Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
On page 106 of Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, one can find the following paragraph:
Of course he knew. They'd all been telling him so his whole life. When Tina liked Park instead of Steve in grade school, Steve had said, "I think she feels safe with you because you're like half girl." Park hated football. He cried when his dad took him pheasant hunting. Nobody in the neighborhood could ever tell who he was dressed as on Halloween ("I'm Doctor who." "I'm Harpo Marx." "I'm Count Floyd.") And he kind of wanted his mom to give him blond highlights. Park knew he was different.
This paragraph could be about me growing up, and not simply because I dressed up as Harpo Marx one Halloween. I identified quite a lot with all the characters in this book, though I've never been a girl or a parent, and that's one of the many things this book does really well: it makes emotions everyone has and situations everyone has some experience with feel deeply personal. It's also really well-written, with clear, clean prose and a (mostly) tight plot. Plus, for reasons I cannot explain, I really, really like the way the title could also be an intersection in a town somewhere and probably is.