The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, an Indian-American retelling of Pride and Prejudice.

“I thought you wanted to be thrown at men. Weren’t you biting my head off earlier about withholding good butt from you? Seriously, what’s wrong? Didn’t you see him and his . . . oh! – ” Her eyes went round, and she let out a squeak of delight. “You got the grant!” She threw her arms around Trisha.

There, was that so hard? That’s all Trisha had wanted. She let Nisha squeeze her tight, the irritation inside her melting away. Then again maybe it was this pulav. She shoved another spoonful into her mouth. It was seriously the best thing she had ever tasted. She thought she knew rice. She’d grown up eating rice. But this . . . this was like an explosion of familiar flavors doing an entirely unexpected dance in her mouth.

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, translated from its original Arabic by Jonathan Wright.

The cat escaped once more to the roof and looked out over the courtyard of Hadi’s dilapidated house. Hadi scratched his head in puzzlement and looked all over the place for the body he had made. He imagined finding it hanging from a wall or hovering in that morning’s pure blue sky.

Despite the pains in his joints and his head, Hadi went outside and looked up and down the lane for a sign that something strange had happened, but he wasn’t willing to stop any of his neighbors to ask, “Excuse me, have you seen a naked corpse walking down the street?”

Hadi was a liar, and everyone knew it. He would need witnesses to corroborate a claim of having had fried eggs for breakfast, let alone a story about a naked corpse made up of the body parts of people killed in explosions.

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths & Magic by F. T. Lukens. It’s a great little urban fantasy starring a bisexual teenage boy.

Leo circled back and splashed Bridger. Then he swam away, laughing as he kicked enthusiastically and doused Bridger with lake water.

Bridger wiped the droplets from his face. “Oh, I see how it is. Splashing then running. Very brave there, Leo.”

Leo stood in the water to his shoulders and beckoned to Bridger with a sly smile. “I’m right here. Why don’t you come get me?”

That was flirting. Wasn’t it? That had to be flirting. Right?

“Oh,” Bridger said flushing, warming internally at the thought of Leo flirting with him. “It is on. It is so on.”

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from Her Royal Highness, the sequel to Royals, by Rachel Hawkins. It’s a F/F Young Adult romance with lesbian and bisexual rep.

Percy shakes his head before snatching a tea cake from Sakshi’s plate. “No worries on that front,” he says before demolishing the cake in one bite. “The whole point of sending the royal kids here is so they’re forced to live like normal students. No special privileges, no kid gloves. If they wouldn’t expel you for calling me Veruca Salt, they can’t do it because you said it to her. That’s the deal.”

Speak of the devil – at that moment, Flora comes in the room, flanked by two other girls, both of whom have hair just as shiny as hers, but aren’t nearly as pretty. They’re both in uniforms, too, but Flora’s still decked out in that fancy sweater and designer jeans.

Her eyes briefly land on me before flicking away again, and I’m not sure if that’s because she’s pissed or because I haven’t really registered to her yet.

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia, a dystopia-on-the-verge-of-revolt in which upper-class girls are sorted into rigid household roles, and lower-class people are severely oppressed. It stars an F/F romance.

Dani nodded deferentially, but inside she glowed. This might not be her dream, but she had learned the satisfaction of being exemplary. Because of the nature of their roles, Dani and the elder señora would spend little time alone together after this first week, but she would be the last of Dani’s official teachers, and she found herself still eager to make a good impression.

Maybe it was a whisper of her own mama still stirring in her heart, Dani thought, that made her want to make this woman proud. But when she glanced up again, it was only to notice that Señora Agosta Garcia, with her stern face and her fastidious appearance, was as unlike Dani’s mama as one woman could be from another.

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from It’s Not Like It’s A Secret, a messy YA lesbian romance by a Japanese-American author.

I look around at Hanh, Reggie, and Elaine, and feel something I’ve never felt before. I’ve only just met them, but they get me like none of my Midwestern friends ever did. They don’t think I’m weird or feel sorry for me. They make me feel normal. And special at the same time, somehow, like we’re all part of an exclusive club with a secret handshake and everything.

I hadn’t realized how much of my life – of myself – I’d been trying to keep hidden in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, I was constantly trying to escape the fact that I was Asian, and hoping that people either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Now, I feel like it’s springtime and my new friends have just peeled off a hot, heavy jacket. I can be openly Asian. For the first time in my life, I feel like I belong.