Darius the Great Is Not Okay: Chapters 27–36

by Adib Khorram
Darius has always struggled to fit in: he suffers from depression, he is bullied at school, and he can never seem to meet his father's high expectations. When Darius's family travels to Iran to visit his grandparents, Darius finds a place where he belongs, and a true friendship, for the first time.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–10, Chapters 11–14, Chapters 15–19, Chapters 20–26, Chapters 27–36
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. deja vu
    the experience of thinking a new situation already occurred
    I stood in the cool morning, my hands stuffed in my pockets.
    Déjà vu.
  2. undulate
    move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion
    I sat in the back and tried not to throw up as Stephen Kellner navigated the undulating roads at unsafe velocities.
  3. ebb
    fall away or decline
    When her energy ebbed, and she started to whine, Babou turned around and took her hand.
  4. mull
    reflect deeply on a subject
    Laleh drew in her lower lip as she mulled it over.
    My sister could never resist a good bribe.
  5. azure
    bright blue in color, like a clear sky
    Line after line of baad girs marched into the distance, and the azure minarets of the Jameh Mosque sparkled when they caught the light.
  6. writhing
    moving in a twisting or snake-like or wormlike fashion
    The singularity in my stomach was back, pulsing and writhing in sympathetic harmony with the one I knew lived deep inside Babou.
  7. saffron
    aromatic dried stigmas of a crocus flower, used as flavoring
    Persian ice cream is mixed with saffron and pistachios.
  8. intimate
    marked by close acquaintance, association, or familiarity
    But I still hated that he was seeing me have to take pills. Somehow it felt more intimate than just being naked in front of each other.
  9. insinuate
    introduce or insert in a subtle manner
    He ran into the pack and insinuated himself onto the younger team.
  10. flux
    a state of constant change
    My face was experiencing some extreme thermal flux of its own.
  11. burnish
    polish and make shiny
    That morning, I found her elbow deep in an enormous glass bowl of ground beef, burnished a bright gold from all the turmeric she’d added.
  12. preternatural
    surpassing the ordinary or normal
    Mom must have mentioned Dad’s preternatural kabob skills, because Mamou put him to work packing the ground beef for kabob koobideh onto skewers.
  13. contentious
    showing an inclination to disagree
    Klingons could be notoriously contentious when it came to their food.
  14. endeavor
    a purposeful or industrious undertaking
    Chelo kabob was a serious endeavor.
  15. proximity
    the property of being close together
    With so many Persians gathered in such close proximity, it was inevitable they would reach critical mass and ignite a game of Rook.
  16. lilt
    a jaunty rhythm in music or speech
    He barely had an accent: It only came through in the sharpness of his vowels and the lilt in his sentences, as if there was the shade of a question in everything he said.
  17. epitome
    a standard or typical example
    Ali-Reza had been a complete jerk to me—the epitome of a Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy—but I still felt bad for him.
  18. inherent
    existing as an essential constituent or characteristic
    The inherent telepathy that made us such a good team at soccer/non-American football helped us with Rook too.
  19. bittersweet
    tinged with sadness
    “It was perfect,” I said.
    And it was perfect. But it was bittersweet too. Because I was running out of time.
  20. chalice
    a bowl-shaped drinking vessel
    A tinted glass portal separated us from the inner sanctum, where a giant bronze chalice held the ancient fire.
  21. pogrom
    organized persecution of an ethnic group, especially Jews
    How many times had his grandparents stared into the same fire?
    And every other Bahrami. Going back generation after generation, through revolutions and regime changes, wars and invasions and pogroms.
  22. quaver
    give off unsteady sounds
    Mom’s voice quavered.
  23. gauzy
    so thin as to transmit light
    Clouds had rolled in off the mountains, casting the whole of Yazd in gauzy gray light.
  24. talisman
    a trinket thought to be a magical protection against evil
    That jersey had been my talisman—my Persian camouflage—but now I was going home.
  25. appendix
    supplementary material collected at the back of a book
    I sat in the kitchen, drinking tea with Babou and Laleh and reading The Lord of the Rings. I had finished the book but there were still the appendices.
    I always read the appendices.
Created on Tue Feb 26 16:36:06 EST 2019 (updated Wed Feb 27 11:55:15 EST 2019)

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