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Different Seasons
By Stephen King

Background:
I read these four novellas when I was 11 or 12 years old. A lot of people know them already: "The Body" became the movie Stand By Me, and of course "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" was also adapted for the screen.

Why she chose it:
It's true that Stephen King writes about human psychology and digs into the darkness of it, but there's also a lot of beauty and liberation in his stories. "Shawshank Redemption" is my favorite. One character, Andy, never lost hope. Despair was all his fellow inmate, Red, had known. In the end, Red became infected by Andy's hope. This story has one of the most amazing endings. I cried for three days after I read it.

Zoë's Favorite Ending

"I find I am excited, so excited I can hardly hold the pencil in my trembling hand. I think it is the excitement that only a free man can feel, a free man starting a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.

I hope Andy is down there.

I hope I can make it across the border.

I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.

I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.

I hope."

—From "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption"

"The women are the strongest, and Díaz caught that"

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