kc3185 – The Greene Street Review

By Bailey Cohen-Vera

I didn’t go to the funeral. The previous Saturday had been the wedding; missing the busiest shift at the restaurant two weekends in a row was something I knew I couldn’t afford. My mother did everything she could. I could sense the frustration she tried to mask several times leading up to the weekend, when we talked on the phone and she reminded me to call Karine. “La mamá de Karine falleció el día de hoy, es muy posible que este fin de semana sea el funeral, apenas sepa que día te aviso,” she told me that Tuesday. It will probably be this weekend. I’ll let you know. I’ll admit, this should have been enough. I should have called out of work; I should have lied and said I was feeling terrible, gotten paid with the sick hours I managed to accrue exhaustively. I should have grieved.

book cover of The Selection by Kiera Cass

By Olivia Liu

On my bookshelf sits a pale blue book. I have not yet read it in public without swapping out its dust jacket for another, more serious-looking one, preferably titled something very literary, like “To Kill a Search of Lost Pride and Prejudice in 1984.” This is what’s on the real cover: a princess, delicately beautiful, a tiara woven into her red hair. Flip through the pages and you’ll find the story is illustrated too: more princesses, more gowns, a map labeled in pink, girlish cursive. What is the book about? It’s part of a series, actually—“The Selection” by Keira Cass—and I own six of the books (I have yet to get my hands on the companion coloring book).

Author: kc3185

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