months—ouch—and because her mom is so messed up, Dani can't even make it to the funeral to say a proper good-bye. No wonder she has trouble dealing with this loss.
Quote #3
Amy had said that she hoped there was lime Jell-O in heaven because she couldn't go an eternity without it. We'd laughed so hard green gelatin sprayed out of our mouths. Then she'd told me that she'd left her diary to me in her unwritten will and that I'd have to go through her underwear to find it. Of course, she had never expected to die. I know I'd never expected her to die.
My fingers trembled as I opened the cover. There would be so much of Amy in this book it would be impossible to get through it without a few major cries. But I had to read it. I needed to find out when it all went horribly wrong. I needed to know if her heart had been so broken by this guy, Jake West, that she'd driven herself off a cliff. None of it seemed liked Amy. She lived for romance, and she'd been hopelessly in love with the guy, but suicide seemed completely out of her character. Yet, according to Grammie, that was the conclusion the police had come to. We'd only heard sketchy details of the accident, no brake marks, no tire marks. The report stated that the car had been deliberately turned off the road. (4.23-24)
Suicide just doesn't make sense for Amy and Dani knows this right away. Amy loved life and she laughed all the time. Does that sound like a person who would kill herself over a boy?