How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
He inventoried deodorants and perfumes and scouring pads for rubbing away dead skin, and we were surprised to learn that there were no douches anywhere because we had thought girls douched every night like brushing their teeth. (1.12)
The hilarity of the final phrase in this sentence shows the narrators' youthful misunderstanding about young women. The items the boy finds in the Lisbon bathroom are all very closely linked to the girls' femininity—hiding smells and getting rid of dead skin is part of a traditionally feminine image.
Quote #2
In the trash can was one Tampax, spotted, still fresh from the insides of one of the Lisbon girls. Sissen said that he wanted to bring it to us, that it wasn't gross but a beautiful thing, you had to see it, like a modern painting or something, and then he told us he had counted twelve boxes of Tampax in the cupboard. (1.12)
We'd never really considered the beauty of a used tampon before. Why on earth would this be so fascinating? Perhaps because a menstrual cycle is the sign of puberty, that a girl has become a woman, and this makes them more sexually attractive to the boys. The tampon was from the "insides" of one of the sisters, so imagine the fantasies that produces…
Quote #3
Our local newspaper neglected to run an article on the suicide attempt, because the editor, Mr. Baubee, felt such depressing information wouldn't fit between the front-page article on the Junior League Flower Show and the back-page photographs of grinning brides. (1.21)
The five Lisbon sisters don't behave properly—their suicide attempt is so out of the norm that no one knows what to do with it. The newspaper editor has an idea of what kinds of news about young women is acceptable: flower shows and weddings with happy girls all around.