How we cite our quotes: (Section Break.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Then Dad was up and banging on my door. He always lectured me over breakfast, about getting good grades and about which universities I should start looking at in the summer. (25.5)
Dude, we feel really badly for Gemma's parents and the ordeal they have to go through because she disappears, but her dad needs to take a chill pill. You probably know as well as anyone that getting nagged to do well in school and apply to college doesn't really do any good.
Quote #5
"They took me to the city, shoved me in the back of a truck […] They took me to this kids' home place. They gave me a room without a window, bursting with other kids. They wanted my name but I wouldn't tell them; I wouldn't tell them anything. So they called me Tom […] for a few months. They decided how I was, what I was going to wear. Because I didn't speak to them, they tried to make me a different person." (31.51-53)
No wonder Ty hates authority so much: While the social workers who took him to the city were only following the law, they nonetheless did a ton of damage to him by ripping him away from his home.
Quote #6
"Each day your parents pushed you into being more like them," you continued, "pushed you into a meaningless life. You didn't want that, I know you didn't."
"What do you know about my parents?" I shouted.
You blinked again. "Everything." (37.47-49)
Ty may be slightly exaggerating when he says he knows "everything" about Gemma's parents, but one thing's for sure—what we observe of them and what she tells us definitely reveal that they're committed to a certain social order. The fact that she's an only child probably doesn't help, either. Hello, high expectations.