This book blew me away. Kelly Parra writes with the keen eye of an artist. Graffiti Girl is warm, gutsy, and true-to-life - an unflinching, honest portrayal of young adults. A seamless and impressive debut.

That's what you realized when you got older. When you were little, you thought you were just too young to understand the answers and that when you got older things would come into focus. Then you had to finally face the truth: There were no answers.

Words are real. Even if you can't see them, or hold them. Once you send them out in the world, they have power. Never speak words you don't mean.

Music is art, and art is an integral part of the human experience.

Socrates said the perfect society would be based on a great lie. People would be told that lie from the cradle, and they would believe it, because human beings need to make order out of chaos.

But the pop-up suburb has an incomplete feel to it like something that just wasn't right, wasn't quite real, almost like a movie set. When people raised families in that sterile environment, it produced directionless children who became directionless teenagers, then directionless adults. With no roots, no past to stand on, you got hollow kids.