A Very Large Expanse of Sea: Chapters 1–4

by Tahereh Mafi
It is 2002, and Shirin, a Muslim-American teenager, faces prejudice from the students and teachers at her school. When popular basketball player Ocean James falls for Shirin, she has difficulty trusting that his affection is real — and fears their relationship will not be able to withstand the bigoted reactions of their community.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–10, Chapters 11–19, Chapters 20–26, Chapters 27–38
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. volatile
    tending to vary often or widely
    It was the end of August, all volatile heat and the occasional breeze.
  2. avert
    turn away or aside
    I averted my eyes, even as I felt the room contract around me.
  3. mediocre
    moderate to inferior in quality
    It didn’t matter that I told people, over and over again, that I was born here, in America, that English was my first language, that my cousins in Iran made fun of me for speaking mediocre Farsi with an American accent—it didn’t matter.
  4. falter
    be or become weak, unsteady, or uncertain
    Mr. Webber’s smile faltered. “Oh,” he said. “Okay.”
  5. vulgar
    conspicuously and tastelessly indecent
    And then I was given detention for using vulgar language in class.
  6. threshold
    a region marking a boundary
    I had two more classes to get through after lunch but I wasn’t sure my head could take it; I’d already surpassed my threshold for stupidity for the day.
  7. inevitably
    in such a manner as could not be otherwise
    He was the good-looking new guy. The interesting boy with an interesting past and an interesting name. The handsome exotic boy all these pretty girls would inevitably use to satisfy their need to experiment and one day rebel against their parents.
  8. fathom
    come to understand
    9/11 happened last fall, two weeks into my freshman year, and a couple of weeks later two dudes attacked me while I was walking home from school and the worst part—the worst part—was that it took me days to shake off the denial; it took me days to fathom the why.
  9. dejected
    affected or marked by low spirits
    I walked home that day feeling both relieved and dejected.
  10. exertion
    use of physical or mental energy; hard work
    It took a lot out of me to put up the walls that kept me safe from heartbreak, and at the end of every day I felt so withered by the emotional exertion that sometimes my whole body felt shaky.
  11. panopticon
    a circular prison with cells around a surveillance station
    Two and a half more years until I could get free from this panopticon they called high school, these monsters they called people.
  12. cliche
    a trite or obvious remark
    It’s such a cliche, I know, the lonely kid and her books, but the day my brother walked into my room and chucked a copy of Harry Potter at my head and said, “I won this at school, looks like something you’d enjoy,” was one of the best days of my life.
  13. exclusively
    without any others being included or involved
    The few friends I’d made who didn’t live exclusively on paper had collapsed into little more than memories and even those were fading fast.
  14. tedious
    so lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness
    I survived the first three weeks at my new school with very little to report. It was unexciting. Tedious.
  15. perfunctory
    as a formality only
    I interacted with people on only the most basic, perfunctory levels, and otherwise spent most of my time listening to music.
  16. scour
    examine minutely
    I was really into complicated fashion that I could never afford and I spent my weekends scouring thrift stores, trying to find pieces that were reminiscent of my favorite looks from the runway, looks that I would later, in the quiet of my bedroom, attempt to re-create.
  17. reminiscent
    serving to bring to mind
    I was really into complicated fashion that I could never afford and I spent my weekends scouring thrift stores, trying to find pieces that were reminiscent of my favorite looks from the runway, looks that I would later, in the quiet of my bedroom, attempt to re-create.
  18. geriatric
    of or relating to the aged
    These days it was popular only with the geriatric crowd, but this didn’t bother me.
  19. noncommittal
    refusing to bind oneself to a particular course of action
    He shouted a hello to the house and I made a noncommittal noise; Matlock was being awesome and I couldn’t be bothered to look away.
  20. insatiable
    impossible to fulfill, appease, or gratify
    He was eating all the rosewater nougat my mom’s sister had sent her from Iran. I doubted he even knew what it was. Not for the first time, I was left in awe of the insatiable appetite of teenage boys.
  21. articulate
    express or state clearly
    It grossed me out in a way I couldn’t really articulate.
  22. amass
    collect or gather
    He found it, disassembled and rusted, next to a dumpster one day, and he hauled it back to one of our old apartments, fixed it, spray-painted it, and slowly amassed a collection of weights to go with it.
  23. ordeal
    a severe or trying experience
    It was always an ordeal for me, the awkward, agonizing embarrassment of having no one to work with, having to talk to the teacher quietly at the end of class to tell her you don’t have a partner, could you work by yourself, would that be possible, and she’d say no, she’d smile beatifically, she’d think she was doing you a favor by making you the third in a pair that had been very excited about working the hell alone...
  24. beatific
    resembling or befitting an angel or saint
    It was always an ordeal for me, the awkward, agonizing embarrassment of having no one to work with, having to talk to the teacher quietly at the end of class to tell her you don’t have a partner, could you work by yourself, would that be possible, and she’d say no, she’d smile beatifically, she’d think she was doing you a favor by making you the third in a pair that had been very excited about working the hell alone...
  25. mull
    reflect deeply on a subject
    I mulled over my options and finally just wrote down my phone number.
  26. blanch
    turn pale, as if in fear
    He blanched. “Wait. What?”
  27. dyslexic
    having impaired ability to comprehend written words
    He was dyslexic, my brother.
  28. interim
    the time between one event, process, or period and another
    And the thing no one ever knew was that I did all his schoolwork in the interim.
  29. novice
    someone new to a field or activity
    None of them were experts, but they weren’t novices, either.
  30. figuratively
    in a non-literal sense
    Much of breakdancing was performed on the ground, but an uprock was given its own, special attention; it was what you did first—it was an introduction, an opportunity to set the stage—before you broke your body down, figuratively, into a downrock and the subsequent power moves and poses that generally constituted a single performance.
  31. constitute
    form or compose
    Much of breakdancing was performed on the ground, but an uprock was given its own, special attention; it was what you did first—it was an introduction, an opportunity to set the stage—before you broke your body down, figuratively, into a downrock and the subsequent power moves and poses that generally constituted a single performance.
  32. exasperated
    greatly annoyed; out of patience
    I made my way downstairs even though I knew I had a bunch of worried, and later, exasperated, text messages from Ocean waiting for me on my phone, but only because I didn’t have the kind of parents who allowed me to ignore dinner—not even for homework.
  33. samovar
    a metal urn with a spigot at the base
    There was a plate of fresh herbs and radishes and little towers of feta cheese. A bowl of dates. A cup of fresh, baby walnuts. The samovar, gurgling quietly in the background.
  34. novelty
    originality by virtue of being refreshingly new
    Somehow, in my excitement to experience the novelty of text messages (I’d once sent Navid thirty messages in a row just to piss him off), I’d gone way over our limit in the span of a single week, racking up a bill that caused my parents to sit me down and threaten to take away my phone.
  35. android
    a moving mechanical device that looks like a person
    I checked his profile automatically—it was practically a reflex—but I was surprised to find that he’d left it blank. Well, not blank, exactly.
    It said paranoid android and nothing else.
  36. invasive
    gradually intrusive without right or permission
    It was just that the whole thing felt suddenly too invasive.
  37. intimate
    marked by close acquaintance, association, or familiarity
    AIM made things feel unexpectedly intimate.
  38. superlative
    highest in quality
    I wasn’t magically immune to cute guys, and it had not escaped my notice that Ocean was a superlative kind of good-looking.
  39. blunt
    characterized by directness in manner or speech
    Maybe I’d been too blunt.
  40. chronic
    habitual
    Ocean appeared to be a chronic apologizer.
Created on Wed Oct 24 08:55:43 EDT 2018 (updated Wed Oct 24 12:42:28 EDT 2018)

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