How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I wanted to ask him if this was his choice or his dad's. It didn't seem fair that no one had talked to him about college or any other options. It didn't seem fair that he'd get a free bike for doing what he was told rather than thinking for himself. (3.5.84)
It just seems unfair to Vera that Charlie doesn't get to make his own life choices. He always has to go by what his father says because his father is the family patriarch and runs the house. What about what Charlie wants to do with his life?
Quote #8
He'd told me a long time ago that I wasn't allowed to date Charlie, but in the years that followed, he'd said more than once that we were cute together. I don't think he knew what he really wanted anymore—and I wasn't sure what I wanted, either. (3.9.17)
Vera's dad made these rules for her to follow about dating, and she was always going to stick to them. But when she and Charlie start getting closer romantically, she has to make a choice: Does she go by the original plan, or throw it out the window for possible heartbreak?
Quote #9
No doubt, it was hard to come to public terms with my mother's past employment at Joe's strip club, but confronting it made me feel a certain degree of freedom. I was not my mother. My mother did what she had to do. Anyone who didn't get that could believe what they wanted and I wouldn't care. (4.3.9)
The fact that her mom used to be a stripper embarrasses Vera, but at the same time, she recognizes that her mother did what she had to do in order to survive. Anyone who can't take the truth can eat it.