{"quotes":[{"text":"45,000 sections of reinforced concrete—three tons each.Nearly 300 watchtowers.Over 250 dog runs.Twenty bunkers.Sixty five miles of anti-vehicle trenches—signal wire, barbed wire, beds of nails.Over 11,000 armed guards.A death strip of sand, well-raked to reveal footprints.200 ordinary people shot dead following attempts to escape the communist regime.96 miles of concrete wall.Not your typical holiday destination.JF Kennedy said the Berlin Wall was a better option than a war. In TDTL, the Anglo-German Bishop family from the pebbledashed English suburb of Oaking argue about this—among other—notions while driving to Cold War Berlin, through all the border checks, with a plan to visit both sides of it.","author":"Joanna Campbell","tags":["1960s-nostalgia","cold-war","coming-of-age-novel","depression-humor","east-germany","family-drama","family-relationships","road-trip"],"id":2595,"author_id":"Joanna+Campbell"},{"text":"I guess I'd rather have a truthful neighbor who says he hates me than a lyin' one who claims he loves me.","author":"David Hopper","tags":["childhood-friends","coming-of-age-novel","historical-fiction","race-in-america"],"id":28104,"author_id":"David+Hopper"},{"text":"I'm going to turn my life around. Make a complete three sixty.'Don't you mean one eighty?' he corrected. 'If you do that, you'll end up right back where you started.'Maybe. But at least I'll have a chance of coming out of it a different person - a better version of me.","author":"Megan Duke","tags":["coming-of-age-novel","contemporary-fiction","young-adult-fiction"],"id":31139,"author_id":"Megan+Duke"},{"text":"He had not been sleeping well over Christmas. Actually, he hadn’t been doing anything well over Christmas – eating, sleeping, exercising, talking, looking after himself, laughing, crying… No, he hadn’t really been crying despite all the pain he felt. It was just tearing him up inside, quietly. It was like his insides were being ripped up by an angered tiger.","author":"Pamela Harju","tags":["coming-of-age","coming-of-age-novel","grief","grief","loss"],"id":47726,"author_id":"Pamela+Harju"},{"text":"When we became teenagers boredom grew like a moth in a cocoon fighting to escape, and the peace created by our parents became a prison. We sought excitement and adventure. We sought anything but the sinless, pure, and average of the faux idyllic.","author":"Scott Thompson","tags":["coming-of-age-novel","coming-of-age-stories","growing-up","southern-fiction","southern-gothic","southerners","teenagers"],"id":161400,"author_id":"Scott+Thompson"},{"text":"He lies there listening to it, absorbing this sense of his own quiet drone transmuted into something of certain substance, something large, magnificent and grand—no longer him, no, but something bursting from him, leaving his split carcass behind as a monument to its source, its host, its feeding ground.","author":"Patrick Bryant","tags":["coming-of-age","coming-of-age-novel","coming-of-age","self-discovery","self-discovery"],"id":165553,"author_id":"Patrick+Bryant"},{"text":"Congratulations,' she said. 'You win.","author":"Megan Duke","tags":["coming-of-age-novel","contemporary-fiction","three-sixty","young-adult-fiction"],"id":172956,"author_id":"Megan+Duke"},{"text":"There are many of us who live alongside others, less fortunate, watching them go through everyday suffering for one reason or another, and we’re not moving even our little finger to help them. It’s in human nature, unfortunately: for the most part, the only people we genuinely care about are ourselves. However, once in a while we encounter different species, different kind of human beings among us: full of compassion, willing and wanting to help, and doing so with joy and happiness. Those are a rarity. But you know what, my dear? Being one of them is not a special calling- it’s a choice. So what will you choose, huh?","author":"Yoleen Valai","tags":["adventure-fiction","coming-of-age-novel","emotional-rollercoaster","fiction-novel","florence","humanity-and-society","inspirational","italy","relationship","teen","the-rebirth-of-francesca","yoleen-valai"],"id":181895,"author_id":"Yoleen+Valai"},{"text":"Dear Diary: I have a confession to make: I’ve become a total idiot over French pastries. They’re my new favorite food. My new-found edible souvenir. My new favorite sin. Dunkin Donuts is so yesterday.","author":"Kimberley Montpetit","tags":["coming-of-age-novel","contemporary-fiction","contemporary-romance","romance","teen","young-adult"],"id":192011,"author_id":"Kimberley+Montpetit"},{"text":"True love is what makes life worth living.","author":"D.F. Jones","tags":["coming-of-age-novel","prophetic-dreams","romance-novels"],"id":231108,"author_id":"D.F.+Jones"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":23,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}