I'm sorry that people are so jealous of me...

"Encourage Michelle to tell Amber how she feels and brainstorm how to respond if Amber tells her she's just being jealous. ("I know you think I'm jealous, but that's not the issue here. The issue is that we agreed we were going to hang out. Good friends don't blow each other off the second a better offer comes along.")"

The punctuation in this passage is a reflection of Rosalind Wiseman's writing style throughout the book. For this particular excerpt, Wiseman wants Michelle to come up with a way to explain her feelings to Amber, to help her understand that she's not jealous. After Wisman states what should be done, she then uses parentheses to give an example of what could possibly be said. Using the parentheses to give examples shows that she is there to help guide parents and children through these types of situations. Therefore, I believe they are very effective for this type of book.