Have Words Made You Gasp Today?

Since I write with a partner, I'm always on the lookout for books written by co-authors. Over the last few months, I've come to love and anticipate books with the author listed as "Rachel Cohn and David Levithan."

Please. Whatever you do about reading over the holidays...GO GET THIS BOOK! Now. Drop what you are doing and go buy Dash and Lily's Book of Dares.

You still here? Why aren't you muffled in a scarf and digging out your keys? I'll still be here when you get back, I promise. Go on!

OK...Fine. Keep reading here if you must. But I just have to pass along one passage from this book that took my breath away. I just love it when I read something that is so beautiful...so right...so artful (in a good way, not in a black-beret-wearing-snark-at-the-paintings-at-the-gallery way) that it makes me shiver and wish I could ever (EVER) put words together like this.

Check it out:

"She led me into a room that could only be called a parlor. The drapery was so thick and the furniture so cloaked that I half expected to find Sherlock Holmes thumb-wrestling with Jane Austen in the corner. It wasn't as dustry or smoky as one expects a parlor to be, but all the wood had the weight of card catalogs and the fabric seemed soaked in wine."

Sigh. I mean, really. The weight of card catalogs...fabric soaked in wine...

Be still my beating heart.

I dog-eared the page just so I could read it again on a whim. Whenever I need to.

What are some of your gasp-worthy reads lately? Quotes that you love or language that covers you with goose bumps? Words that move you to tears of make you snort iced tea out of your nose with laughter? Please...share!

(PS -- Thanks, Partner, for recommending this book. I owe you one!)