100 Sideways Miles: Part 1: The Quit Mission - The Politics of Teenage Grudges

by Andrew Smith
Nothing ever seems to go in the direction Finn Easton wants, but with the help of his best friend and new girlfriend, he might finally be able to escape the shadow of his father's bestselling novel.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Part 1: The Quit Mission-The Politics of Teenage Grudges, Part 1: My Neighbor Julia-The Governor of California, Part 2: Unlucky Lindy-I Need an Extra Bag, Part 2: The Boy in the Book-Going Home, Part 3

Here are links to our lists for works by Andrew Smith: 100 Sideways Miles, Winger
35 words 156 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. pedagogical
    relating to the study of teaching
    More than a century of public education that aimed its pedagogical crosshairs at getting teenagers to quit having sex, quit drinking, quit driving so fast, quit taking drugs, never had the slightest behavior-altering effect on kids.
  2. slogan
    a favorite saying of a sect or political group
    He and the staff at the school painted signs with slogans that said things like NO F-BOMBS, PLEASE!
  3. commemorate
    call to remembrance
    One time last March, he dressed up as a battered drowning victim to commemorate the catastrophic failure of the St. Francis Dam.
  4. de facto
    existing, whether with lawful authority or not
    Besides, Cade Hernandez was our de facto commander in the Stop Trying to Make Us Stop revolution, our act of defiance against the quit missions.
  5. defiance
    a hostile challenge
    Besides, Cade Hernandez was our de facto commander in the Stop Trying to Make Us Stop revolution, our act of defiance against the quit missions.
  6. aesthetic
    characterized by an appreciation of beauty or good taste
    Mr. Nossik's face reddened, which, in the aesthetic arrangement of things, matched the color scheme of his outfit perfectly.
  7. despise
    look down on with disdain or disgust
    Mr. Nossik despised Cade Hernandez as deeply as anyone could ever hate another person.
  8. swath
    a path or strip (also figurative)
    The only thing that could possibly have made Mr. Nossik look more like Hitler at that moment would have been a toothbrush swath of black hair on his upper lip.
  9. reminiscent
    serving to bring to mind
    And Mr. Nossik—in a voice reminiscent of the most fiery Nuremberg Rally oratory—stamped and shrieked, “GET! OUT!”
  10. oratory
    the act of addressing an audience formally
    And Mr. Nossik—in a voice reminiscent of the most fiery Nuremberg Rally oratory—stamped and shrieked, “GET! OUT!”
  11. legacy
    a gift of personal property by will
    Costly mistakes, like sexual confusion and nuclear weapons, which by the way are both legacies passed down from the greatest generation—the guys who whipped Hitler—are strongly related to extinction.
  12. atom
    the smallest component of an element
    Then all the words empty out of my head, and everything is just there: a chaotic jumble of patternless, nameless clusters of atoms.
  13. egotistical
    having an inflated idea of one's own importance
    Maybe that’s an egotistical thing to say—we are all centers of our personal universes in any event—but it was ironically obvious to me; and my father had told me straight out, anyway.
  14. ironically
    in a manner characterized by incongruity or unexpectedness
    Maybe that’s an egotistical thing to say—we are all centers of our personal universes in any event—but it was ironically obvious to me; and my father had told me straight out, anyway.
  15. perigee
    the nearest point in an orbit around the Earth
    So that summer of the Perseids and the perigee moon, of Julia Bishop and the abandoned prison at Aberdeen Lake, of finding myself stranded so far away from home along with my best friend, really turned out to be a sort of scripted shadow play in which the epileptic boy could choose for himself whether or not he would ever get out of the book.
  16. aptly
    in a competent capable manner
    The bridge is aptly named the Salmon Creek Gorge Bridge.
  17. churning
    (of a liquid) agitated vigorously; in a state of turbulence
    When you think about it, the universe is nothing but this vast knackery of churning black holes and exploding stars, constantly freeing atoms that collect together and become something else, and something else again.
  18. sparse
    not dense or plentiful
    Cade kept his hair trimmed short, and he had a very sparse golden beard that went from his sideburns and curled almost invisibly just around the lower edge of his jaw.
  19. compelling
    capable of arousing and holding the attention
    I think the stories were probably true, given the color of Cade’s hair, his blue eyes, and the paleness of his skin. It probably was also a compelling reason behind Cade’s messing with Mr. Nossik in class that morning of the Nazi display.
  20. grudge
    a resentment strong enough to justify retaliation
    Blake held on to his Ultimate Frisbee nosebleed grudge until he couldn’t stand it any longer. I had never been in a real fight in my life, so it did not go very well.
  21. seizure
    a sudden attack characterized by spasms or convulsions
    Being tired always elevated my chance of having a seizure.
  22. pulsate
    produce or modulate in the form of short bursts
    A showerhead can become a pulsating chrome anemone-thing, eating its way through the universe.
  23. mottled
    having spots or patches of color
    I saw fluorescent lights and mottled chrome showerheads above the shoulders of my teammates.
  24. intravenous
    within or by means of a vein
    She kneeled right there beside my hip and poked an intravenous needle that was attached to a plastic bag of sugar water into my hairless arm as I lay naked on the floor of the shower.
  25. calamity
    an event resulting in great loss and misfortune
    I found myself wondering how many atoms from the same calamities out there in the universe our bodies shared.
  26. supernova
    a star that explodes and becomes luminous in the process
    Maybe my right hand and her left hand both came from the same supernova.
  27. epilepsy
    a nervous disorder characterized by convulsions
    And everyone in the office knew about my epilepsy, so they were always so careful around me.
  28. daze
    confusion characterized by lack of clarity
    The head counselor, Mrs. Hinman, tried to snap me out of my daze.
  29. tiered
    having or arranged in layers or levels
    On the south side of the office building, the stairsteps of a tiered grass field led down to an outside amphitheater and the cluster of classroom buildings that made up the campus.
  30. dumbfounded
    as if rendered speechless with astonishment and surprise
    I struggled to come up with anything clever that would make her need to keep talking to me, looking at me and my socks, so we wouldn’t have to hurry to her class. And my dumbfounded seconds ticked by.
  31. incinerate
    become reduced to ashes
    Eventually, Laika and her spacecraft were incinerated when their orbit decayed in April 1958.
  32. inevitably
    in such a manner as could not be otherwise
    It would be innocent enough—just Cade being Cade—but it would happen as inevitably as the pull of gravity.
  33. conjure
    summon into action or bring into existence
    I believe the idea behind them had something to do with an expectation that I was to conjure some kind of invisible little brother, a playmate, because I never understood why Tracy—Mom—stubbornly clung to the aesthetic notion that boy plus bedroom equaled bunk beds, while my sister’s room was designed like a perfumed pillow palace.
  34. frieze
    an ornament consisting of a horizontal sculptured band
    Laika’s tub of horror was a plastic toddler’s wading pool, blue, and decorated with a frieze of press-formed dolphins, starfish, and bubbles dancing around its outer wall.
  35. admonition
    cautionary advice about something imminent
    Dad reissued his usual string of father-to-teenage-son admonitions about what Cade and I should not do while he was gone.
Created on Wed Aug 09 17:34:02 EDT 2017 (updated Wed Aug 16 13:35:42 EDT 2017)

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