The Mirror Season: "The Boy from the Surface of the Moon"–"It Goes with Us"

by Anna-Marie McLemore
In this magical realist novel, two teens are forge a bond after they are both victims of violence.

This list covers "The Boy from the Surface of the Moon"–"It Goes with Us."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4
35 words 131 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. varnish
    cover with a hard, lustrous finish
    When my bisabuela first came to this country, the most valuable thing she carried with her was something only she could see. The rest was worth almost nothing. The varnished tin of her favorite necklace.
  2. leaven
    cause to puff up with a substance for fermentation
    Years later—when there had been a wedding ring, a new stove in a house of her own, a fine dress—the most valuable thing my great-grandmother ever owned was still her way of knowing what bread or sweet would leaven the heart of anyone she met.
  3. qualifier
    a word that modifies the meaning of another word or phrase
    He's cute, even with the acne.
    Victoria’s compliments always come with qualifiers.
  4. loll
    hang loosely or laxly
    The boy from Lancaster or the moon looks so bad that his face, washed-out as printer paper, and his lolling head pull two scrub-uniformed women out from behind the glass window.
  5. cesspool
    a corrupt or disgusting place or state
    A good-hearted stranger rescuing strange boys from the moral cesspool that is an Astin School party.
  6. connoisseur
    an expert able to appreciate a field
    Connoisseur of office supplies.
  7. meticulous
    marked by extreme care in treatment of details
    Absolutely no talent for pan dulce dough, but meticulous with a piping bag and a cash register.
  8. obscure
    not famous or acclaimed
    My bisabuela’s gift has turned me into a reluctant and very obscure tourist attraction.
  9. appraise
    consider in a comprehensive way
    It’s an appraising look that speaks of her tabbed binders and the fact that she keeps a sweater shaver in her purse.
  10. sliver
    a small thin sharp bit of wood, glass, or metal
    But standing there, feeling the sliver of glass burrowing deeper into me, that’s the moment I know it’s gone.
  11. knead
    use the hands to mix and work something into a uniform mass
    That first mirrored rose appeared when I left that boy to wake up alone and wonder where he was, and now these leaves are appearing outside the pastelería, where I’ve grown up kneading dough and telling customers what they want before they even know.
  12. wisp
    a thin tuft, piece, or amount of something
    Maybe each of these trees vanishes because they turn, in the middle of the night, to mirrored glass. Maybe they break into as many pieces as the mirrored rose did on the parking lot asphalt, so in the morning there’s no trace of them except a wisp of silver in the air or deep in the grass.
  13. aesthetic
    a philosophical theory as to what is beautiful
    It’s an aesthetic that demands everything be trimmed and manicured within an inch of its life, leaving no room for beautiful, gnarled roots or old, winding branches.
  14. threshold
    the entrance for passing through a room or building
    I want to keep washing dishes and hear what else Pilar might tell my tía about the trees, but then steps clatter across the front threshold.
  15. enunciation
    the articulation of speech with regards to intelligibility
    Chris and PJ always talk to her in overly loud, exaggerated enunciation.
  16. commiserate
    feel or express sympathy or compassion
    She nods at PJ and Chris, the kind of long-suffering look that’s meant to be shared, commiserated over, as though we’re friends.
  17. ephemeral
    lasting a very short time
    It’s where Jess taught me the name of the mapacho plants and that the standing waters, muddy as agate, are called ephemeral pools.
  18. refraction
    the change in direction of a propagating wave
    But she passes as quickly and carefully as if I had a snarling dog walking alongside me. A minute later, so does her brother Anthony, a studio art prodigy who taught Jess and me to take pictures of each other with refraction rainbows.
  19. render
    show in, or as in, a picture
    When I open my locker, I expect to find disgusting artistic renderings of whatever acts I supposedly performed willingly.
  20. generic
    having no special or distinctive characteristics; unoriginal
    He gives me a quick nod as he sits down, something that could be either generic greeting or recognition.
  21. reverence
    a feeling of profound respect for someone or something
    These laughs are their way of showing respect, like reverence at the end of the ballet classes we took as little kids.
  22. mauve
    a moderate purple
    Right now it stings, a little like the needles inking in the black outline and filling in the coral and mauve.
  23. substantive
    being on topic and prompting thought
    When she starts with enough substantive material that he has to take out a pen, he sets down the crochet hook.
  24. suggestive
    tending to hint at something improper or indecent
    “The guy you were talking to at that party?” It comes with a suggestive lift of one perfectly tweezed eyebrow.
  25. pristine
    completely free from dirt or contamination
    A written application and test scores probably convinced Astin that they wanted him, and a tour of the shining classrooms, the orderly chem labs, and the pristine athletics fields was probably meant to convince him that he wanted them.
  26. unadorned
    not decorated with something to increase its beauty
    Her voice is thin, unadorned. There’s no winking or eyebrow raising.
  27. revel
    take delight in
    As the girl leaves, she holds the wax sleeve close to her face, breathing in the smell of vanilla and cream. She lets out a reveling sigh, like something is settling for her, landing softly.
  28. salinity
    the relative proportion of salt in a solution
    But my father got us a trip down there thanks to him being friends with one of the marine biologists studying sea anemones and water salinity.
  29. actuarial
    relating to statistics to calculate insurance premiums
    “Yes, an empire shall rise from my extensive collection of actuarial tables.”
  30. flourish
    a showy gesture
    Principal Whitcomb shame-walks Lock Thomas down the hall. A completely unnecessary gesture, an Astin School flourish.
  31. remorse
    a feeling of deep regret, usually for some misdeed
    Principal Whitcomb probably wants him to hang his head with appropriate remorse.
  32. indoctrinate
    teach uncritically
    Leah Voss once had an old film from East Berlin in her bag that she was referencing for a paper, and she got called into the office to make sure she wasn’t getting indoctrinated with—not kidding—“European communism.”
  33. unbecoming
    not in keeping with accepted standards of what is proper
    Jess and I got pulled off the winter formal dance floor because we were dancing in a way “unbecoming to young ladies,” one of a hundred little reminders that our brown, queer bodies would always be measured against pale, freckled ones.
  34. decorum
    propriety in manners and conduct
    Either one of them would get a solemn, level-voiced lecture about school decorum, probably have to write an essay that was half apology, half morality tale, and maybe—maybe—have to publish it in the school newspaper.
  35. fray
    wear away by rubbing
    A boy whose scholarship status is written across his used books, his shoes, the secondhand tie he wore to first assembly? (Probably no one else noticed that last one, but I did, the slight fraying that showed on the underside.)
Created on Tue Oct 12 13:27:08 EDT 2021 (updated Mon Oct 18 15:45:44 EDT 2021)

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