How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
But my smile got shaky when Marisol stared at me, her dark eyes snagging mine like a fish hook. "Well, you should," she commanded. "If you don't know who you are, how is anybody else supposed to get to know you?" (4.84)
When Marisol asks John if he cares who he is, and John claims he doesn't, she gets annoyed. We love how she lays into him for this. Why? Identity is a big deal to her. Marisol spends so much time identifying herself that she can't understand why others wouldn't do the same.
Quote #5
"I have to leave to find out who I really am inside this person my parents have tried to manufacture. But I don't run from my feelings. Believe it or not, I love my parents. Sometimes it scares me to think about leaving them and going off by myself. What if I can't make it on my own?" (5.68)
The word that stands out to us the most? Manufacture. It's as though her parents are mass-producing a set of Marisols. Okay, okay, maybe she doesn't mean it like that—but she does mean to take the agency away from herself and give it to them by using that word. She's not in charge of who she is in her life.
Quote #6
"I know it goes back to being adopted; I know this. I'm a confident person, I have loving parents, I am, for God's sake, 'gifted and talented.' And some days I'm crazy about myself. But somewhere down deep I think people don't really want to be with me. And if I let them see that I like them (as I did with Kelly), they'll run away (as she did, as you did)." (9.53)
In her letter to her mom, Marisol gets real with her. She accuses her mom of being partly to blame for her own hang-ups and issues, though she also thinks she gets her identity from her mom, even though she hasn't met the woman since she was a baby.