The Inexplicable Logic of My Life: Prologue–Part One

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Sal has always felt at home with his adoptive father, his beloved grandmother, and his best friend, Samantha. But as his senior year progresses, Sal struggles with volatile anger, unexpected tragedy, and changing relationships with friends and family.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Prologue–Part One, Parts Two–Three, Part Four–Epilogue
30 words 281 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. premonition
    a feeling of evil to come
    And, you know, I got this weird feeling that things weren’t going to be the same. Sam called feelings like that premonitions. She said we shouldn’t trust them.
  2. cynic
    someone who is critical of the motives of others
    She consulted a palm reader when we were in the ninth grade, and she became an instant cynic.
  3. endure
    face and withstand with courage
    I’d never had to live in the kind of chaos Fito endured every day of his life, but I thought he was doing pretty well for himself.
  4. oblivious
    lacking conscious awareness of
    “Hi,” Sam said as she walked over, oblivious to the fact that I’d been standing there waiting.
  5. chronic
    habitual
    As we were walking, she was carrying on about hummingbirds and then lecturing me about my chronic inability to listen to her.
  6. assessment
    classifying someone or something with respect to its worth
    I don’t disagree with your assessment, Salvie.
  7. pallbearer
    one of the mourners carrying the coffin at a funeral
    I was a pallbearer. Up until then I hadn’t even known what a pallbearer was. You see, there are a lot of other words you meet when you run into the word funeral.
  8. commend
    present as worthy of regard, kindness, or confidence
    After the priest had commended my grandfather to paradise, the funeral director stuck a shovel in the mound of dirt and held it out.
  9. somber
    serious and gloomy in character
    A silent and somber line formed, each person waiting for their turn to grab a fistful of dirt and pour it over the casket.
  10. stifle
    conceal or hide
    I could see that my dad was stifling his laugh.
  11. sullen
    showing a brooding ill humor
    When my father and I walked into the principal’s office, Enrique Infante and his father were sitting there, both of them with their arms crossed, looking sullen. Sullen was a Sam word. On certain days she was very good at being sullen.
  12. unrepentant
    not feeling or expressing remorse
    He definitely wasn’t sorry. Unrepentant—that was the exact word for the look on his face.
  13. transpire
    come about, happen, or occur
    “The way I understand what transpired,” Mr. Cisneros said, “you weren’t on school grounds. We can’t be held responsible for what our students say when they’re no longer on campus.”
  14. bigotry
    intolerance and prejudice
    Later that evening Sam texted me the word for the day—another one of our games: Wftd=bigotry.
    Me: Good one. Use word in sentence.
    Sam: Mr. Cisneros is a party to bigotry.
  15. inconsolable
    sad beyond comforting
    I tried to comfort her, but she refused to be comforted.
    “Don’t you know the word inconsolable?”
  16. eloquent
    expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively
    “You were waxing eloquent about your dad.”
  17. odious
    extremely repulsive or unpleasant
    “I was about to say that comparisons are odious.”
    “Yeah, yeah, odious. A spelling bee word. A word you got from the new book you’re reading.”
  18. reprieve
    the act of postponing or remitting punishment
    Sam wasn’t the kind of girl to let things go. At best she gave you a reprieve. I was glad she was in a reprieve sort of mood.
  19. constitute
    form or compose
    You know, me and my dad and Maggie constituted a family. I liked our family.
  20. badger
    annoy persistently
    “You can stop badgering me now.”
    “I don’t badger,” he said.
  21. deliberate
    unhurried and with care and dignity
    I took the envelope. My name was written on the front in neat and deliberate handwriting. It wasn’t Dad’s handwriting. Dad scrawled.
  22. decency
    the quality of conforming to rules of propriety and morality
    “You’re not perfect, Salvie. But there’s so much decency in you that I sometimes wonder where you came from. Take your friend Sam. Now, she’s trouble.”
  23. subtle
    difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze
    “Unwritten rules, huh? Sylvia doesn’t have any of those. She’s not that subtle. She writes down all her rules in lipstick on my bathroom mirror.”
  24. verbalize
    express in speech
    I didn’t think it was a good idea to verbalize what I was thinking. Verbalize was a Sam word.
  25. aesthetic
    a philosophical theory as to what is beautiful
    “What’s with you and all these bad boys?”
    “They’re handsome.”
    “In a raised-by-wolves kind of way. I mean, you go for a certain kind of aesthetic.” Aesthetic was a Sal word.
  26. levelheaded
    exercising or showing good judgment
    But Sam, she had this image of me that I was a good boy, and she was in love with that image. She was in love with simple, uncomplicated, levelheaded Sally.
  27. metastasize
    spread throughout the body
    “It’s metastasized.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means that there were still some cancer cells in her body, and they shifted to another site.”
  28. schizophrenic
    suffering from some form of psychotic disorder
    “No, but I’ve seen him and Angel together, and I thought it was kind of an odd pair. I mean, Angel’s such a pretty boy. And Fito’s such a schizophrenic dork. I mean, they don’t make a good couple.”
  29. grudge
    a resentment strong enough to justify retaliation
    Guess you could say I held a grudge even if my father didn’t.
  30. rosary
    a series of prayers counted using a string of beads
    I took out my rosary and prayed.
Created on Sun Nov 10 16:25:54 EST 2019 (updated Tue Nov 12 13:17:34 EST 2019)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.