100 Sideways Miles: Part 2: The Boy in the Book – Going Home

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 13 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. circuitous
    marked by obliqueness or indirection in speech or conduct
    He said, “You’re not nervous about that college trip with Cade, are you? You know, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
    That was Dad’s circuitous way of telling me he wished I would stay home forever.
  2. undulate
    move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion
    I sipped my coffee and watched the undulating surface on the pool.
  3. myth
    a traditional story serving to explain a world view
    “That’s the biggest high school myth of all time, Finn,” Dad said.
  4. commune
    a body of people living together and sharing everything
    In some ways, living in San Francisquito Canyon was like living in a commune, anyway.
  5. waning
    a gradual decrease in magnitude or extent
    At least, it is the shadow of something that looks exactly like a waning moon in the sky.
  6. transfix
    render motionless because of surprise, terror, or awe
    I sit there transfixed as a second shadow figure grows upward from the base of the window.
  7. seismic
    subject to or caused by an earthquake or earth vibration
    It is a rectangle in black, and once it has settled into place, it shakes silently as though there is some kind of seismic disturbance on the planet beneath the quarter moon.
  8. silhouette
    an outline of a solid object as cast by its shadow
    Through the illuminated doorway, a new shadow creeps out onto the screen—a slate gray silhouette of a boy who walks across the stage of the window frame beneath the hovering moon.
  9. articulation
    the manner in which things come together and are connected
    His legs move with gawky and mechanical articulations, knees bending while his hands hang at his sides.
  10. convey
    serve as a means for expressing something
    He is clearly wearing shorts, and his bony legs seem almost skeletal while the smooth profile of his face conveys a detached and sad expression.
  11. cowlick
    a tuft of hair in a different direction from the rest
    His hair is all cowlicks and disarranged spikes.
  12. dissolution
    separation into component parts
    I inhale, almost certain I will smell the sweetness that brought about my dissolution again, but there is nothing.
  13. self-conscious
    aware of yourself as an individual or of your own being
    I am so foolishly self-conscious.
  14. behalf
    as the agent of or on someone's part
    Laika graciously accepted my apology on Julia’s behalf.
  15. disassemble
    take apart
    If I had lain there for a few million miles more than I did, the knackery of the ant nest would have disassembled Finn Easton and turned him into all sorts of useful ant products.
  16. diffuse
    spread out; not concentrated in one place
    My head was a vacuum to all the diffused fragments of my universe I’d scattered into the dark on the way home from Julia Bishop’s house.
  17. hysterical
    marked by excessive or uncontrollable emotion
    So I was nearly hysterical with pain when I told my parents and sister about blanking out, and what I’d been doing in the canyon after midnight.
  18. delirious
    experiencing hallucinations
    I went to see a puppet show. They thought I was delirious.
  19. disintegration
    separation into component parts
    The spectacle, created by the slow disintegration of the comet Swift-Tuttle, is named for the constellation Perseus, the Greek hero who killed Medusa.
  20. torrent
    a violently fast stream of water or other liquid
    Just a bit more than two weeks, around twenty-four million miles, after my seventeenth birthday, the Perseids scattered brilliant torrents of blazing dust all across the nighttime sky.
  21. prone
    having a tendency
    “If there was ever a place more prone than a prison to having sticky atoms hanging around, I wouldn’t know what it would be,” I said.
  22. skitter
    move about or proceed hurriedly
    And Laika came skittering proudly down the dock carrying something that looked like rope in her teeth.
  23. conscience
    a feeling of shame when you do something immoral
    Laika, who for whatever reasons had an excessively guilty conscience, immediately dropped the snake and curled up in her “please don’t kill me” pose.
  24. foreboding
    ominously prophetic
    There was something incredibly foreboding about the place—massive and silent, adorned with the empty black frames of barred or meshed windows and broken-down metal doors.
  25. jut
    extend out or project in space
    Jutting up squarely from the quiet desert, butted against rust-colored mountains of tumbled boulders, it was something that would have terrified me if I were there alone.
  26. concentric
    having a common center
    Cade cut holes for us in each layer of concentric perimeter fencing, and we were in.
  27. turret
    a small tower extending above a building
    We entered the prison yard near a corner of the main structure, beneath a guard tower that stuck out from the outer walls like a castle’s turret.
  28. dilapidated
    in a state of decay, ruin, or deterioration
    As close as we stood, I could see how dilapidated the prison had become over the decades.
  29. reek
    a distinctive odor that is offensively unpleasant
    Laika didn’t seem worried at all, but then again the place probably had that pleasant reek of death which so satisfied my dog’s finely tuned sense of smell.
  30. atrium
    a chamber connected to other chambers or passageways
    The center of the hallway rose upward, creating a massive atrium with shattered glass skylights that cut through the roof forty feet above.
  31. surpass
    be or do something to a greater degree
    As much trash as there was thrown out onto the net above was matched and surpassed by the quantity of broken and discarded stuff that had been scattered all along the floor in front of us.
  32. instinctive
    unthinking
    I instinctively moved my hand to try grabbing anything so I might steady myself, but there was nothing to hold on to.
  33. anemone
    a marine polyp that resembles a flower
    Everything waved lazily, the fluttering fingers of sea anemones fanned by back-and-forth warm-water currents.
  34. shard
    a broken piece of a brittle artifact
    My head pounded, and all down my spine it felt as though my bones had been churned to broken shards of glass.
  35. concede
    admit or acknowledge, often reluctantly
    I conceded that two names in one day would be expecting a little too much, even from a left-handed artistic genius like Cade Hernandez.
Created on Wed Aug 09 18:01:47 EDT 2017 (updated Wed Aug 16 14:06:09 EDT 2017)

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