incongruous

Hey Nick here,

"Like the peculiar fossil record of Central Park. Like the incongruous pH of the reservoir" (222)

The man on a dinosaur is unexpected and incongruous.

metamorphosis

metamorphosis is the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages.

Subtle

Subtle- So delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe
Pg 143 "I was incredibly nervous, but i maintained my confidence,  and I was extremely subtle"

The kiss was so subtle which made it even harder to say goodbye.

Sorry this is late but here is my VAP word

Disheveled- untidy / disordered (mainly appearance)

Pg.126 "he was standing with a disheveled man whose curly hair sprang up in every direction"

Penitentiary

"Next I went to the penitentiary. My uncle was a guard there" (77).

The murderer got sent to the penitentiary, a high security prison for the worst criminals.

Shortwave

"I remembered him tucking me in, and us listening to a person speaking Greek on the shortwave radio, and him telling me a story about New York's sixth borough." (37)

Shortwave:  a radio wave of a wavelength between about 10 and 100 m (and a frequency of about 3 to 30 MHz).

I turned on the old shortwave radio to hear classical music playing on one of the stations.

Trivets

"I went though hundreds of books, thousands of them, they were all over the apartment, I used them as doorstops and paper-weights, I stacked them if I needed to reach something, I slid them under the legs of wobbly tables, I used them as trivets an coasters" (28).

The woman didn't want to ruin her nice granite so she put her hot soup on a trivet to protect the counter.