Ready for the ongoing adventures of Cami, who is totally not Abby, and Trenton, who is totally not Travis? Despite these characters being the most shameless carbon copies from an author’s previous work ever, I weirdly like Cami so far. I have no idea why. It’s kind of like liking the characters in a horror movie, where you can’t help but like them because you know something terrible is inevitably going to happen to them. Beautiful Oblivion is not quite unlike a horror movie. [Ariel says: Yeah, come to think of it, even after finishing the series I don’t hate her like I did Abby, which is saying something.]

Chapter 6

We enter yet another scene that takes place in the bar Cami works at, one where she’s actually working for once. It’s been two weeks since Cami stared juggling her bartending job and being a part-time student with her new job as a tattoo parlor receptionist and her new job constantly babysitting a whiny, entitled Maddox boy.

“We’re having a good time tonight.” [Cami said.]
“We are? I’m sitting here by myself,” [Trenton] snapped.

Unsurprisingly, she points out that the stress and the schedule are starting to wear on her. Somewhat surprisingly, other characters in a Jamie McGuire novel correctly identify enabling for the first time ever.

“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this for Coby,” [Raegan] said, a residual frown still on her face.
“It’s just easier.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s called enabling. Why would he straighten up, Cami? He has you to bail him out after a two-minute guilt trip.”

I do have some genuine praise to offer the novel here, for actually recognizing that this is a complicated issue, and allowing that complexity to flesh out the characters as fallable, and believably so, however briefly. Moments like this allow characters to be flawed in a human way, rather than in a glorified antihero way, which gets grating (see: literally any Maddox). [Ariel says: Spoilers, but I continue to like how some of this is handled, specifically in regards Cami and Coby’s relationship. It makes you understand why she helps him and it sets their relationship apart from any she has with the other brothers who blur together for me. However oh my fucking god I can’t wait till you meet the dad. I can’t even.]

Finally seeing the bartender lead characters bartending tells us what a night at the Red is like. We have men acting like assholes, women serving the same purpose that a sexy lamp would, and our mandatory Blia-isms (“Holy cow balls!”, if you’re keeping track.) As a bonus, we also get this insanely overwritten description of Reagan’s attempt at crowd control.

Raegan groaned, lined up five shot glasses, pulled the stack of napkins to the lower shelf, and then tipped a bottle of Chartreuse upside down. She overpoured the shot glasses, and then ran a thin line across a clean section of the bar. She flipped a lighter, and fire erupted.

Why were the shot glasses necessary? A thin line of what? It’s almost impressive how McGuire’s prose can contain way too much detail AND not enough detail simultaneously.

Remember last week when we were talking about unlikeable characters? This chapter really highlights the difference between “good” unlikeable characters (those that offer the reader a cathartic glimpse at worse sides of humanity) and “bad” unlikeable characters (that the novel just expects us to like but doesn’t offer any actual humanity for the reader to indulge in). Take this asshole at the bar:

“You got Zombie Dust on tap?”
I shook my head. “Only in October.”
“What kind of bar is this? That’s one of the top ten beers ever made! You should have it year-round!”

What an asshole, right? Zombie Dust is a fantastic beer (in case you’re curious), but why would he think anyone gives a fuck about his loud, rude opinion? Hell, how would he know if it’s even available year-round? This is a character it feels good to hate. Now, contrast that with…

Trenton frowned. “You’re missing your shirt,” he said.
I looked down at my leather vest. Yes, my tits were out to play, but I worked at a bar [...] “Are you saying you don’t approve of my attire?” Trenton began to speak, but I put my finger against his lips. “Aw, that’s cute. You thought I was really asking.”

What an asshole, right? Well, not if you were to ask Cami, who spends the entire chapter responding to his controlling, presumptive behavior with an internal quandary about why does he make me feel this way omg

Trenton had always stood out to me, but I’d never tried to get to know him well enough to figure out why. [...] The thought of waiting in line didn’t appeal to me.

My girlfriend, reading this post over my shoulder, added her frustration that we’re supposed to think the female lead has strength of character because she defies him, but she doesn’t really, because she inexplicably still has these thoughts. Why? LOVE. DON’T ASK QUESTIONS. [Ariel says: Right?? That was my same exact complaint with Christian/Ana, Abby/Travis and Gideon/Eva. OMG she is so strong because she rolls her eyes when he orders her around, but then she does exactly what he says most of the time or soothes him with the sex until he stops being angry.]

The book proudly showcases that Trenton is a real piece of work, but inexplicably excuses some of his worse qualities to try to convey him as likeable in spite of them, which doesn’t work if you, say, actually read the book. If Trenton seemed like an entitled asshole before, this chapter cranks up his post-Twilight controlling and predatory male dreamboat qualities up to 11. Thousand.

• Trenton turned, and then shook his head. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
  “Then get the hell away from my bar”
• “You ’bout done?” Trneton said from the other side of the stall.
  My entire body tensed. “What the hell are you doing in here? This is the girls’ bathroom”
• The moment I stepped outside [for a break], Trenton stood next to me, pulled out a cigarette and lit it, and then lit mine. “You should really quit,” he said. “Nasty habit. Not attractive for a girl.”

I mean, to each their own and all, but I feel like being stalked to the bathroom and told how to behave more attractively by a man you’ve expressed no interest in and explicitly told you have a boyfriend should prompt a little less “OMG I CAN’T HELP BUT LIKE HIM” and a little more…

And maybe also a little more “call the police”

Trenton’s obnoxious, “you know you want it” behavior continues, in ways that stop even making sense and bizarrely escalate to the surreal.

• “I’d offer you my jacket, but I didn’t bring one,” Trenton said. “I have these, though.” He held his arms a bit away from his body.
• His t-shirt featured two pale bluebirds, above the words DO YOU SWALLOW?

So if Trenton’s behavior already has you fuming, you might not want to read the rest of the post, because he’s about to go from obnoxious, entitled man to the literal definition of a sexual predator. The alcohol-abusing sexist jerk from the tattoo parlor (No, not Trenton. The other one.) shows up at the bar.

“Look, Jeremy! It’s the bitchy secretary!” Clay said [...] “I’ll take a bottle of Bud, Bitchy! And you’re not getting a tip, because you kicked me out the other night.”
“Want me to do it again?” I asked.
“I can take you into a dark alley and bend you over,” he said

Luckily for Cami, Trenton is there to stand up for how he cares about treating women with respect and not like objects by treating a woman without respect and like an object.

Trenton pulled Kylie against his side and pointed at her. “Is this your girl?”
“What about it?” Clay asked.
Trenton grabbed Kylie and leaned her back, planting an open kiss on her mouth. [...] Trenton slide his hand down her side and then cupped her ass

PHEW! THAT’S TOTALLY DIFFERENT!

And the book does the “it’s not sexual assault if she likes it” thing by having yet another female character act like a mindless floozy giddy at the idea of male attention if he’s hot enough.

She kissed him back, and for a few seconds they were both more than enthusiastic. [...] Kylie was more than pleased.

Oh, AND he beats him up.

I jumped over the bar, but not before Trenton got a couple of punches in. Clay was already on the ground, bleeding.

To recap, in this chapter of Beautiful Oblivion, the romance novel, Trenton 1) followed a woman who has rebuked his advances into the bathroom, 2) repeatedly told her how to behave in ways he found more attractive, 3) physically assaulted someone whose advances she also rebuked (but in a BAD way!), and 4) sexually assaulted that guy’s girlfriend to get back at him. Are you wet yet?

Because Cami might be!

What did it matter to me if he was a man whore who stuck his tongue down someone’s throat just to piss off her boyfriend? [...]
Trenton’s face compressed. “You and me… we’re just friends, aren’t we?” [...]
“We’re friends.” [...]
I was in trouble. Big, disastrous, Maddox trouble.

I can recommend this book if you want to take this idea seriously

Question of the day: Fuck, marry, kill! Trenton Maddox, Christian Grey, Gideon Cross. I eagerly await the overwhelming torment in your comments.

This week we’re doing special coverage and reading Catching Fire in anticipation of the new Hunger Games movie, which is not Catching Fire. Just don’t think about it too much. Pick a bookmark and read along!

Unless you pick the Team Gale bookmark, then are you even READING these books?

- – -

Chapter Ten

As we’ve learned by now, Suzanne Collins loves ending every Part with some huge, huge twist that is huge (huge!). At the end of Part One, Katniss meets someone wearing a Peace Keeper uniform holding out a cracker with a mockingjay printed on it. Now, so far we’ve had:

1. A billion conversations about how mockingjays have been, historically, symbols of rebellion and resistance
2. A character with a new high-profile government position (of sorts) sharing secret information with Katniss while discreetly showing her the mockingjay symbol on his watch
3. Another billion conversations about how mockingjays have been, historically, symbols of rebellion and resistance

So Katniss’s reaction to encountering a stranger who has laid down her own weapon to show Katniss something with this symbol on it is:

“That cracker in your hand. With the bird. What’s that about?” I ask.
“Don’t you know, Katniss?”

No, guys, it’s Katniss.

Now, the new characters story about rebellion and the government cracking down on District 8 is pretty interesting, although the bit with District 13 seems entirely unbelievable, but not for the reasons they’re meant to. Since it was brought up at all, obviously the rumors about District 13 operating and being the main front of resistance against the government are going to be true (it’s called Chekov’s Gun, people), but what I take issue with is how this is even feasible in this world. Like the government completely destroyed them, but some people survived and somehow they’ve been building themselves back and the government’s just kind of not given any thought to the possibility of this happening for 75 years? Um, sure. Sounds pretty convincing.

Chapter Eleven

By this point in The Hunger Games, we’ve already had kids get knifed to death by other kids, Katniss being chased by a raging inferno, and, my personal favorite, acid trip killer wasps. The most gripping action scene we’ve had this time around is Katniss jumping over a fence.

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’d be super cheap for the narrative to revert back to more Hunger Games and do the same thing all over again, [Matthew, two years later: haha whoops] and this actually does fix some of the biggest problems I had with the dystopia at the beginning of the series, in that now it actually does feel like an Orwellian dystopia where nobody can do anything. The electric fences are on, there are people enforcing totalitarian law that are actually enforcing totalitarian law, people are actually oppressed right now as opposed to just kind of left alone to live in poverty. But the problem is that this is how things should have been from the beginning, and it feels very too little too late. It’s like they realized “oh, shit, we’re supposed to be really oppressive, aren’t we?” and decided to start doing so long after enough shit went down that it’s not going to matter for much longer anyway, because hopefully sometime soon this narrative will pick a direction and actually fucking go somewhere.

Chapter Twelve

Well, on the plus side, the narrative did finally pick a direction. But very much on the not plus side, it picked maybe the cheapest and most recursive direction it possibly could have. Katniss and Peeta are going back to the Hunger Games. Seriously? This feels unbelievably gimmicky, much like the entire premise of the Quell Super Hunger Games.

Now, I want to be clear about this. My problem isn’t that the narrative is going back to the Hunger Games. It’s pretty much the entire premise, and it’d be stupid to abandon it because it’s key to the series. Instead, my problem is Katniss (and Peeta) going back to the Hunger Games. This feels like a plot that doesn’t know how to move forward, and has to move backwards because it can’t think of anything else to do. It’s especially frustrating because going back to the Hunger Games could have worked. There are so many people Katniss is attached to (Gale, Prim, apparently Madge) that could have been sent to the Hunger Games this year and that would have been much more horrifying. And good. This is not.

Chapter Thirteen

Well, it picks up slightly with Katniss’s reaction to having to participate in yet another twenty-four person fight to the death, which is to go get shitfaced.

[Matthew, two years later: Would you believe that this was the best picture of beer pong on the internet in 2012? Seriously! I looked around a lot!]

Chapter Fourteen

For my part, I try to make some mental record of the other tributes, but like last year, only a few really stick in my head.

In other words “I am a terrible narrator, so here’s a list of the main characters.”

On the plus side, there’s some promise to this whole Super Hunger Games setup after all, because it’s not kids anymore, and that completely changes the entire dynamic and the type of horror, and I don’t think the government has caught on to the dangers of this yet.

Anyway, apparently we’re finally going into Haymitch’s backstory and learning about his Hunger Games, and guys I am so excited. I am also a bit terrified that Katniss and Peeta are all curled up on the couch to watch it, but whatevs, I’ve all but made popcorn in anticipation for this part of the book, so I can’t judge. Anyway, it’s time for the Hunger Games with a younger Haymitch!

No, I don’t stop making jokes like this.

Haymitch’s name is called last of all. … Hard to admit, but he was something of a looker.

Hell yeah, that’s my man Haymitch.

“Oh. Peeta, you don’t think he killed Maysilee [Katniss's mom's best friend who has a stupid name like everybody else], do you?” I burst out. I don’t know why, but I can’t stand the thought.

Seriously? You don’t know why the possibility of a trusted friend and mentor having murdered a close friend of your mother is a less than pleasing thought?

“With forty-eight players? I’d say the odds are against it,” says Peeta.

Actually, I’d be pretty willing to bet Katniss is going to be right, here. For once.

“So, Haymitch, what do you think of the Games having one hundred per cent more competitors than usual?” asks Casear.
Haymitch shrugs. “I don’t see that it makes much difference. They’ll still be one hundred per cent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same.”

SPOILER Haymitch was always awesome END SPOILER

Haymitch has his own troubles over in the woods, where the fluffy golden squirrels turn out to be carnivorous and attack in packs…

Okay, almost always awesome.

“All tight. There’s only five of us left. May as well say goodbye now, anyway,” she says. “I don’t want it to come down to you and me.

Yeah, the odds aren’t in his favor for this whole “not killing his friend” thing.

[Haymitch] arrives only in time to watch the last of a flock of candy-pink birds, equipped with long thin beaks, skewer her through the neck.

Okay, I’m going to insist that I was technically right, because Jesus Christ, they had split off for like ten seconds in the time it took for her to die.

He staggers through the beautiful woods, holding his intestines in…
the girl just stands there, trying to staunch the flow of blood pouring from her empty eye socket

Anybody else think this is insanely more violent than anything that happened in The Hunger Games? Presumably because Collins didn’t have to write any actual violence.

“…Haymitch found a way to turn [the force field] into a weapon.”
“…It’s almost as bad as us and the berries!”

No, it’s nowhere near as bad as you and the berries. The berries were symbolic defiance of the power of the Capitol when the entire nation was watching. Haymitch and the force field is a participant in the Hunger Games doing whatever it takes to gain an advantage over the other participants, which is the entire point of the cruel spectacle. It’s more in line with that kid in the first book who reactivated the mines.

Katniss, please stop being stupid.

Chapter Fifteen

The opening ceremonies are pretty interesting, once again. Much like in The Hunger Games, it’s interesting to explore the creation of public image of the sacrificial lamb, although arguably it’s just Katniss and Peeta who really fit that role this time around. Meeting the old champions is pretty interesting, because they all know each other and have been buddies for years, and strangely enough their reaction to the whole thing is to not give a shit about what they have to do. Whatever works, I suppose. I’m intrigued by the only ones the novel’s particularly bothered to characterize: Finnick and Johanna. Finnick strikes me as the new Cato, except, you know, not dead. Johanna’s just promiscuous and that makes me laugh, because it clashes so badly with everything else that’s going on, but Catching Fire‘s been so inconsistent I don’t think it matters anymore.

Chapter Sixteen

It’s kind of weird how the tone of the activity leading up to the Hunger Games actually seems even more disturbing this time around, now that they’re all adults and not children. I mean, obviously it’s way worse when it’s children and teenagers being forced into a deathmatch, but with the adults… they just do not feel like they belong here.

Obviously, it’s hard to top Katniss’s stunt for the judges from the last novel, but her symbolic hanging of the last Game Maker, killed for allowing Katniss’s stunt with the berries and generally ruining everything, is actually really good, and probably the closest it could possibly have gotten.

Chapter Seventeen

You know how I literally just said that this whole novel has hit the point where it’s basically just following the formula of the first one and trying to top the thrills and shocks and twists and doing an okay job but not really coming close, much less justifying its existence? Well, now we’re at the interviews, and they’re actually way better than they were the last time! I know, I’m quite surprised, and I am most pleased. Basically it’s what I predicted: the Capitol’s completely screwed itself over by bringing adults into the Games, and it’s starting to become apparent. The subtle, but open, resentment is delightful and everything is slowly turning to complete chaos. The adults know how to fuck with the Capitol in ways the usual teenage Tributes can’t hope to, and this is fantastic.

Oh and Katniss’s wedding dress turns into fire and burns away so she looks like a Mockingjay and that’s pretty cool but less interesting focus on the adults they were awesome

Chapter Eighteen

So far the interviews have been even better than they were in the last book, and the highlight of the interviews last time, Peeta, is about to come up and I cannot wait to see if he manages to top himself too. It’ll be really difficult, since last year he completely stole the show with his “I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED KATNISS” reveal, so it’ll be hard to see how he tops this. Maybe he’ll say something about Gale? Get all young adult fiction on the Capitol? Could the world handle the drama???

Peeta pauses for a long moment, as if deciding on something. He looks out at the spellbound audience, then at the floor, then finally up at Caesar. “Caesar, do you think all our friends here can keep a secret?”
…What can he mean? Keep a secret from who? Our whole world is watching.

That’s… that’s the point Katniss. Just… sigh, Katniss…

“We’re already married”

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. EVEN BETTER. Go, Peeta! Go!

“Surely even a brief time is better than no time?”
“Maybe I’d think that, too, Caesar,” says Peeta bitterly, “if it weren’t for the baby.”

HOLY SHITTING FUCK, THIS IS AWESOME.

Caesar can’t rein in the crowd again, not even when the buzzer sounds … the place is in total chaos and I can’t hear a word.

Oh my God, this is exactly the everything falling apart I was talking about. Peeta is goddamned brilliant.

all twenty-four of us stand in one unbroken line in what must be the first public show of unity among the districts since the Dark Days.

This is actually incredible. I’m calling it right now, this is the best moment of Catching Fire. It certainly is up to this point, and I imagine nothing in Part Three’s going to top it. Although there’s certainly going to be a fair amount of fallout from this.

The Peacekeepers ignore me completely as they drag Cinna’s limp body from the room. All that’s left are the smears of blood on the floor.

Such as maybe killing off Cinna. That would be, like, chapter one of the fallout. And with that last glimpse of the real world, Katniss is sent to the Super Hunger Games and Part Two ends. The narrative pacing has been horrible, but the novel’s finally (and, I want to put as much emphasis on this word as I can, FINALLY) getting good. Finally. At long last, we have the sense of danger that the whole novel should have had. But whatever, we’re past it now, and it’s young adult fiction and the font size is large enough that each letter could fill up an M&M, so we can’t complain too much. It’s nowhere near as entertaining as The Hunger Games so far, but it’s fair.

Predictions About The Ending of a Book That Came Out Like Five Years Ago

So looking up Catching Fire on Wikipedia just now to check the release date to write that sentence, apparently this novel was “praised” for “the development of Katniss’s character”, to which I have to say “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Anyway, predictions!

1. Nobody we actually care about dies!

Once again, we’ve hit the part of the narrative where we left most of the main characters back home in District 12 and we’re following Katniss into an enclosed area for what will probably be the vast majority of the remainder of the novel, so Gale and Haymitch and co. are safe. And there’s another book left after this one, so Katniss and Peeta are safe. Except they both just entered a deathmatch arena, which means…

2. Somebody escapes

I have no idea how, of course, but there is literally no way Katniss or Peeta is going to die, and there is also literally no way they’re both going to get out of the arena playing by the rules, so at least one person’s going to manage to escape. My guess would be Peeta, because, let’s face it, he’s the smart one when he isn’t getting the shit beaten out of him.

And that’s pretty much it. There’s not much else that could happen. So, yeah, let’s find out next time! But to hold you over until then, here’s a special feature!

[Matthew, two years later: So apparently when I originally wrote the post, I felt it necessary to transcribe this Hunger Games-related dream I had at the time. Take it for what you will.]

1. It took place in some giant building that alternated between creepy, decrepit horror mansion and generic college academic building (arguably very similar settings).
2. Armed with a screwdriver, I killed someone trying to kill me, also with a screwdriver. After it was over, someone watching the skirmish, and I remember this happening very distinctly, said “That guy got screwed!”
3. Someone received Bruce Willis as a gift.
4. I went around a corner and was stabbed in the stomach and died, which, since it was first-person (obviously) and I was the main character, was actually kind of awesome in a postmodern way.
5. It kept going anyway, because dream logic
6. Someone armed with a golf club defeated someone armed with a sword. I am super disappointed that the guy from earlier didn’t show up at this point and say something like “Look out for the guy from District FORE!”
7. I died (again) by slipping over a banana peel and falling down a staircase, and, you know what, after my awesome postmodern first death, I’m not particularly cool with my second one being played for laughs.
8. After half of the participants were killed, the Hunger Games were called off on account of rain.
9. Those who survived were super pissed because now that they weren’t going to die, they had to study for final exams.

I don’t know how I forgot about this, but ages ago I read an excerpt of Divergent except it was told from Four’s point of view. I looked it up tonight, and apparently it’s from a series of short stories called Four: A Divergent Collection. Just to clear things up, though, there are actually five short stories in the collection, one of which is “the knife throwing scene.” I don’t know about you, but there was nothing in that scene that has haunted me, no unanswered questions that I thought could only be teased out if we just got to see through Four’s eyes. [Matthew says: I do! I wonder if he mansplains everything even to himself.]

From what I can tell, none of the short stories centers on the fight Tris and Four had last chapter, thank god. No one needs to read that nonsense twice.

Chapter 14

The chapter opens with Tris sitting on a mattress in a hallway, doing nothing in particular, when she’s accosted by someone who claims to have been in the previous book.

“Okay, what the hell are you doing here?” [...]
I look up. Lynn—who I first met when she stomped on my toes in a Hancock building elevator—stands over me with raised eyebrows.

Ah, yes, of course! How could I forget such an influential character whose pivotal moment in the series are remembered by all.

Lynn is annoyed that Tris is acting like she doesn’t know her Dauntless brethren by abstaining from hanging out with them. [Matthew says: Or actually doesn’t know them, because who’s Lynn?] I could see how Tris might be a little apprehensive given she’s just confessed to all of her secrets, and she might want a little time to herself.

“I’m just doing Christina a favor.”

Also that.

“Christina.” Lynn snorts. “She’s a lovesick puppy. People die. That’s what happens in war. She’ll figure it out eventually.”
“Yeah, people die, but it’s not always your good friend who kills them.”
“Whatever.” Lynn sighs impatiently.

They’re completely different series, but I feel like Raegan/America (oh my god, I just noticed that Raegan was an AMERICAN president – it’s a conspiracy!) just got transported into this story. It’s another conspiracy! Jamie McGuire and Veronica Roth are in cahoots.

The Dauntless appear to be sharing one large room with a bunch of bunk beds. Lynn tells her brother he needs to find somewhere else to sleep, so Tris can have his bunk.

“Hec,” she says, “you’re going to have to find another bunk.”
“What? No way,” he says without looking up. “I’m not relocating again just because you want to have late-night pillow chats with one of your stupid friends.”
“She is not my friend,” snaps Lynn. I almost laugh. She’s right—the first thing she did when she met me was stomp on my toes.

I don’t think we should be emphasising that was the first thing she did given that was also the last thing she did until we were reintroduced to her five seconds ago. Maybe, just maybe, it’s more accurate to say they’re not friends because they haven’t interacted beyond this one foot-stomping moment.

We learn in this scene that some members of Dauntless, like Lynn’s brother, are frightened of Divergent because of the stories they’ve heard about them, while other people like Lynn think the stories are bullshit. We also learn that Uriah’s brother Zeke was a traitor and with the evil half of Dauntless. There is only one person I think of when I hear the name Zeke.

Of Bob’s Burgers fame.

Anyway, now we’ve firmly established that the brother, who we don’t know, of a character we don’t really know is evil, and that another brother, who we don’t know, of a character we don’t really know is afraid of Divergent people. This is the kind of non-stop action this book has continued to be full of! [Matthew says: I can’t wait until the obligatory “everybody gets killed off in the last book” YA trilogy requirement when Ariel and I are struggling desperately to contextualize four deaths a chapter.]

Lynn tells Tris that she doesn’t actually believe people can be Divergent, and I actually like her theory:

“So how do you explain me being awake during simulations?” I say. “Or resisting one entirely?”
“I think the leaders choose people at random and change the simulations for them.”
“Why would they do that?”
She waves her hand in my face. “Distraction. You’re so busy worrying about the Divergent—like my mom—that you forget to worry about what the leaders are doing. It’s just a different kind of mind control.”

The only hole in the theory is that most of the time it sounds like nobody knows when someone is Divergent, so who exactly is being served by tricking specific people into thinking they’re Divergent? At that point they could just make people be afraid of the Divergent without ever actually doing much about it except for shadily executing a few people who they selected arbitrarily… [Matthew says: I just think it’s hilarious that we’re still got conspiracy theorists in this post-apocalypse… and that the book’s fake science they don’t believe in really doesn’t make any sense…]

After this, Lynn, Tris, Uriah, and Marlene decide they’re going to go out that night and do some surveillance.

“We’ve heard the Erudite keep their lights on all night, which will make it easier to look through their windows. See what they’re doing.”

I’m sorry, do the Erudite live in the apartment complex across the street? Where the fuck are these compounds in relation to one another that it would be so easy to just pop out at night and spy on them? Any what exactly would they even be able to glean without being able to hear anything? Are the Erudite just going to be standing around making really obvious moves like dramatically studying serums and injecting them into people in front of an open window? I think not.

[Matthew says: Maybe it would go something like this:]

Lynn and Tris bond a bit more, watch Uriah and Marlene flirt (and let me tell you, it doesn’t get more compelling than hearing about two characters you know nothing about are flirting. It’s why I love those Disaster books so much, after all), and talk about why Lynn shaved her head.

Lynn wanted people to take her seriously during initiation, but Tris also thinks it’s because she didn’t want to look so damn pretty. Deep!

Tris and Lynn argue a bit over whether or not Dauntless should be more cunning sometimes and use it to their advantage when someone underestimates them. It’s almost as though some people from Dauntless could be cunning…while others weren’t cunning…But, no, then they’d have to be Divergent! Anyway, apparently Tris doesn’t want to say anything she’ll regret during this conversation because,

Lynn is quick to forgive, but quick to ignite, like most Dauntless. Like me, except for the “quick to forgive” part.

It really feels like Roth has just watched a movie or read a book where there was this character that she really liked. And this character is really easy for her to describe, and she feels like she knows her because she just watched this awesome movie. Except we didn’t see this fucking movie, so we don’t know this character at all because they’ve just suddenly shown up in THIS book as though we’re supposed to know her, supposed to know she’s “quick to forgive, but quick to ignite” because Roth knows this character super well, so we should just trust that she’s totally like that!

Just one question. How in the fucking hell would Tris know this about Lynn? That must have been one hell of a foot stomp she gave Tris.

Also, I forgot to mention, Four quickly stopped by during that bonding sesh.

“I’ll see you later,” he mutters. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Thanks for that vote of confidence,” I say, frowning.”
“I didn’t mean that,” he says. “I meant don’t let anyone else do anything stupid. They’ll listen to you.”

Okay, Four, that is obviously not what you fucking meant.

He leans toward me like he’s going to kiss me, then seems to think better of it and leans back, biting his lip. It’s a small act, but it still feels like rejection. I avoid his eyes and run after Lynn.

I bet if Veronica Roth wrote about this scene from Four’s point of view it would reveal that Four thought Tris was the one pulling away or that something in her eyes made him stop. But he’s just been such an unrelenting ass these past couple chapters. Just when I thought he was proving to be a more decent love interest than others we’ve had the displeasure of reading about here.

Before Tris and the others can leave, they’re attacking by bad!Dauntless. GASP OH NO.

My question of the week to my American pals is, are you celebrating Thanksgiving next week? To everyone else, what holiday are you most looking forward to? It can be any holiday coming up in the future. [Matthew says: Literal interpretations of “the future” are accepted. Please make up a holiday that does not exist yet if you are so inclined.]

If they’re not visiting one of the post-apocalypse’s many Hufflepuffs, it’s a pretty safe bet that Tris is getting captured.

Chapter 15

Tris determines that whatever kind of gun she was hit with only knocked her down, and Insurgent goes all out and includes a literal smokescreen to cover up how slowly it’s moving.

Cylinder[s] are everywhere, filling the room with smoke that does not burn or sting. In fact, it only obscures my view for a few seconds before evaporating completely.

Tris asks a surprisingly astute question.

What was the point of that?

Tris observes that the others are lying unconscious, and plays along when the Dauntless traitors enter the scene, where a generic henchman also asks another good question about why this novel is supposed to make sense.

“Not sure why we can’t just shoot them all in the head,” one of them says. “If there’s no army, we win.”
“Now, Bob, we can’t just kill everyone,” (side note: generic henchman is so generic, his name is Bob) a cold voice says. [...] It belongs to Eric, leader of Dauntless. “No people means no one left to create prosperous conditions,”

Whoa, hold up Eric Rand. Brief explanation of capitalism aside, I’m still confused when someone’s going to explain what the fuck kind of post-apocalypse we’re living in where “prosperous conditions” are even a thing?

“If you saw the Faction System that holds the narrative, and the greater its effort, the heavier the narrative bore down upon its shoulders – What would you tell it?”
“To drugs!”

Speaking of drugs.

Whatever they gassed us with, it had to be simulation-inducing or I wouldn’t be the only one awake. IT doesn’t make any sense – it doesn’t follow the simulation rules I’m familiar with

Simulation rules?!

What simulation rules? The ones that the book has been making up as it goes along literally this whole time? In this book where the main point – Divergence – is simultaneously genetic and a personal choice? When were the simulation rules ever consistent enough for Tris to understand them?

When Eric and the others move on. Tris steals a blue-armband uniform from a dead Dauntless traitor. Uriah reveals that he’s awake and that he’s therefore… Divergent! Which is a surprise we knew since the end of the last book when there was a random unidentified Divergent for a page during the time where Uriah was the only other living minor character. So…

Tris and Uriah think about their plan (the book significantly spends time explaining to us that Tris has no idea what she “expect[s] to gain from submerging myself in an army of Dauntless traitors”, but then immediately has an idea anyway, because we have 500 pages to fill), and split up to go look for other Divergent.

Then Tris tells the narrator about nursery rhymes about the factions, because maybe you haven’t figured out what the different factions are 44% of the way into the Divergent series.

Tris somehow looks for hidden Divergent in the same gassed crowd of Candor that the Dauntless traitors – including Eric – are searching. I guess Divergent is also the ability to seamlessly blend into your surroundings when you’re very obviously not.

Fact: Dwight is therefore Divergent.

The Dauntless traitors find a few Divergent and drag them away to decide which ones to kill and which ones to keep as part of their weirdly macroeconomics-focused evil plan. Tris eventually finds a Candor girl pretending to be asleep and tells her to run away (somewhere) when the others aren’t looking (somehow). The girl gets away, but Eric discovers Tris. They fight, and Tris realizes that Eric isn’t trying to kill her, and must not be allowed to yet.

Eric still wins the fight though.

“I want one gun on her at all times,” says Eric. “Not just aimed at her. On her.” [...]
A Dauntless soldier shoves Uriah – whose lips are stained with blood – toward the short row of the Divergent. [...] If he’s here, he probably failed. Now they’ll find all the Divergent in the building, and most of us will die.
I should probably be afraid. But instead a hysterical laugh bubbles inside me, because I just remembered something:
Maybe I can’t hold a gun. But I have a knife in my back pocket.

Chapter 16

But before an exciting action scene can happen in this action novel, a biology lesson:

I focus on the mechanics of my breathing, imaging air filling every part of my lungs as I inhale, then remembering as I exhale how all my blood, oxygenated and unoxygenated, travels to and from the same heart.

I figured you guys hadn’t seen this gif in a while

Okay, real talk. I get that Tris is nervous right now and needs to focus on something else. That’s fine. And this is first-person writing, too, so it’s actually a good thing to include a detail like this. But maybe remember that this is Tris’s distraction from the story – not the reader’s? I should more anxious right now, not wondering if Magic School Bus is on Netflix.

Spoiler: IT IS.

But, lo, it gets worse. For now that we’ve brought up the heart…

SYMBOLISM

But I am thinking of the heart. Not of my heart anymore, but of Eric’s, and how empty his chest will sound when his heart is no longer beating.

Eric paces in front of the group, just out of Tris’s grasp, while he explains to the row of captured Dauntless that he has orders to take only two Divergent back to Erudite for testing, because a group of people obsessed with the scientific pursuit of knowledge apparently hate reasonable sample sizes.

He keeps walking and stops in front of the boy to my left.
“The brain finishes developing at age twenty-five,” says Eric. “Therefore your Divergence is not completely developed.”
He lifts his gun and fires.

It’s a good thing Eric finally got a decent evil villain moment.

I close my hand around the knife handle and squeeze. He leans closer.
“Just between you and me… I think you might have gotten three [results in the aptitude test]. Care to enlighten me?”
I lurch forward, pulling my hand out of my pocket. I close my eyes as I thrust the blade up and toward him. I don’t want to see his blood.
I feel the knife go in and then pull it out again. My entire body throbs to the rhythm of my heart. [...] I open my eyes as Eric slumps to the ground, and then – chaos.

The scene erupts into chaos as the Dauntless traitors grab for their guns, the other Dauntless suddenly show up with Tobias out of nowhere, and then we learn that Eric’s not really dead. Because then this narrative would be technically making progress.

Today is our last day of our Catching Fire reading, just in time for the Mockingjay, Part One movie. Now you’re all caught up, your memory is refreshed, and you can go get disappointed because Mockingjay was one of the worst books I’ve ever read. And I do this blog. Enjoy the movie!

- – -

Chapter Nineteen

OH MY GOD WE ALREADY KILLED OFF PEETA. Nah, he’ll be fine, I’m sure. He got knocked out by a force field, which actually probably means worse things for us than it does for Peeta, because it’s just gonna mean a couple more chapters of nothing but Katniss and her feelings about boys. Man, Peeta really takes a lot of shit every time he’s in the Hunger Games. Anybody else notice that? Collins can’t actually kill him off, but she’ll push him within an inch of death as often as she fucking can and he’ll spend most of the narrative hobbling along being adorable while Katniss takes care of him.

In terms of things that are actually interesting, however, there’s Finnick and the bangle and the “haha, we are the best of friends!” thing. I really don’t know what to make of Finnick so far, largely because I’ve been given very little to go off of aside from HE IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN IN THE UNIVERSE, which does surprisingly little to help characterize him.

Fun fact, back when I originally wrote this post in 2012, this was the first time I ever used an animated gif on WordPress. This gif of Squidward twerking. Memories right here.

Chapter Twenty

You know how in The Hunger Games, the Hunger Games themselves were roughly 2/3 of the narrative? And how it got really slow every couple chapters, either to focus on the survival element (which was not a bad thing), or to focus on Katniss and Peeta and young adult fiction (which was)? Well, in Catching Fire, the Hunger Games are only about a 1/3 of the narrative, which is fine, but the problem is that it’s still following this “one page of action means twenty pages of young adult fiction” formula, and so the dull bits hurt the narrative to a greater degree.

Also, how come Katniss is the only one who ever seems to get gifts?

Chapter Twenty-One

Okay, I am a fan of the nerve gas. That shit was legitimately terrifying, and probably the high point so far in terms of the survival horror the series is supposedly known for but actually rather shies away from. The monkey attack afterwards is a bit underwhelming, but in all fairness, it’s a bit hard to immediately come up with something more sinister and frightening in quite the same way as nerve gas.

Although if your attempt to do so involves monkeys, you could probably try again.

The surprise District 6 sacrifice out of nowhere seems to confirm my “everybody is on Katniss’s side” theory, and it’ll be interesting to see where this goes, because, as I’ve said earlier, there’s no way these Hunger Games are actually going to go according to the Capitol’s plan.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Finnick’s reaction to Mag’s death finally made me realize what it is that struck me as somehow worse when they put adults in the Hunger Games: adults have different reasons to die. Adult characters have lived more, understand more, and will sacrifice more, which for the most part you won’t get from the children and young adult characters previously thrown into the Hunger Games. In this way, the Capitol has totally screwed itself over, and they’re probably starting to figure that out.

the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can’t help enjoying his distress.
“Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven’t looked pretty?” I say.
“It must be. The sensation’s completely new. How have you managed it all these years?” he asks.

Can I point out how awesome Finnick is? I really want to guy to actually be okay.

“No, wait,” says Finnick. “Let’s do it together. Put our faces right in front of his.”
Well, there’s so little opportunity for fun left in my life, I agree. … [Peeta's] eyelids flutter open and then he jumps like we’ve stabbed him. “Aa!”
Finnick and I fall back in the sand, laughing our heads of. Every time we try to stop, we look at Peeta’s attempt to maintain a disdainful expression and it sets us off again.

This is simultaneously the funniest and most heartbreaking thing that’s happened so far in the novel. If this scene gets cut from the movie, the movie will be terrible – I am calling it right now.

So anyway, we soon run into Johanna and Wiress and Beetee, and I’m refraining from making any clever jokes about their stupid names because there’s totally something up with the “tick tock” thing and if I can’t figure it out before Katniss does, that will be incredibly embarrassing. My guess right now is that the threats in the arena are linked to time? So the nerve gas is coming back. And the monkeys, I guess, but the nerve gas is scarier.

What’s interesting is that Katniss has tons of allies now, so it’s obvious that something big is going on. The biggest threat isn’t the other tributes: it’s the arena, and, by extension, the gamemakers, the Capitol, President Snow, etc.

Slowly I rise up and survey the arena. The lightning there. In the next pie wedge over came the blood rain. … We would have been in the third section, right next to that when the fog appeared. And as soon as it was sucked away, the monkeys began to gather in the fourth.

WAIT I GOT IT. The arena is a clock!

My eyes sweep around the full circle of the arena and I know she’s right. “Tick, tock. This is a clock.”

Okay, I figured it out like half a paragraph before Katniss did, whatever. I’m still going to consider this a win on my part.

This was really funny when I wrote this post back in 2012.

Chapter Twenty-Three

You know what just occurred to me? The Hunger Games books like to go into all kinds of gritty realism about the survival elements of the narrative, from dehydration to getting cold at night. So when does anybody go to the bathroom?

Basically not much happens in this chapter and it’s just Katniss trying to think about her plan for survival, which is rather complicated with how many people are trying really hard to be her friend. And then we have the cliffhanger. Jesus Christ, Suzanne Collins and her requisite “I will do whatever it takes to end this chapter with a twist” cliffhangers. Katniss runs off into the woods because she hears her little sister screaming. I’m going to call this right now: it is not actually her sister! Daring prediction, I know.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Her next wail rings out, clear as a bell, and there’s no mistaking the source. It’s coming from the mouth of a small, crested black bird perched on a branch about three metres over my head. And then I understand
It’s a jabberjay.

I’d just like to refer everybody to something I wrote back during the third chapter of the first book, if I may:

A bird that can memorize and repeat human noises ranging from whimpers to entire conversations. In a novel about teenagers who are forced to fight each other to the death in some big outdoor setting. Yeah, I’m sure that’s never going to pop up at an inopportune time and terrify the shit out of everyone.

Sure enough, it is absolutely terrifying. What I really like about this is that it’s not just Katniss who falls victim, but Finnick gets caught up in the psychological hell too, which really helps us understand a character who isn’t Katniss or is in love with Katniss, and this is really nice. Although we do get some of that too in this chapter, and sweet fancy Moses, Peeta’s selflessness is getting increasingly heartbreaking.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I join them for another delivery of bread. It’s identical to the one we received the night before. Twenty-four rolls from District 3.

GUYS. DO YOU THINK THIS IS A CODE?

I mean, I have no idea what it is, but this stands out so much. Aside from that, it’s a pretty uneventful chapter. It’s got some nice humor in it, but it’s very calm before the storm. Literally, as there’s a plan to use the lightning to electrocute the other tributes, which would basically just leave this huge team of allied tributes alone in the arena, which seems like not the greatest plan, but there’s only two chapters left so I can’t really be bothered to be too critical.

Chapter Twenty-Six

What the hell is going on?! I think everybody just died in this chapter, but I can’t be sure because people just sort of show up and fight and disappear and this is very confusing. I think the whole thing ended with Katniss shooting an arrow tied to wire at the force field tom complete the circuit to the “electrocute everybody standing on the goddamned beach” trap, while standing on the goddamned beach, and somehow she’s not dead. I think. This was very confusingly written. Fuck it. Last chapter. Let’s go.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Well, the chapter begins with everything exploding and that’s certainly exciting. And Katniss is picked up by a hovercraft, and I’m a bit confused by this because the only times anybody gets picked up by a hovercraft is when 1) they’re dead, or 2) they’ve won, and, well, neither of those things apply to Katniss, so something’s up.

When I swim back into semi-consciousness, I can feel I’m lying on a padded table. There’s the pinching sensation of tubes in my left arm. They are trying to keep me alive because, if I slide quietly, privately into death, it will be a victory. … Directly across from me I see Beetee with about ten different machines hooked up to him. Just let us die! I scream in my mind.

Okay, um, Beetee is there too? And also not dead? Well, there is literally only one reason why this is the case: revolution. Of course, Katniss takes some time to figure these things out and decides to kill everybody on the ship with a syringe full of sedative.

So Katniss is Solid Snake-ing her way through the hovercraft and overhears Plutarch and Haymitch consoling a distraught Finnick, and still doesn’t have any idea what’s going on.

[Haymitch] looks at my hand. “So it’s you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans.”

Haymitch, I love you.

Haymitch sits directly in front of me. “Katniss, I’m going to explain what happened. I don’t want you to ask any questions until I’m through. Do you understand?”

Yay, now we’re finally going to know what’s been going on.

Plutarch Heavensbee has been, for several years, part of an undercover group aiming to overthrow the Capitol.

Well, derp.

“Where is Peeta?” I hiss at him.
“He was picked up by the Capitol along with Johanna and Enobaria,” says Haymitch.

Peeta gets the shit end of the stick. Who did not see this coming.

“I wanted to go back for him and Johanna, but I couldn’t move.”
I don’t answer. Finnick Odair’s good intentions mean less than nothing.
“It’s better for him than Johanna. They’ll figure out he doesn’t know anything pretty fast. And they won’t kill him if they think they can use him against you,” says Finnick.
“Like bait?” I say to the ceiling. “Like how they’ll use Annie for bait, Finnick?”

Jesus Haymitch Christ, Katniss.

Until one time, I open my eyes and find someone I cannot block out looking down at me. …
“Gale,” I whisper.

Oh my God, guys, Gale has lines!

“Katniss, there is no District Twelve.”

Ok, I am actually interested in reading the last book now. This is finally interesting, and, more importantly, the novel actually ends with any sort of promise for a sequel. But to talk about any of that, let’s switch over to what my thoughts are…

In Conclusion!

The Hunger Games did not end with any particular need for a sequel, and so the sequel Catching Fire was directionless and largely boring. Catching Fire, however, ends with a perfect chapter for setting up an exciting premise, so I am actually interested in reading Mockingjay. Overall, this was an unbelievably, painfully slow novel, but it definitely picked up towards the end, although it never got anywhere near as good as it was any any point during The Hunger Games. So this definitely suffers from being the middle of a forced trilogy, where it doesn’t have a real start, nor does it have a real end, and it is very difficult to do rising action, rising action, climax, denouement when the overall story is still just rising action. It definitely makes me excited for the third novel, but I still don’t see why this got to be its own book.

In excited BBGT news, Matt came to visit today! And he got to experience virtual reality ooooh. I’ll upload the picture for you guys tomorrow, so get pumped!

This somehow lead to a discussion about how terrifying Fifty Shades of Grey would be if you had to watch it using the Oculus. I shudder to think about getting any closer to that action.

In Beautiful Oblivion news, last week there was a bar fight, and Cami felt kind of jealous when Trenton kissed his nemesis’ girlfriend in order to…prove a point? Complicated (and inexplicable) feelings about douchebags abound as usual in this instalment of our favourite series.

Chapter 7

The chapter opens with Cami asking T.J. if he’s going to be home for Thanksgiving. With that crazy job of his, he just won’t know until the day before! That is so un-American.

“I understand. You warned me. Stop acting like I’m going to throw a tantrum every time you can’t give me a straight answer.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s not that. I’m just worried the next time you ask, and I answer . . . you’re going to say something I don’t want to hear.”

I smiled against the phone, wishing I could hug him. “It’s nice to know you don’t want to hear it.”

“I don’t. It’s hard to explain . . . wanting this promotion and wanting to be with you just as much.”

It’s so hard to want one thing when you also want another thing, like when you want to go see two movies and can’t pick which one. You guys, I think T.J. might be…Divergent. That’s the only thing that could explain the existence of such complex feelings.

Cami heads out to work at the Red, prepared for a crazy night, only to find it’s a really slow.

“Thirty minutes in, Raegan was grumbling under her breath as she wiped down the bar for the third time. “Is there an underground fight thing tonight?”

“I shook my head. “The Circle? It’s never held this early.”

It’s clearly not very “underground” if literally everyone knows about it, and if people refer to it as competition for local entertainment.

Just when you thought Trenton was going to roll in and take this opportunity to harass Cami, a different Maddox brother shows up for some fanservice:

Travis Maddox was trudging to his usual barstool, looking pitiful. Raegan put a double in front of him, and he sucked it down in one gulp, letting the glass crash to the wood.

“Uh-oh,” I said, taking the bottle Raegan handed me. “There’s only two things that could be that bad. Is everyone in the family okay?” I asked, bristling in anticipation of his answer.

“Yep. Everyone except me.”

“I don’t believe it,” I said, stunned. “Who is she?”

Travis’s shoulders fell. “She’s a freshman. And don’t ask me what it is about her. I don’t know, yet. But, when I was bagging this other chick today, I felt like I was doing something wrong, and then this girl’s face popped into my head.”

I hope you have your bingo boards ready! We have a “bagging” spotting, everyone!

This is just going to keep happening, so I’ll say it now. The references to Beautiful/Walking Disaster are so poorly done and really detract from this book and pull me out of the story. It never feels fun or exciting when these other characters pop up, and even though it’s sort of interesting to see the overlapping timelines, moments like these really make me hate when any of them show up:

“Tell me what to do, Cami. You know about girls. You’re kind of one.”

“Okay, first of all,” I said, leaning toward him, “suck my dick.”

“See? Girls don’t say that.”

“The cool ones do,” Raegan said.”

When Travis sought advice from Cami in his book, this wasn’t even the scene we saw. This is ANOTHER Travis-comes-to-Cami-for-advice scene that makes no fucking sense given there was never a shred of evidence that these people were friends. A big thing about Travis was that he never had any female friends before Abby, so I don’t buy that he’d be crying to Cami like she’s his best friend.

This is also a freaking terrible way to try to establish Cami’s character. What is up with this “You’re kind of one” nonsense? Most girls I know throw around “suck my dick”, and I’m sorry but it’s not an automatic cool-girl move. Adopting any regularly used phrase is not some sort of identifier of being cool for anyone, and the way the book keeps simplifying Cami’s personality into things like, “Oh, she’s not like other girls because she likes sports and says ‘suck my dick'” is completely insulting to all women. It’s just reinforcing the idea that all girls act a certain way, which is bull shit, and we all know it.

Furthermore, what has Travis ever seen about Cami before this moment to make him think of her as unfeminine/dude-like? She certainly dresses like a girl (she goes on and on about her outfit for working at the bar right at the start of this chapter), and Trenton had no idea she was into sports or anything before this book, so I highly doubt Travis knows anything about her.

Let’s not dwell on this, though, because we need even more insight into how Trabby happened, because there was so much ambiguity left there.

“There are three tricks to landing a hard-to-get: patience, having other options, and being aloof. You are not the BFF. You’re sex on a stick, flirting just out of reach. In other words, Travis Maddox.”

“I knew it. You’ve always wanted me,” he said, smug.

I stood up. “Uh . . . no. Not at all. Not even in high school.”

“Liar,” he said, standing. “I never tried with you, either. My brother has always been in love with you.”

Wait…what? Trent’s everlasting feelings for Cami come up a few times in the book, and I never buy it. You’re telling me that Trenton has been in love with her forever, but only decided to have a conversation with her a week ago, even though he’s in this bar pretty much every night? And he never seems nervous around her at all, showing up to force her into dates and such.

Also, here’s another reason why these cameos from characters like Travis are super irritating:

“I nodded. “If you guys end up married, you owe me a hundred bucks.”

“Married?” Travis said, his face screwing into disgust. “What the fuck, Cami? I’m nineteen! Nobody gets married at nineteen.”

[…]

“He snorted. “Me getting married at all is unlikely? Anytime soon? Never gonna happen.”

Oh ho ho, so funny because he marries Abby not much later!

In fact, Travis buys an engagement ring for Abby almost immediately. To show us this brand new conversation and try to demonstrate further just how drastically Abby changed Travis isn’t contributing to anything about my understanding for the character. Not only does he still seem like a complete psycho, it actually just makes his behaviour make even less sense! You can be completely in love with someone and intend to marry them but hold off on buying a ring…or getting married if you feel like nineteen is too young. It isn’t further convincing me of his epic love for Abby, it’s just convincing me that he’s a complete moron.

Travis leaves, and Cami worries that Trenton has been talking about her and that rumours will get back to T.J. about them! I worry that there are still 28 pages left in this chapter, and I have already written over 1000 words. Thank god for bullet points!

At work the next day at the tattoo parlour, Cami and Trent bantor.

“Chamomile!” he said. He was holding a bowl full of plastic fruit.

“Oh, please don’t. It wasn’t funny in middle school, and it’s definitely not funny now.”

Trenton shrugged. “I liked it.”

“You didn’t even know who I was in middle school.”

He frowned. “Says who?”

I made a show of looking around. “You didn’t speak to me until I grew tits.”

Hazel cackled. “Work has been so much more entertaining since she was hired!”

I can’t even begin to imagine how boring work must have been if this was the case.

Trent seems really butt hurt that Cami thinks he didn’t know who she was or talk to her. Again, not buying this whole secretly-pining-from-afar for all these years when out of the blue he finally works up the courage to talk to her at the bar where she works that he always goes to?

Some girls come in, and I only mention it because of this important detail:

The door chimed, and a group of four girls walked in: all blond, all tan, and all showcasing their double-D-cup breasts in tight shirts that were in various shades of pink.

This gives us some much needed insight into Jamie McGuire’s frame of reference for breasts. D-cups = small, but double-D-cup, now we’re talking! 

Here’s how the rest of the chapter plays out in bullet-point form!

• Trenton really wants to watch Spaceballs with Cami. McGuire continues to get paid handsomely every time she mentions this fucking movie.
• Hazel’s sister shows up, and for some reason we get this massive backstory about how she was adopted and so were all her siblings, and they’re all super close. I really don’t know why we learn this.
• Cal continues to wander in to ask if Bishop has ever come in. I’m starting to believer Bishop is the Megumi of this series, and we’ll find out he’s been kidnapped or something.
• Trent and Hazel convince Cami to get a tattoo. Trent calls Cami baby doll in this scene…so she decides to get that tattooed on her fingers. I know whenever people call me by a generic, demeaning term I immediately feel the need to get it tattooed so I can recall those warm feelings whenever I’m feeling low. What a satisfying origin story for Cami’s only defining features from her appearance in Walking Disaster. 
• “He’ll make it beautiful, won’t you?” I asked.
  Trenton turned on the machine, and then looked at me with a soft expression. “You’re already beautiful.”This would be sweet if Cami had said, “He’ll make me beautiful, won’t you?” Like it’s all very sweet that I’m already beautiful, but are you going to make the fucking tattoo beautiful?
• After getting her tattoo, Cami is contacted by one of her brothers to come to family dinner, so she has to leave work immediately. Because family dinner.
• Trent invites himself to dinner which makes no fucking sense.
• “You need at least one person at that table on your side, and that’s going to be me.”
  How could I argue with that?”Here is how you could argue with that: “No, Trent, this is private family business. Having you there on my side makes no sense and is totally invasive given you’ve never even met these people before.”
• Trent promises he won’t punch anyone. Let’s see if he can live up to that!

Are you guys buying this sudden push to convince us Trent has always been in love with Cami, or do you think that was thrown in as an afterthought to try to make this feel even more epically romantic?

Chapter 8

Trenton is joining Cami for her family dinner, because the best way to support a friend during a dysfunctional family gathering is to invite yourself to it. Cami’s dad provides an unintentionally on-point summary of the scene:

“Who the fuck is this jackass?” Dad said.

This would seemingly make Cami’s dad our immediate new favorite character, but he very quickly becomes a rude, abusive character who’s so over-the-top, it’s amazing he isn’t cracking a whip and twirling a handlebar mustache. Remember all I’ve been saying recently about unlikeable characters, and that the characters are unlikeable isn’t what makes these books “bad”, but the shallow, ridiculous, and cliched ways they’re unlikeable are?

“Pass the salt,” Dad said, […] “Damn it, Susan. You never put in enough salt. How many times have I told you?”
“You can add the salt, Dad,” Clark said. “This way it’s not too salty for the rest of us.”
“Too salty? This is my goddamn house. She’s my wife! She cooks for me! She cooks the way I like it, not the way you like it!”
“Don’t rile yourself up, honey,” Mom said.
Dad slammed the side of his fist on the table. “I’m not riled up!”

Now, I’m not doubting that this couldn’t conceivably be the controlling and childish behavior of an abusive man. Some asshole in the history of time has probably yelled at his family for something as stupid as food not being salty enough, even if the inherent ridiculousness of it compromises the versimilitude somewhat. But then

“For fuck’s sake, Susan, you didn’t even know [Trenton’s mom],” Dad chided. “Why does everyone who dies have to turn into a goddamn saint?”
“She was pretty close,” Trenton said.
Dad looked up, unappreciative of Trenton’s tone. “And how would you know? Weren’t you a toddler when she died?”

In case the dialogue doesn’t speak for itself for some reason (maybe you skimmed it, or are eating a distractingly-delicious burrito), Cami’s dad is insulting a stranger’s dead mother he (presumably) didn’t know either to his face. This character is too ridiculous to take seriously. That complete lack of dimension makes Cami’s dad a little less nuanced and relatable and a little more, say…

Basically the kind of subtlety we’re dealing with here.

Yet somehow, the most telling example of what’s wrong with this book may be the one start kicks off the meal:

“All right, all right,” Dad said. “Sit down so we can get to eat already.”
Trenton’s eye twitched.

Why the hell is Trenton here? Remember that time Trenton threatened to physically assault a man who was being a jerk to his son, and we were expected to believe this magically solved all their problems even though (as Ariel rather perfectly broke it down) it was really endlessly disturbing? It’s the same bullshit here! Is the promise of Trenton’s magical fists supposed to make Cami’s dysfunctional family life better? Are we supposed to believe that the possibility of violence from someone with no previous experience with this family is going to solve their problems? Because this is about as immature a way to handle a story about an abusive husband/father as going into a rage over salty food is.

By this point you might be wondering if this chapter can get worse.

It can always get worse.

How about Cami decides that she’s going to hide her new finger tattoos from her dad? Forever? Somehow?

“What the hell is all that on your fingers?” Dad asked me.
“Uh…” I held up my hands for a moment, trying to think of a lie.

How about Cami’s brother inexplicably starting shit he has no conceivable motivation for?

“Didn’t you say you were working a second job?” Chase asked.
I pressed my palms flat against the table. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

And don’t forget we still have Cami’s dad’s increasingly all-fucking-over-the-place rants through all this like Jamie McGuire is getting paid per terrible father cliche.

“What? You can’t pay your bills? You said that bartending job makes you a month’s work in one weekend! […] So you’re spending more than you’re making? What did I tell you about being responsible? Damn it, Camille! How many times have I told you not to get the credit cards? […] I didn’t whip your ass enough as a child!”

And most nonsensical of all, Cami’s utterly inscrutable motivation for covering up for Coby:

“My parents have always treated Coby like he could do no wrong. […] Someone needed to take the blame for it.”
It was quiet for a few moments, and then Trenton grumbled, “Coby sounds like a good candidate.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I just need one of us to think they’re good parents.”

Like anyone who actually read this fucking chapter would believe that for a second.

“What?” Coby said, his voice raised an octave. “No, dad, what the fuck?”
“You’re on that shit again, and your sister is paying your bills? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

This is what this book is doing right now:

PRO WRITING TIP: Don’t do this.

Anyway, remember that thing I was saying earlier about how the only reason Trenton is here is because we’re supposed to believe (lots of “supposed to believe” in this chapter) that his comforting, violent presence is going to make everything better?

“I’m paying Coby back.” [I lied.]
Dad took a step toward me. “You couldn’t say anything until now? Let your brother take the blame for your irresponsibility?” He took another step. Trenton turned his entire torso toward my dad, shielding me.
“I think you need to sit down, sir,” Trenton said.
Dad’s face morphed from anger to rage, and Coby and Clark held onto him. “Did you just tell me to sit down in my own fucking house?”

What’s weird is that in any other book, I might have liked this part of the scene, because things are coming to a head. Of course, they’re coming to a head after we were introduced to them a dozen pages ago, and with characters with motives that are either absent, contradict other information in the narrative, or… whatever Trenton’s problem is.

“When were you going to tell us that you were mooching off your brother, Camille?” […]
Having Trenton beside me made me feel a surge in confidence I’d never felt around my father. “When I thought you would behave like a mature adult about it.”

Cami storms out, ignoring her dad yelling at her. Trenton drives her home, and shortly afterwards Coby shows us, sobbing and apologizing to Cami. We also learn that Trenton is planning on saving money so he can move out and get a place of his own, because Trenton’s in this scene too.

Amidst the obligatory “Coby asks what’s going on with Cami and Trenton” dialogue, we get maybe the first moment in this book about human emotions that feels like a human emotion.

“You’re going to stay here?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Coby said. “If that’s okay. […] I’m not staying long. Just maybe until Dad goes to sleep.”
“Okay. Call me tomorrow.”
“Cami?”
“Yeah?” I said […]
“I love you.”

Cami goes to work, where we get caught up on the Raegan+Kody drama. Remember Kody is not Coby. That will help you a lot.

“We’re sort of… on a break. […]”
“Then where were you all day?”
“I stopped by Sig Tau. Just for a few hours before work.”
“Sig Tau?” It took my brain a little bit to catch up. [“Brazil] called you, didn’t he?”
Raegan grimaced. “I’m not talking about this here.”

Then why did she bring it up?

As the scene continues, Cami pours a pitcher of beer on Brazil, and Cami and Raegan have a fight where they accuse each other of being “a heartless bitch”. Weirdly, even this ends with one of the only subplots that sparked a hint of genuine interest for me.

Raegan looked up at me, her eyes red and puffy. “Have you ever loved two people at the same time?” she asked.

Even if we have no idea where it’s coming from. Aside from setting up an ironic punchline.

I held out my hand. “If I ever try, slap me, okay?”

Question of the day! Who do you think Trenton will beat up to solve Cami’s problems next?

Happy Thanksgiving from Bad Books, Good Times! For those of you not in the know, “Thanksgiving” is a holiday in which Americans eat too much food. This might sound less like a holiday and more like just America in general, but it’s a thing we set aside time for to do with family, specifically.

We’re taking the rest of the week off for the holiday, but here’s some pictures of Ariel and me not on opposite sides of the ocean! We got a chance to meet up and play around with an Oculus Rift developer kit with her family and boyfriend.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out that BBGT is one of the first places you saw the inevitably trendy “messing with people wearing Oculus Rift” pictures.

Even Ariel's dad

I’d also like to take this opportunity to say that we’re thankful for these stupid books we read, and for all our readers who read about us reading them. Happy Thanksgiving! See you next week!

The nicest thing I can say about this chapter is that it’s really short, which is a gift from the merciful heavens after just travelling back from America to the UK. United Airlines didn’t even have the nerve to give us good entertainment options unless you paid hundreds of dollars more. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic even give the commoners travelling in economy awesome options.

But, book. Right. Travis went to Cami’s awful family dinner last week, which as ridiculous and cringe-worthy as we all expected it to be.

Chapter 9

The reason the nicest thing I can say about this chapter is about its length is because its sole purpose is to appeal to the real people that exist in this world who missed Trabby and Shamerica. I can’t even write that without being immediately filled with doubt and skepticism.

For those of you who were with us when we covered Beautiful/Walking Disaster, this is still is not the scene where Travis had a heart-to-heart with Cami, but it is the time where Abby meets Ethan who turns out to be a Generic Sexual Predator. And when Travis sexy dances with Megan. Trying to figure out where this fit into the timeline of those books and dig up those posts took like 20 minutes, so I hope you appreciate my effort. I just couldn’t figure out the answer to the timeless question, which came first the threesome or the heart-to-heart with a random bartender?

So the really important thing to get from that, is that in those books, Cami never even makes an appearance or gets a mention from what I can tell by reading over those posts. [Matthew says: Cami has one heart-to-heart with scene with Travis in the second half of Walking Disaster, and then is mentioned in a brief, 100-word scene where Travis and Trenton complain. These are the cross-references that the Beautiful world-building comes from. It’s like Discworld, but for idiots.] So all Cami has to do in the chapter of her own fucking book is to watch a scene we’ve already read from two different perspectives play out. Would this maybe be interesting if we learned something new? Sure, if it was a more interesting series, but since these are the Disaster books we’re talking about, we learn nothing new at all. [Matthew says: It must be nice to have a fanservice bar so low you can just say “Look, it’s Abby”.]

But hey, maybe you’re really interested to know what Cami thinks of Abby without really interacting with her at all, because how fascinating is that?

America and her friend returned, smiling and sweaty. The Freshman was a knockout, I’d give Travis that. She had that something special that one might expect from the girl who finally caught Travis Maddox’s attention, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. There was a certain confidence in her eyes. She knew something that no one else knew.

Seriously, nobody can even bother to share a line of dialogue with Cami. In her own book!

Travis looked over his shoulder to see who America was talking about, and then turned back, chugging his beer. He lit a cigarette and puffed out a cloud of smoke. He looked at me and held up two fingers. […]
By the time Marty had finished his shot, Travis had already pissed her off, and she was storming away from him, toward the bar.
She offered me a half smile, and held up one finger. I pulled her a beer, popped the cap, and set it in front of her.

It sure does change everything I thought I knew about this pivotal scene knowing Cami was there all along. I simply must go re-read those books in order to really take advantage of this new, rich layer of understanding.

Megan, Travis’s tried-and-true Plan B, appeared next to him. “Well, if it isn’t Travis Maddox.”
Megan didn’t cause a lot of drama, but she wasn’t my favorite. In addition to Travis, she had a few other guys that she liked to chase around. But never when they wanted her, and never when they were single. She liked the challenge of taking a man away from his girlfriend…

She doesn’t cause drama…but she only pursues men who have girlfriends? That’s like saying someone doesn’t eat unhealthy food but they almost exclusively eat at Chicken Joes. [Matthew says: That’s like saying someone isn’t an asshole, but they are a sexist. Which actually happened in this book.]

While Travis is dancing with Megan, Ethan of course swoops in to hit on Abby. Raegan and Cami worry about the situation and are about to step in and change the course of Beautiful/Walking Disaster history, but Travis shows up to fulfill his destiny as Abby’s protector. [Matthew says: Thus ensuring the character who got their own spin-off book continues to not be in the original story.]

I’m not going to bother summarising the rest of a scene that you’ve already fucking read twice. I’ll skip ahead a little to where Trenton shows up to remind us that this isn’t actually the Trabby show all over again. Just kidding! They’re just going to discuss Trabby.

“Trenton took a sip, and then sat the glass down, looking around. “I saw Travis yelling at some chick in the parking lot.”
“Oh? How did that turn out?”
“She yelled back. I don’t know who she is, but I kind of like her.”
“Me, too.”

Ohh I get it, if you just talk back to a Maddox brother, that’s all it takes to prove they’re the right gal to tame that wild man. It also is the basis to like someone you’ve never even spoken to and have only seen get angry at someone you know. [Matthew says: Continuing the novel’s proud tradition of people liking each other for no clear reason.]

Trenton ends the conversation pretty quickly, and goes to flirt with other people. Cami feels weird inside, but…but she couldn’t possibly have feelings for the person she obviously has feelings for!

“What’s up with you? You had a look on your face when he walked away. Did he say something?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“I’m your best friend. I probably already know.”
“It’s hard to explain . . . I . . . just got this bizarre, sad feeling. Like Trent and I aren’t friends anymore.”
“Maybe it’s because you know that he finally believes you’re just friends.”

They can’t possibly believe this, right? Cami even mentions right before this that just a few weeks ago, Trenton only came to have drinks with his brothers or find someone to take home. It’s really hard to feel sad for a friendship or blossoming romance that may be falling apart when the people in question have hung out like three times.

The one thing that is kind of odd, though, is that Cami let Trent see her crazy family and they seemed to genuinely connect over it after, so I find it odd that she doesn’t even mention that happened. If she had been like, “But we went to Chicken Joes together!” I would have been like, “Meh.” But the family thing seems important enough to mention here.

Trent leaves with someone, and Cami feels sad. Because friendship, of course.

What scene from Walking/Beautiful Disaster would you guys want to see from Cami’s perspective? Or what scene do you desperately hope we don’t see?

Chapter 10

Today’s chapter of Beautiful Oblivion heavily features Olive, because the “cute” child character which always proves to be a well-received addition to popular franchises was definitely a good call for Jamie McGuire’s “edgy” erotica-lite romance novels. [Ariel says: McGuire quickly realized that the only flaw Beautiful/Walking Disaster had was the lack of a child character. See how she learns from her mistakes!] 

I looked down […] “Oh, hi, Olive. Sorry, I didn’t see you down there,” I said, unable to stop frowning, even for her.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Twent says I’m showt.”

Oh god, I already want this chapter to be over.

UGHHHH

Actually, no. I’m not done yet. How does this even make sense? She isn’t small because she’s “short”, she’s a fucking toddler. Being short is like a yet-to-be-existing condition.

And you know what else? Olive is worse than your bog standard “WHAT A CUTE KID LOOK AT THE CUTE KID” irritations. You know how we keep criticizing McGuire’s Disaster/Beautiful/Maddox Brother/whatever the hell she’s calling it these days novels because every character in these books is exactly the same? How all the characters are interchangeably self-involved, manipulative, and grating (albeit unintentionally)? You know what’s really weird? When you realize Jamie McGuire even writes children like this.

“I wanted to come see you,” she said matter-of-factly. [“But Trenton] said you wouldn’t like it?”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, so I said pweety, pweety, pwease? And he said okay.”

No, seriously. Get rid of her “adorable” speech impediment, and she’s every other “it’s funny because she’s snarky!” supporting female character.

“What are we doing, Cami?” [Trenton] asked. “What is this?”
“We’re friends! I’ve told you that already!”
“Bullshit!”
Olive’s finger hovered over the top of the love seat. “You have to put a nickow in my jawr.”

[Ariel says: I know this can be a personal preference, but I really hate when authors feel the need to be super fucking phonetic as though I couldn’t possibly imagine what a child sounds like without spelling jar like “jawr.” Otherwise, I might have imagined Olive as a thirty year old woman for all we know!]

Cami refuses to let Trent manipulate her into hanging out with a child this time, which is good, but she does it by letting Olive in, forcing Trenton to stay outside, and going back to sleep. Which is less good, as our other snarky supporting lady snarkily points out to our snarky leading lady, who is snarky about it.

“That little girl is watching cartoons in our living room!” She whispered, clearly uneasy.
“I know.” […]
“Where’s Trent?”
“Outside, I think,” I said […]
“He’s sitting on the ground outside our window, playing Flappy Bird on his cell phone.”
I nodded.
“It’s thirty-three degrees outside.”
“Good,” I said, sitting up. “I wish it were sleeting.”
Raegan’s face screwed into disgust. “He waved at me like it was the most normal thing in the world. What the hell is going on?”

[Ariel says: Was Flappy Bird even out when this story is meant to take place? Just because the book was written later, doesn’t mean the timeline changed. Also, remember how hip-to-the-max-cool-yo McGuire is, guys! Her references are off da hook.]

“What the hell is going on?” actually doubles as a surprisingly on-point summary of the plot up to this point, because Cami and Trent are both in the wrong in such a myriad of ways I’m not sure what conflict or resolution to even anticipate here. Of course, that’s not important, because the only important one is whether these crazy kids will get together. Phew! For a second I was worried that it’d be a problem that I wasn’t thinking about what I was reading.

“You’re mad at me. […] Is it because I went home with that girl last night?”
I still didn’t answer.
“I didn’t bag her.”

Oh good. “Bagging” is another way that Trenton is an absolutely identical character to Travis. I was worried it wouldn’t be.

Because there just isn’t enough time in the day to appreciate this, Jamie McGuire’s sexiest men imaginable use the same slang that 13-year-old Halo players do. Ladies…

“What is your deal? You tell me five times a day that we’re friends, and now you’re jealous of some girl I flirted with for two seconds.” […]
“As your friend, I can’t be concerned about your STD status?”
“What’s an ust edie?” Olive asked

What the hell kind of speech impediment does Olive have?

Somehow this all gets resolved with a hilarious joke about how Trenton used to eat glue as a child.

“So you… didn’t go home with her?”
“Where was I going to take her? My dad’s?” […]
“You’ve done less intelligent things.”
“Like what?”
“Like eat glue!”
Trenton tucked his chin and looked away, clearly disgusted, and maybe a little bit embarrassed. “I never ate glue.”

Yeah, I bet you thought I was making that up, but no, this book is actually that irreverent.

This somehow solves all their problems (why not), Cami falling asleep on Trent’s shoulder on the couch (why not), and being woken up by Raegan and Brazil, who are cuddling on the other couch (why?).

Brazil smiled. “I didn’t know you were dating the bartender, [Trenton]. Kyle and Brad will be disappointed.”
I frowned at him. I didn’t even know who Kyle and Brad were.

Cami just experienced what it’s like reading her own story. [Ariel says: In my notes I wrote, “Join the club.” Seriously, who the fuck are these people!]

In what is amusingly somehow a recurring theme this chapter, a supporting character doesn’t understand why the plot is happening.

“Is she your baby cousin or something?” Brazil asked. “Why is she with you all the time?”

Ready for this bullshit?

Trenton shrugged. “She had an older brother. He would have been fourteen today. She worshipped him. He was hit by a car on his bike a few months before they moved next door. Olive sat next to him while he took his last breath. I’m just trying to fill the shoes.”

These are good intentions, certainly, but this feels sort of… off? It’s similar to when Stevie Rae died in House of Night and Zoey comforted her parents by saying that she was their daughter now (roughly actually what happened – remember that? [Ariel says: Actually, I think it was even weirder than that and Stevie Rae was the one who told Zoey she had to be their daughter…so I’m just thankful Olive’s brother didn’t whisper to Trent, with his dying breath, “Now you have to be her brother.” We need to be grateful that didn’t happen.]), but I think the really weird part of this is how a little girl sitting by her dying older brother is somehow supposed to be unusually touching. Like, “She loved her brother so much, she cared when he died! Anyway, good thing I can replace him.”

Brazil continues to fill the reader with faith in the unlimited capacity of human compassion.

“That’s rough, man, but… and I mean no offense… but, you’re a Maddox. […] I know you’re a good guy [footage not found], but you’re a tatted-up, whiskey-drinking, foul-mouthed hothead [Ariel says: footage completely found]. […] Why is she your responsibility?” Brazil said. “I don’t get it.”

Strange he didn’t mention anything about the sexual assault.

Just before this chapter passes with absolutely nothing notable happening, Trenton and Cami have their first, interrupted almost-kiss.

“[Olive’s] pretty great,” he said, smiling.
“You’re pretty great,” I said. […]
We stared a quiet moment, just watching each other and smiling, and then a familiar feeling came over me, a tingling in my gut, and a warmth on my lips. I focused on his mouth, and he took a step toward me. […] The toilet flushed, and we both pulled away. […] As the anticipation of what we were about to do melted away, and overwhelming awkwardness replaced it.
Olive stood in the hallway, staring at us.

They go grocery shopping, where Cami thinks about how nice it is just spending time with someone doing simple, domestic tasks together, finally ending this chapter. But before that happens, here’s the book not correctly identifying its gross misogyny again!

“You always drive.” [I said.] “I’ll drive this time.” […]
Trenton shook his head. “I… have a thing. About riding with girls.”
“Is that because of Mackenzie, or is that a sexist remark?”
“Since the accident.”

Beautiful Oblivion: where genuine tragedy somehow turns into justifiable misogyny

Question of the day: Did any of you guys do Black Friday? Got any good stories?

When we left off, Tris finally stabbed Eric – yay! But he wasn’t dead – boo!

Chapter 17

Tobias tells Tris exactly how it is that he and the “loyal Dauntless” showed up out of nowhere to save the day. Apparently, Will’s older sister who was still with Erudite helped a lot of Dauntless escape and then come back to swarm the evil!Dauntless.

“The Dauntless traitors were not prepared for that much resistance.

They thought everyone but the Divergent was unconscious, so they ran.

The Erudite woman was Cara. Will’s older sister.”

Notice how when I told you the Erudite woman was Will’s older sister, I didn’t make a big deal out of it at all. For some reason, the book seems to present it as a big surprise that a character I didn’t really care about who is dead has an older sister I didn’t know about who helped some characters out off-screen. [Matthew says: I feel like every time this book is telling us any mildly unexpected piece of information, it has to be told in a stream of sentences composed of no more than five words each.]

Tris takes off her jacket and finds that something has been injected in her arm, and in a surprisingly well-written moment, she has to remove it.

Gritting my teeth, I wedge the flat of my knife blade under the disc and force it up. I scream into my teeth as the pain races through me, making everything go black for a moment. But I keep pushing, as hard as I can, until the disc lifts from my skin enough for me to get my fingers around it. Attached to the bottom of the disc is a needle.

I gag, grasp the disc in my fingertips, and pull one last time. This time, the needle comes free. It’s as long as my littlest finger and smeared with my blood. I ignore the blood running down my arm and hold the disc and the needle up to the light above the sink.

Uriah shows up, and he tells Tris that Eric is being interrogated since he survived the attack. I’m sure he won’t escape and continue to be a threat! [Matthew says: Like Peter, who escaped and totally won’t come back! And Marcus, who escaped and totally won’t – oh, wait, he’s come back already? Oh. So just those other two characters, then.] Uriah and Tris continue to understand the plot about as much as we do.

“Yeah. Anyway, no one gets it,” he says, perching on the edge of the sink next to mine. “Why storm in here and fire those things at us and then knock us all out? Why not just kill us?” […]
“I don’t get why they have it out for us. I mean, when they were trying to mind control themselves an army, sure, but now? Seems useless.” I frown as I press a clean paper towel to my shoulder, to stop the bleeding. He’s right. Jeanine already has an army. So why kill the Divergent now?” […]
“She must be planning another simulation,” I say. “Same thing as before, but this time, she wants to make sure that everyone is either under its influence or dead.”
“But the simulation only lasts for a certain period of time,” he says.
“It’s not useful unless you’re trying to accomplish something specific.”
“Right.” I sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t get it.” I pick up the needle. “I don’t get what this thing is either. If it was like the other simulation-inducing injections, it was just meant for one use. So why shoot these things at us just to put us unconscious? It doesn’t make any sense.”

No, Tris, no it doesn’t. Thank you for understanding and for also tediously relaying all of that information to us for the millionth time. [Matthew says: I’m waiting for something to finally happen in Insurgent that a character does think makes sense, because maybe then I’ll think it makes sense too.]

Tris spends the night removing the needle/discs from people’s arms, but finds that about 70 Dauntless never had one implanted (including Christina). I feel like it might wind up being important, so I thought I’d mention it.

Caleb shows up to inform Tris that Marcus and Peter both survived the attack on Amity. Whew, it’s always a relief to find your two most cherished characters are doing okay. In fact, Peter is so okay he’s gone to Erudite, and Marcus has come to the Candor compound.

For some reason, this causes everyone to pick on Fourbias.

“Oh, look! It’s Tobias Eaton!”
I had almost forgotten about the interrogation, and the name it revealed to all of Dauntless.
Another one yells, “I saw your daddy here earlier, Eaton! Are you gonna go hide?”

I…what? Four confessed how abusive his father was and how he felt like a coward for leaving his faction behind because of him, but I never expected people to be shitty about that. What next? “Hahah, you thought your mother was dead, but then she wasn’t! Oh my God, it’s all so hilarious! What next? Someone close to you gets cancer and really dies? The hilarity!”

Tris and Four awkwardly try to ask if the other is okay, but get prickly about it. I’m over their drama. Luckily, once they’re alone, Tris talks to Four about simulations because what else are they going to talk about?

But first, something else:

“I want to talk about simulations,” I say. “But first, something else—your mother thought Jeanine would go after the factionless next. Obviously she was wrong—and I’m not sure why. It’s not like the Candor are battle ready or anything—”
“Well, think about it,” he says. “Think it through, like the Erudite.” I give him a look.
“What?” he says. “If you can’t, the rest of us have no hope.”

Right, okay, so that means it has to be this like super intricate, clever plan that no non-Divergent could ever think of -

“Fine,” I say. “Um … it had to be because Dauntless and Candor were the most logical targets. Because … the factionless are in multiple places, whereas we’re all in the same place.”

You really mean to tell me that if Tris couldn’t figure that out, no one could have? I can totally buy that the Erudite might be more technologically advanced, but if this is how low their bar for superior logic and intelligence is, they don’t even need to rely on serums to take control of the factions. [Matthew says: Well, remember how an actual plot point of the last book was that a 17-year-old with no formal scientific education walked in and caught himself up on groundbreaking new research in development? Yeah… these books are really dumb.]

Tris and Four then discuss the inner-workings of the transmitters and serums because discussing the completely unbelievable, unrealistic serums in-depth is definitely, totally not going to flood me with more disbelief and confusion than I previously thought possible.

“All right. Then tell me about the serum again,” I say. “It has a few parts, right?”
“Two,” he says, nodding.

I was worried for a second they might make some sort of joke like, “Maybe we should give this serum a numerical nickname based on some arbitrary fact about it.” We sure dodged a bullet there!

“The transmitter and the liquid that induces the simulation. The transmitter communicates information to the brain from the computer, and vice versa, and the liquid alters the brain to put it in a simulation state.”
I nod. “And the transmitter only works for one simulation, right? What happens to it after that?”
“It dissolves,” he says. “As far as I know, the Erudite haven’t been able to develop a transmitter that lasts for more than one simulation, although the attack simulation lasted far longer than any simulation I’ve seen before.”

Tris quickly realizes that the Erudite must have figured out how to make multiple simulations at once and that’s why they’ve injected them with this new thing!

I’m confused, though, by what even counts as a separate simulation? They already have the technology to move through “fear landscapes” and have to run through multiple scenarios in order to determine what faction they belong in? So would these multiple simulations mean like first they go murder a bunch of people and then do the dishes? I really don’t get it. [Matthew says: I guess “separate simulation” means that new transmitters have to be injected each time they go into a simulation, but the fact that we’re even confused about how this process works to the point where new-ish information about it has to be explained to us DURING a plot twist about how that very information isn’t applicable anymore… these books are dumb…]

Somehow it comes up that Four knew Uriah was Divergent, and for a minute she’s mad Four didn’t tell her, but then she’s not because it was private. I am really surprised, though, that Four didn’t mention it when it was clear that anyone who wasn’t Divergent wasn’t under the simulation that made Dauntless attack everyone. If I were him, I would have immediately been like, “We need to find everyone I know can help us. Like your friend Uriah.” But DRAMA AND REVELATIONS, I suppose.

Four scolds Tris for putting herself at risk, which would be a fine sentiment if he didn’t sound so goddamn patronising as usual when he does it. However, it leads to one sweet line from him, and a nice introspection on Tris’ part:

“I just don’t want to lose you.”
We stand there for a few minutes. I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that he might be right. There is a part of me that wants to be lost, that struggles to join my parents and Will so that I don’t have to ache for them anymore. A part of me that wants to see whatever comes next.

Okay, I totally believe that bit about longing to be with her parents on some level – but she did abandon them to be in a different faction and expect to never see them again. But, okay, things have changed. Will, though, I don’t buy. Sure, she could be plagued with guilt still, but longing to be with him is a major stretch. [Matthew says: I like how as Insurgent goes on, this series is more and more desperate to try convincing us that Tris has this weird death wish out of nowhere.]

The chapter really, really should have ended with this, but instead there’s a really stupid scene with Tris hanging out with Caleb and her Dauntless friends…fuck summarising that, seriously. Here, actually, this sums it up:

Then, despite the clatter of forks and the roar of hundreds of conversations all around me, I rest my head on the table and fall asleep.

Not even Tris can stay away for this crap.

Super important question, who out there has watched that crazy Adult Swim video Too Many Cooks? I can’t get the song out of my head or stop laughing about the theme song lyrics. [Matthew says: I watched it for the first time last week at 3am on a work night, because I make good life decisions.]

As of late I’ve picked up guided meditation, using an app called Headpace. It’s pretty solid and I like it a lot, although there was this pretty unintentionally hilarious tweet last weekend.

Haha, but not like in the book! Because Divergent hates #science.

Chapter 18

To summarize what’s going on in Insurgent (which is surprisingly difficult, because so little has happened), the Erudite and Dauntless traitors are slowly progressing their capitalist revolution, while Hufflepuff and Other Hufflepuff don’t do anything because they don’t get how this is relevant to them.

If you’re getting sick of all the Hufflepuff jokes I’ve been making, just imagine how sick I am of this book.

Case in point, this chapter is about Jack Kang, leader of Candor, establishing the official Candor position “let’s make peace with these people who have suddenly commited one genocide-like act after another, which is in no way relevant to us”. Also, Marcus is revealed to be Divergent, because why the fuck not.

“What seems to me to require more investigation [is] the Divergent. […] If you are one of the Divergent, please step forward so that we can hear from you. […] You, Marcus?” says Jack.
“Yes,” Marcus says. “I understand that you are [all] concerned. You had never heard of the Divergent a week ago, and now all that you know is that they are immune to something to which you are susceptible […]”
“It seems clear to me,” says Jack, “that we were attacked so that the Erudite could find the Divergent. Do you know why that is?”
“No, I do not,” syas Marcus. “Perhaps their intention was merely to identify us.”

Truthfully, finding that Marcus is Divergent is a good twist. Of course, it would be a better twist if this book series – which is called Divergent - had ever made it particularly clear what Divergence actually is. What if there were another twist that Marcus is lying? That he’s actually an Erudite spy? How would this actually look any different, technically? Hell, he could be Divergent and be an Erudite spy. The factions in this book are somehow simultaneously political, genetic, not-political, and a personal choice. A personal choice about your genetics that influence your politics. How does anyone think these books make any sense?

Tris argues with Marcus and Jack, pointing out that the Erudite intention is more on the “They’ve been killing us since before any of this happened” side, but Jack points out they don’t have any proof. Jack then points out that during yesterday’s invasion, “the Dauntless soldiers did not give any evidence of wanting to harm the majority of us”, which is enough for him to decide the best course of action is to pursue a peace treaty with the Erudite and Dauntless traitors.

“Their peaceful invasion suggest to me that it may be possible to negotiate a peace treaty […] So I will arrange a meeting with Jeanine Matthews […]”
“Their invasion wasn’t peaceful,” I say […] “Just because they didn’t shoot you all in the head doesn’t mean their intentions were somehow honorable?” […]
“While I am concerned for [Divergent’s] safety, I don’t think we can attack them just because they wanted to kill a fraction of our population.”

This would be the single worst speech given by a real political leader in the history of time.

Like this, but if Canada were also trying to kill that 47%

On top of being weirdly blase for a political leader about his people being systematically murdered because it’s just some of his people, Jack also dismisses Tris and Four’s explanation about the new long-term transmitters and permanent simulations. To be fair, Tris and Four have zero evidence for this, but given that his entire population has been injected with something, amusement is a weird way to react?

“Killing you is not the worst thing they can do to you,” I say. “Controlling you is.”
Jack’s lips curl with amusement. Amusement. “Oh? And how will they manage to do that? […] I can’t launch an attack based on a little girl’s speculations.”

Tris gets pissed off that Jack called her a little girl, and all the Dauntless get pissed off too, to which Jack’s response is “nyeh I’m not helping you nyeh”. More or less.

Chapter 19

Remember Zeke (Uriah’s older brother) and Tori, who were apparently Dauntless traitors? Turns out they were Dauntless spies. They show up at Candor base, Tori needing medical attention after they got found out. Zeke explains they wound up amongst traitors after the simulation, fortuitously allowing them to be spies, and we find out that Zeke has been getting Erudite defectors out safely (interesting!), while Tori has been doing something more secret. Which is cool, because it’s not like we know anything that’s going on in this book yet anyway. Unsurprisingly for a story about people who purposefully split themselves into arbitrary hyper-loyal cliques, most of Tris’s gang are skeptical that any of the Erudite defectors are genuine.

After this, Tris conveniently overhears Cara (Will’s older sister, an Erudite defector) consoling Christina about Tris shooting Will, which alternates between unfortunate, war is hell reason…

“That girl was probably scared out of her mind”

And surprisingly good advice for helping Christina deal…

“You don’t have to forgive her, but you should try to understand that what she did was not out of malice; it was out of panic.”

And, uh, cattiness?

“That way, you can look at her without wanting to punch her in her exceptionally long nose.”

War is hell?

Meanwhile, Four gets secret info about Jack’s upcoming peace meeting the next morning, which he discovers is with an Erudite representative, not Jeanine.

“If you were Erudite, what would you say at this meeting?”
They all look at me. Expectantly.
“What?” I say.
“You’re Divergent,” Zeke replies.
“So is Tobias.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t have aptitude for Erudite.”

Tris is special even amongst the specials.

Marlene unintenionally summarizes everything that’s wrong with these books.

“But we don’t have special Divergent brains!”

Shauna unintentionally complains about how the book conflates political affiliation and genetic predisposition into a single focal point we’re supposed to take seriously.

“I know I belong in Dauntless because everything I did in that aptitude test told me so. I’m loyal to my faction for that reason – because there’s nowhere else I could possibly be. But [Tris]? And [Tobias]?” She shakes her head. “I have no idea who you’re loyal to.”

So you guys get that it was a Fight Club joke now, right?

Of course, Tris uses her special Divergent brain to conclude that Jack has nothing to negotiate with, except the Divergent and the rest of the Dauntless.

Question of the day! Ariel and I were playing a game last weekend called Loaded Questions, which is like a game that asks, uh, loaded questions, and you guess who wrote each response. One of the questions we got that I’d definitely like to gather more responses for was, “What is a word that sounds dirty, but isn’t?” We said voluptuous, homunculus, and cockamamie. What about you guys?

Chapter 11

After hanging out with Olive and Trent, Cami heads to her job at the Red where she is immediately greeted by our favourite character Blia, who can always be counted on for her Blia-isms, which usually are about holy balls or shit of some variety.

“Holy flippindip!” Blia said, rubbing her hands together as she passed by. “It’s colder than a frog’s ass in January!”

There’s our girl. But what the fuck is up with that “frog’s ass in January” thing. That can’t possibly be an actual phrase.

So no, it’s Jamie McGuire’s weird attempt at a hilarious hillbilly colloquialism. I definitely think she works with the Casts to create characters like Stevie Rae and Blia. Like, I’m almost positive there’s an email thread out there between them that is like, “Re: writing 4 hillybilly characters who we adore!11!!” [Matthew says: Modern day Mark Twains, over here.]

[Matthew says: Speaking of Blia-isms, we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t mention that she says “Fuckity squared” in this chapter, because good character writing means that your character simultaneously sounds like a hillbilly and British.]

The staff complain about how nobody is there on account of another super-secret-fight-club-event-that-everyone-always-knows about. [Matthew says: Despite them apparently being popular enough to siphon the ENTIRE clientele from a bar in a college town on a weekend.] Seriously, the PR for these events must be fucking incredible if everyone in the world can simultaneously know about them and yet they remain completely undetected by the cops unless there is some sort of dramatic fire caused by evil, love-hating lanterns. [Matthew says: Speaking of cops, this chapter mentions later that police cruisers are parked outside the bar in anticipation of rowdiness. If this bar is this notoriously bad, why not, I don’t know, crack down on all the underage drinking? Or the fact that literally its entire patronage just came from an illegal fight club?]

Trenton, not at the fight because, “Unlike boyfriend in California” he puts Cami first. [Matthew says: So I guess the boyfriend in California is also at the fight? Thanks to a misplaced modifier, this is canon now.] Thank goodness he’s there when Kody starts giving Cami crap because she didn’t talk sense into Raegan. Which, I do get the instinct to think that the best friend can be the one to talk some sense into a person, but when is that ever really accurate in love? “I was totally going to dump you because I want to be with someone else, but then my best friend reminded me that you’re really nice, so I didn’t. Lucky you!”

Kody, still angry, finds a way to mark the beginning of the book’s non-stop, completely infuriating references to Cami’s Big Secret.

“Yeah, I do. You don’t think the guys at Sig Tau talk, Cami? You don’t think they’re discussing your drama, too? They’re worse than the Cap Sig girls, sitting around gossiping about who’s fucking who. And then it trickles down to me and I have to hear about all of it.”
“My drama?” I glanced around. “I don’t have drama.”
Kody pointed at Trenton. “You’re racing toward it at ninety miles an hour. You shouldn’t mess with that, Cami. They’ve been through enough.”

I want you to remember this, and I want you to remember this really really well. Sig. Fucking. Tau (Travis’ frat) is talking about Cami’s big secret that Trenton-and the less astute reader-doesn’t know until the end of the book. Kody knows the Big Secret. Raegan knows the Big Secret. Let’s keep a tally, because soon it will feel like only 2-3 people do not know this Secret.

Here’s Cami to explain the situation in more confusing terms:

Trenton made a face. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I said. I kept my face smooth, pretending that my heart wasn’t trying to beat through my chest. T.J. and I weren’t exactly a secret, but we didn’t broadcast our relationship. I was the only one from our little town that knew the nature of his job, and it was important to him that we kept it that way. A little bit of knowledge led to questions, and avoiding questions meant keeping secrets. It really hadn’t been that big a deal because we’d never given anyone a reason to talk about us. Until now.

So okay, everyone knows about their relationship, really, because Sig Tau and Kody are gossiping about it. And everyone at the bar presumably knows because T.J. first asked her out there, and they all knew they were dating from Cami talking about it. What the fuck does his job have to do with keeping the relationship a secret? Given Cami tells us the job is an important job relating to statistics/data analysis, what in fuck’s name does any of this mean? If you’re thinking that will make sense once it’s revealed what’s going on, I know the fucking secret already, and I’m telling you, it doesn’t.

Cami tells Kody off because she was rooting for him and he “doesn’t know dick” about her life. Except he totally does, and he’s completely right about the fact that Cami is no better than Raegan.

But now it’s time for Cami’s brothers and cousin to show up. Really not entirely sure what the cousin’s purpose is in the book except to make this clan look somewhat tougher because they have an extra member with a name beginning with the same letter. Striking fear into the hearts of everyone who doesn’t have a name beginning with the letter C! [Matthew says: Except for the only tougher act in town, the Maddox brothers! AKA everyone whose name begins with the letter T.]

Cami’s brothers and cousin try to convince her to start coming back to their miserable family gatherings. They offer timeless, compelling reasons like “We’re family” and… well, actually that’s basically the only reason they can offer. [Matthew says: It’s like The Godfather, but everyone’s a shithead in college.]

“Then why pretend? We’re hanging on by a thread. I’m not even sure what’s keeping us together anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s all we’ve got,” Clark said.”

Cami has school, her own place, two jobs, a boyfriend, friends, an irritating, misogynistic stalker, and even her very own plot!child. Really doesn’t seem like abusive family get-togethers are all she’s got. In fact, it seems like the one thing that’s going to mess up all of the other things.

It’s strongly foreshadowed that Cami’s dad is going to show up to her apartment soon to “set her straight”, which is pretty chilling. But also exciting because her father is hilarious. [Matthew says: PRO WRITING TIP. Try to not make a single thing instil both fear and the giggles in the reader.]

In case the last post I wrote didn’t include enough fanservice for you, this chapter features the classic Cami talks to Travis scene. This features unforgettable moments like,

“Someone’s talking shit on you? Not very smart of them,” I said, watching Travis light a cigarette.
“The pigeon,” he said, crossing his arms over the top of the bar. He leaned, hunched over, looking lost. I watched him for a moment, unsure if he was talking code or already drunk.

It’s amazing how unflattering that nickname still seems even though I thought I’d been desensitised. Like a child playing violent video games who doesn’t bat an eye when someone gets decapitated, I too thought I would no longer roll my eyes deeply into my head when Travis referred to Abby as “pigeon.” How wrong I was.

Cami at least has the decency to be incredibly confused like a normal human being. But, come on, let Travis explain.

“All right, all right,” he said, looking around. He leaned in. “It’s Pigeon.”
“Pigeon? You’re joking.” [Matthew says: This is indeed a huge surprise, since Travis has only ever talked about this one person every time he’s had dialogue in this novel.]
Travis managed a small laugh. “Abby. She’s a pigeon. A demonic pigeon that fucks with my head so bad I can’t think straight. Nothing makes sense anymore, Cam. Every rule I’ve ever made’s getting broken one by one. I’m a pussy. No . . . worse. I’m Shep.”
I laughed. “Be nice.”

[Matthew says: Shep has never once been mentioned in this book. Why is Cami laughing?]

Cami encourages Travis to be a better man for Abby, and Travis says that he’ll never be good enough for her because she’s incredible. But what makes Abby so incredible you ask? Well, it’s the same thing Cami saw in her two chapters ago:

“There’s something in her eyes that’s familiar. Something I can relate to, ya know?”

What is up with both of these characters justifying Abby’s greatness with nothing more than, “There’s something in her eyes.” This would be like arguing that a congressional bill looks excellent, not because of it’s sound policy, but because there’s something special about the font. It’s like, super relatable font.

Also, more importantly, we get our very first mention of plot!puppy. Now that’s the fanservice I’m talkin’ bout.

“I’m going to get her a puppy,” Travis said. At least he was too drunk to stay on the subject of Trenton. “Think Trent will keep him for me?”

Yes, yes I do. And I think we’ll be subjected to plot!puppy being used and cast aside in this book as well. Poor guy can’t catch a break.

Anyway, Travis goes home with the two ladies from his infamous threesome. While Raegan and Cami are simultaneously like, “LOL Travis. Omg hope he doesn’t have the threesome in the same apartment that the girl he’s in love with is staying at!” But of course we already know that’s exactly how that plays out, so, why the fuck is this even in the book?

Question, do you have any guesses about Cami’s big secret?

On that note, my other question for the week is, is anyone watching the new season of The Comeback? If you can handle awkward humor, I highly recommend watching season 1, which was made like 10 years ago, and the new season that’s just coming out now. IT TRULY IS A COMEBACK.

Wanna hear something kind of amazing? My parents offered to split the cost of a much-needed new laptop with me as a Christmas present. After doing some budgeting, I realized that I could pay my half entirely with the money I’ve earned from this blog. Or, as my girlfriend put it:

The question isn’t “Why is she wearing so many hats?”, but rather “How mad is she going to be that that’s the picture I use of her on my phone?”

So, uh, huge thank you to all of our readers! Seriously! Thank you for reading my dick jokes so I could get a laptop that came from this decade.

Chapter 12

The chapter opens with Cami and Trenton hanging out at her apartment, talking about how Trenton is taking care of plot puppy until Travis gives it to Abby for her birthday. More importantly, this bullshit happens.

No, not the sexual assault bullshit. We’re still getting there.

“Isn’t Travis’s birthday April Fool’s Day? […]  And yours is on Independence Day?”
“Yeah, and Thomas’s is on St. Patrick’s Day, and the twins were born January first.”

Who could this possibly be for? Even if you like these books and get all caught up in the imperfect characters making twu luv work out anyway, how would this not come off as distractingly unbelievable and stupid?

Even with that low bar, Trenton manages to make the conversation even stupider.

“I can’t keep coming to see you at the Red every night and then working all day. It’s exhausting.” […]
I couldn’t stop the grin that touched my lips. “You should try working all night at the Red and then working all day.”
“Quit your bitchin’, ya big baby,” he teased.

No, seriously, how does she not have a case? Trenton is literally complaining about how hard it is to work one job and then not work to someone working two jobs. I’ve been in a relationship for about a year and a half now, so maybe the times have changed, but I’m pretty sure that mocking someone’s financial situation is pretty low-quality flirting.

Speaking of low-quality flirting…

Someone knocked on the door. […] He wore a mint-green Oxford button-down, jeans, and loafers. […] He leaned over and touched his hand to his chest. “I’m Parker. My friend Amber Jennings lives next door. I saw you coming home last night as I was heading home, and I thought maybe you’d like to-“

I like how in the world of Jamie McGuire fiction, the “good boy” approach to asking a girl out is to knock on a complete stranger’s door, tell her you saw him from a distance at night, and then presume she’d like to go out sometime.

Of course, we all know that the irony of the Beautiful books is that Parker, who has the appearance of the good boy, is actually a womanizing, date-raping piece of shit, whereas the Maddox brothers, who have the appearance of the bad boy, are the ones who truly understand how to love and respect a woman.

Of course, we all know that this is a load of horseshit.

“Guys like him think the rules don’t apply to them.“
“What rules?”
“Rules of respect.” […]
“I’m perfectly capable of turning someone down. You just wanted to intimidate him so he wouldn’t come around again.” […]
“He was watching you walk to the apartment this morning. I find that a little predatory.” […]
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re right, because we’re just friends.”
“Christ, Cami, I know. You don’t have to keep rubbing it in my face. […] How can you not know? Everyone else in the entire fucking world knows but you!”
“I know. I’m just trying to keep things simple.” […]
Trenton grabbed me by the shoulders and planted a kiss on my mouth. Sheer shock made my lips hard and unforgiving

Holy crap, that’s a lot of contradictions! Trenton literally just described the qualities that make Parker a sexual predator, and then proceeded to do all those things. Acting like the rules don’t apply to him? CHECK. Acting predatory, or ignoring what someone expressly does not want? CHECK. So, according to Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Oblivion, what is the difference between a sexual predator and true love?

Obviously, the “it’s not sexual assault if she likes it!” trope.

Sheer shock made my lips hard and unforgiving, but then they melted against his, along with the rest of my body. […] I had never in my life been kissed like that, and something told me that wasn’t even the best Trenton Maddox could do.

I bet you’re all fuming right now, but just wait, because the book immediately manages to somehow make even less rational sense.

I had just cheated on T.J. Why would any guy, especially Trenton, want a cheater?

I… wow, this is going to take a minute.

1. How did she come to the conclusion that she cheated on T.J.? Sure, she kissed Trenton back, but this all began because he sexually assaulted her, which the book is depressingly unsurprisingly cavalier about.
2. Even if we decide that it’s cheating, given that Trenton instigated the incident, why does he get to care that she’s a cheater?
3. Why does he get to care more than her boyfriend that she cheated with him on?
4. Even if we further yet decide that it’s cheating and that Trenton is somehow not at fault, Cami still very clearly did not show consent, so we are left with the conclusion that Cami has suddenly fallen in love with her sexual assaulter. ROMANCE.

Trenton leaves, declaring “Now it’s complicated”, and goes to work at the tattoo parlor. Because the only thing this chapter where Trenton derides a sexual predator and then does the exact same thing was missing is a wacky situation, Cami is also supposed to go to work at the tattoo parlor! How wacky!

“Hey, it’s Cami. I’m not going to make it today.”
“Are you sick?”
“No… it’s… complicated. Really, really complicated.”
“I get it. No problem.”

Said no boss ever.

Cami goes to the Red and drinks with Hank, who reveals to her that he’s going to ask Jorie to move in with him, because this is a good time to give a flying fuck about that.

“What if she says no and then dumps me?” […] Hank poured whiskey into two glasses, and then slid one closer to me. I took a drink and frowned. “Whoa. What is this?”

Doesn’t she work there?

My cell phone rang, and I turned it over. It was Trenton. […]
“Why aren’t you coming to work? […] What the fuck does it matter if I kissed you?”
“Because! I have! A boyfriend!” I yelled into the phone.

This entire book in two lines of dialogue.

“Will he even notice? You haven’t spoken to him in a week!”
“That’s none of your business!”
“Yes, it is! You’re my business!”

Remember, this is the one who is not a predator.

“Everything is the same,” he said. “The only difference is that now you know I’m a damn good kisser.”
I couldn’t help but smile.

Could you imagine if everything were as dismissible as the “it ain’t rape if she liked it” myth makes narratives about sexual assault? “Voldemort killed my parents, and then he tried to kill me?” Harry couldn’t help but smile.” “No, Luke. I am your father.” Luke couldn’t help but smile, even though Darth Vader had just chopped off his hand. Neither of those make an ounce of sense, right? Well, that’s what it should be like when characters in these books are somehow totally good with being victims, but society would have to give a fuck about sexual assault first.

Cami pulls herself together and texts T.J. about what happened. She also has an inner monologue about how wrong it would be to break up with T.J. and start dating Trenton, even if she waited months or years, but this post is running long, so we’re going to focus on things that make sense.

“You kissed him, or he kissed you?”
“Does it matter?”

Why is the only character in the novel who gets to think this is an important distinction the man who got slighted by it rather than the woman who got slighted by it?

“Do you still want to be with me?” [He texted me.]
“The question is, do you still want to be with me?”

Rather than asking her why her being assaulted should make him wonder if he still wants to be with her, he books her a flight to California.

Now, that was literally the last sentence in the chapter, so you think I’d be done with this shit, but this somehow makes the narrative even messier. If T.J. has the disposable income to fly his serious, long-distance girlfriend out to California, how come she’s working two jobs to pay for her brother’s drug abuse treatment? I mean, not that it makes sense why she’s paying for this in the first place, but this seems like a good way he can stay involved in her life and help out?

Question of the day! What is your desktop background? At work I have a picture of my friend’s kittens (because they’re little goofballs), and every week one of my coworkers asks me if they’re my cats. What do you have?

Can you tell I really don’t want to keep thinking about Beautiful Oblivion?

At the end of the last chapter, the gang decided that they need to eavesdrop when the head of Candor (Jack) has his meeting with Jeanine. I’m sure they’ll definitely choose an open location that is optimised for eavesdroppers. Out of courtesy for said eavesdroppers of course.

Chapter 20

Tris and co hang out in the dining hall while waiting for their chance to listen in on this big conversation between Jack and Jeanine – which sounds like the title of a terrible sitcom. Instead of discussing how exactly they’re going to go about accomplishing this, they talk about whether or not things will go back to normal after this is all over. [Matthew says: You know, the normal where they arbitrarily divided society into semi-permeable categories based on their genetics they chose except they’re their genetics.] But this only goes on for a couple lines before some morons walk by and tell Fourbias he’s a coward again.

Luckily Lauren (another Dauntless pal who trained the Dauntless-born initiates), has some wise words:

“What idiots,” says Lauren. “And the Candor, for making you spill your life story for everyone to see … they’re idiots too.”

I like you enough to now remember who you are, Lauren. Well done!

Tobias, he ain’t gonna take it. NO. He ain’t gonna take it anymore.

“This needs to stop,” he says distantly, and starts toward whatever it is he’s looking at before I figure out what it is. This can’t be good.

He slips between the tables and the people like he’s more liquid than solid, and I stumble after him, muttering apologies as I push people aside.

And then I see exactly who Tobias is headed toward.

The assholes who were making fun of him for virtually no reason, right?

Marcus. He is sitting with a few of the older Candor.

Tobias reaches him and grabs him by the back of the neck, wrestling him from his seat. Marcus opens his mouth to say something, and that is a mistake, because Tobias punches him hard in the teeth.

Okay, I mean, I can see where this is coming from emotionally. But I don’t see how this is going to put a stop to the bullying. [Matthew says: Or why they’re bullying him for being physically abused in the first place?]

Someone shouts, but no one rushes to Marcus’s aid. We are in a room full of Dauntless, after all.

Just in case you had forgotten we weren’t in Amity anymore, Toto. Actually, if you had forgotten we’d blown that popsicle stand, I wouldn’t have blamed you because it’s pretty indistinguishable. They’re all Hufflepuff to us. [Matthew says: Or in case you’d forgotten that Dauntless is the “douchebags you went to high school with” faction.]

Tobias gets Marcus on the ground and starts beating him with his belt. He even says the old, “This is for your own good” line, which Tris recognizes from Foubias’ fear landscape.

Then the belt flies through the air and hits Marcus in the arm. Marcus’s face is bright red, and he covers his head as the next blow falls, this one hitting his back. All around me is laughter, coming from the Dauntless tables, but I am not laughing, I cannot possibly laugh at this.

I get that Dauntless are supposed to behave a certain way, because that’s what makes them Dauntless and fit into this faction, but this doesn’t seem like the reaction I’d expect them to have. Being brave, courageous, daring and even emotionally detached–which I haven’t seen any real evidence that Dauntless actually are emotionally detached or tougher than any other faction. Occasionally there’s some bravado about it, but they all seem to behave like regular emotion-having folk–doesn’t translate into laughing at a scene like this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they watched in stony silence, but but this scene just makes them seem like fucking idiots.

As Tris is trying to get Four to stop, she has one of her dramatic realisations, which we know is dramatic because each sentence has it’s very own, unnecessary line. She realises that this wasn’t something that happened in the heat of the moment, it was planned!

It’s time for Four to mic drop anyway.

He drops the belt and reaches into his pocket. From it he takes a silver chain with a ring dangling from it. Marcus is on his side, gasping. Tobias drops the ring onto the ground next to his father’s face. It is made of tarnished, dull metal, an Abnegation wedding band.

“My mother,” says Tobias, “says hello.”

FOURBIAS OUT, YO!

Tris chases him out of the room, and Veronica Roth seizes this moment to ensure that she isn’t the only writer in the world not to take advantage of the majestic and timeless elevator.

“What was that?” I demand.

Tobias presses the DOWN button for the elevator and doesn’t look at me.

Fourbias accuses Tris of feeling sorry for Marcus.

“No,” I say quietly. “No, I don’t feel sorry for him, not at all.”

“Then what, Tris?” His voice is rough; it could be the thing that breaks me. “You haven’t cared about what I do or say for the past week; what’s so different about this?”

What are Tris and Four even fighting about at this point? Who cares, let’s continue to use elevators to indicate the state of their relationship.

The elevator beeps as it arrives. He gets on, and presses the CLOSE button so the doors shut between us. I stare at the brushed metal and try to think through the last ten minutes.

Tris, like me, is unsure what exactly Four’s motivation was for attacking Marcus. [Matthew says: And why he suddenly decided to do in reaction to people whose motivation I’m also unsure of.]

This needs to stop,” he said. “This” was the ridicule, which was a result of the interrogation, where he admitted that he joined Dauntless to escape his father. And then he beat up Marcus—publicly, where all the Dauntless could see it.

Why? To salvage his pride? It can’t be. It was far too intentional for that.

I know she keeps telling us how super intentional and planned it was, and I know we’re meant to just take Tris’ word on this one, [Matthew says: As we are all male characters. Carry on.] but I still feel like she should still be unsure about this right now. Because there’s a difference between Four wanting to attack Marcus that way, and think about it so much that his actions seemed deliberate, but the way he reacted right after the Dauntless made fun of him did make it seem like a moment acted out in unplanned anger.

Afterwards, Tris goes to find Marcus and tell him he needs her help to get information from Jeanine. I’m really not sure at this point what sets Tris apart from every other Divergent person (including Marcus). Why exactly does he need her help?

“I don’t know where you get this delusion that I’m useless, but that’s what it is,” I snap. “And I’m not interested in hearing about it. All I want to say is that when you stop being delusional and start feeling desperate because you’re too inept to figure this out on your own, you know who to come to.”

Well that didn’t clear up anything at all! There are plenty of other people in this book who have shown bravery and courage and divergence. Why is Tris the one Marcus can’t live without?

Today’s Insurgent chapter was fairly short, but don’t worry. My chapter for Beautiful Oblivion next week is like 4000 pages long.

Chapter 21

One of the more interesting parts of Divergent is Tris’s PTSD after the events of the first novel.

Don’t be an idiot. I can’t set out to do what I’m doing without a gun. It would be crazy. So I will have to solve this problem I’ve been having in the next five minutes. […] I used it to stop Eric from shooting Tobias in the head. It is not inherently evil. It is just a tool. I see a flicker of movement in the mirror, and before I can stop myself, I stare at my reflection. This is how I looked to him, I think. This is how I looked when I shot him.

Interestingly, the PTSD was one of the defining traits of the sequels for Divergent‘s most defining inspiration: The Hunger Games. This isn’t promising. While it had its moments, the concept was pretty badly bungled in the Hunger Games sequels, turning one of the decade’s best female characters into one with a frustrating lack of agency, eventually becoming Trinity Syndrome: The Trilogy. I don’t have a whole lot of hope for Divergent doing a better job, based on, you know, trends.

Trends…

Fourbias walks in on Tris and confronts her. She confronts him back. They have a lot of things to confront each other about. So it’s like every conversation they’ve had so far in the book.

“Zeke and Uriah told me you were going to eavesdrop on Jack,” he says. […] “Are you?”
“Why should I tell you? You don’t tell me about your plans.”
His straight eyebrows furrow. “What are you talking about?”

Tris is mad about Four beating up his dad for no apparent reason and not telling her why. Four is mad about Tris’s increasingly not-subtle death wish. Oh, to be young and in love.

“You’re throwing yourself into danger for no reason again,” he says. “Just like when you stormed up to fight the Erudite with only a… a pocket knife to protect yourself.”

Increasingly not-subtle.

I hear the words “doesn’t seem to value her own life” again and again.

I know I just used this gif like a week ago, but it’s not like these books bother coming up with new content either

Four insists on going with the others to spy on the meeting between Jack Kang and the representative of the Faction responsible for a string of genocide-esque mass murders that he wants to make peace with. Would you be surprised to know that nothing in Insurgent has ever gone the way a character thought it would? Because in the time it takes you to say, “Why is this character’s motivation like this? How is this even supposed to-“, Tris and her friends are hiding underneath a bridge and Jack finds that he has exactly zero leverage against the people who have already taken over the world.

“Max,” Jack says. [Max is a Dauntless leader] “Where’s Jeanine? I thought she would at least have the courtesy to show up herself.” […]
“I should inform you that this will not be a negotiation,” Max says. “In order to negotiate, you have to be on even footing, and you, Jack, are not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you are the only disposable faction. Candor does not provide us with protection, sustenance, or technological innovation. Therefore you are expendable to us.”

Max demands that Jack return Eric, allow traitor Dauntless to search Candor HQ for Divergent, and provide the Erudite with names of everyone not injected with simulation serum. Tris notices that Max isn’t sounding like Max, because he says “testy” and “no self-respecting Dauntless man would say the word ‘testy'”, so Tris concludes that Jeanine is communicating to him through an earpiece from one specific glass building a quarter-mile away. Obviously.

Meanwhile, Jack grabs at Max’s throat, and then one of Tris’s friends shoots Max. For some reason. Look, if you’re reading Insurgent for things like “narrative pacing” or “tension”, well, um, maybe you could just read each chapter veeeeeery slowly.

It erupts into a shootout as Tris and Four run to the building where, inexplicably, Jeanine apparently actually is. Where Peter is.

Three figures run down the alley. One is blond. One is tall. And one is Peter. […]
“You traitor,” I say to Peter. “I knew it. I knew it.”

“Sounds like your friends need you,” Peter says with the flash of a smile— or bared teeth, I can’t tell.

He lifts his gun, and behind me, Tobias lifts his own […] Behind him, the blond woman— Jeanine, probably— and the tall Dauntless traitor turn the corner. Though I don’t have a weapon, and I don’t have a plan

It’s ok, Tris. Neither does this book.

“So you have a choice. You can let us go, and help them, or you can die trying to follow us.” […]
I almost scream. We both know what I’m going to do.
“I hope you die,” I say.

Which is as good of an excuse as any to link you to this.

Question of the day: What songs do you find yourself inappropriately singing to yourself in public?

In case you forgot, Trent heroically saw through Cami’s protests, and kissed her despite all the times she told him she wasn’t interested. After learning about Trent and Cami’s kiss, T.J. immediately buys a plane ticket to California for Cami. If it was that easy for her to visit him like this all along, why didn’t he just do that for her sooner? Why does it take jealousy for this to happen? [Matthew says: Man, we’re opening up quite a can of worms asking why characters in this book don’t try to solve their problems.]

Chapter 13

This chapter opens with Cami headed through security at the airport. She tells us that she needs to know if she’s falling out of love with T.J. solely because of the distance. It goes unsaid that she’s probably wondering if she’s falling out of love with T.J. because her heart is longing for a very special, very useless douchebag.

Speaking of which,

I stood in the long line at security and heard my name being called from across the room. I turned to see Trenton running full speed toward me. A TSA agent took a step, but when Trenton slowed down next to me, he relaxed.

He’s so special even a TSA agent is willing to completely fail at his job. I’m surprised this wasn’t explained with a simple, “There was something in Trenton’s eyes that made the TSA agent relax.” I also feel like this was a missed opportunity for Trent to get tased. In the name of love of course.

Trent is upset that Cami is going to see her boyfriend 1) because she said she’d see him today, but now she’s going to California! 2) Because if she goes, everything will be different when she gets back.

I’m afraid neither of these seem like very compelling reasons for Cami not to go see T.J. For all Trent knows, Cami is going to sort out her feelings to see if she even wants to be with T.J. anymore…oh, wait, that’s exactly what she’s doing. I know ideally he just wants her to dump the guy via text message or what have you, and then run into Trent’s arms, but why would he want such a shady start to a relationship? [Matthew says: Seriously? It’s a fucking Maddox. Their only defining characteristic is that they have no standards.]

And why is this whole situation okay simply because Cami hasn’t seen T.J. in person in a few months? If part of Trent’s argument for Cami not to go see T.J. right now is, “Well, if you go see your boyfriend in person, it’ll make the fact that I’m trying to steal you from him sooo much more awkward,” then that just doesn’t add up.

“It’ll be different when you get back. You know it will.”

“Please stop,” I begged, glancing around. The line moved again.

Trenton held out his hands. “Just . . . give it a few days.”

“Give what a few days?”

He took off his hat and rubbed the top of his head while he thought. The desperate expression on his face forced me to swallow back a sob. I wanted to hug him, to tell him it was okay, but how could I comfort him, when I was the reason he was hurting?

Trenton returned his hat to his head, pulling it down low over his eyes in frustration. He sighed. “Jesus Christ, Cami, please. I can’t do it. I can’t be here, thinking about you there, with him.”

But it’s okay for her actual boyfriend to be in California thinking about Cami here with Trent? [Matthew says: Weird. That can’t be it. That’d be like Trenton thinks the rules don’t apply to him or something, and we all know he hates guys like that!] And how manipulative that he’s making Cami feel bad and like she’s to blame for all of his tortured pain.

Trent tells Cami he’s in love with her. Queue another frustrating reference to Cami’s Big Secret.

After a long pause, I cringed at the words I was about to say. “If you knew what I know . . . you wouldn’t be.”

He shook his head. “I don’t wanna know. I just want you.”

“We’re just friends, Trent.”

Trent’s face and shoulders fell.

Wait, what? Pick a reason and stick with it Cami. Immediately jumping from, “I have this groundbreaking secret that would make you fall out of love with me” to “We’re just friends” is pretty unconvincing. Why not just tell him you don’t speak English.

Trent argues that they haven’t been just friends in awhile, which I guess is referring to the two weeks they’ve been hanging out? Whatever, who cares, because what follows is my favourite scene in the whole book so far:

“He turned his back to me, and I handed my ticket and ID to the agent.

“You okay?” the agent asked, scribbling on my ticket.

“No,” I said. My breath caught, and I looked up as my eyes filled with tears. “I’m a huge asshole.”

The agent nodded, and motioned for me to move on. “Next,” he called to the person behind me.

The agent is definitely a stand-in for all of us who could just not give any fucks about these two morons. I love how the agent just nods like, “Yes, yes you are a huge asshole. Bai.” Clearly this agent has an active Netflix account.

We jump ahead to Cami hanging out in T.J.’s bed. It seems really odd to me that we skip their greeting, which would have been interesting to see given Cami’s just told him about Trent kissing her. [Matthew says: I’m not surprised. T.J. would have to have a character for that.] There are more important things at hand, though, like T.J.’s butt.

He was lying next to me, breathing soft and deep through his nose. He would have to wake up in a few minutes to get ready for work, and I would get a great view of his tight backside as he crawled out of bed.

Cami does inform us that everything fell into place as soon as she saw him at the airport and that he’s sooo amazing and she doesn’t deserve him because he’s so nice and perfect. T.J. is killing her confidence not because he’s a jerk to her but because he’s so wonderful to her, which I guess is a thing that happens…? So she should definitely dump this guy and go be with a dick she deserves like Trent is the takeaway here?

Even more baffling is the evidence Cami gives us for how wonderful T.J. is:

Obviously, I didn’t feel undeserving of him because T.J. was an asshole. It was the reverse. When someone this amazing walks into your bar and asks for your number before he’s had a single drink, you work your tail off to keep him.

Standards have actually never been lower in this series.

T.J. has to head to work, so Cami considers how Trent would just get to hang out with her all day and how nice that is.

Instead, I was staring up at a white ceiling, noticing how nicely it stood out against the clay beige walls.

Beige was so T.J. He was safe. He was stable. But anything could look good from a few thousand miles away. We never fought, but you don’t have anything to fight about if you’re never around one another.

That is bullshit. They have so much they could fight about, but Cami’s already admitted to us she’s scared to say anything to rock the boat in this relationship. And being safe and stable? Nothing about their relationship has seemed safe and stable thus far.

Longing for Trent, Cami checks her phone only to find the most puzzling email I could have imagined:

I reached over and checked my phone. An email from Single in Your Area Now, but that was it.

What the fuck? We get no explanation whatsoever as to why she’s on a singles website when she’s been dating T.J. for six months now. Why include this strange and inexplicable detail? What is your game, McGuire! [Matthew says: I thought this was inexplicably weird too! I think maybe this is McGuire’s best attempt at a spam email, because there’s no reason Cami would be on a dating site? I can’t understand how Cami exists in a world in which Trenton plays Flappy Bird but nobody has Tinder. Although this does force me into a position where I have to believe that Cami is somehow getting emailed banner ads. There’s no winning.]

Suddenly this chapter becomes a long rant from Cami about how T.J. is so perfect, but she loves Trent and his flaws! She just fucking told us that if she actually spent time with T.J., she’d probably see he wasn’t perfect either.

Suddenly it was okay to want messy, and flaws, and uncertainty, so much of what Trenton embodied . . . everything I saw in myself that I thought I didn’t like. Because even if we were struggling, we had goals. It didn’t matter that we weren’t there yet. What mattered is that we both experienced setbacks, and full-blown failures, but we got up, brushed ourselves off, and kept going—and were making the best of it. Trenton didn’t just make all of those things acceptable; he made getting there fun. Instead of feeling ashamed of where we weren’t, we could be proud of where we were going, and what we would overcome to get there.

Translation: I want to be with a loser who I can be a loser with too.

No, I mean, I get what Cami is saying and all. I’m just not seeing why T.J. makes her feel like she can’t share her goals with him or admit her failures? I get that she’s falling for Trenton because he’s there and T.J.’s not which is a real thing that happens to people. These pages and pages of unnecessary glorifications of what a shit head Trent is aren’t convincing me of how perfect he is for Cami based on these things, though.

[Matthew says: Hands down, my favorite bit of this sequence about how Trenton is better for her than T.J. is where Cami thinks “T.J. knew what kind of bagel I liked, but did he know that I hate commercials”, which seems like a pretty safe bet.]

Cami regrets that she didn’t choose Trenton, which she’s only realising because T.J. isn’t in the room…she was super in love with him when he brought her breakfast 3 pages ago, so isn’t this just proving to her that distance really is the only thing keeping them from being happy? I know I’m overthinking this, but damn it, I wish there was some consistency.

I have a very Cami question. Have you ever been in love with two people at once? I believe it counts if they’re fictional characters. Like I know most of you will be like, “I am so in love with Travis/Gideon/Christian all at the same time!!!111!!” Because that’s how we all roll here at BBGT.

The nine words in this post’s title are a considerably more expedient way to experience this roughly eleventy-gazillion-page chapter of Beautiful Oblivion. This one’s a slog, you guys. It’s dense. It’s slow. It’s full of the emotions of people we don’t care about. To make this chapter easier for you to get through, I am going to exclusively use gifs of Tina from Bob’s Burgers, so you can visualize all of this happening with Tina instead of Cami, which I strongly suggest you do.

Trust me.

Chapter 14

Cami and TJ’s romantic, “another boy kissed you” trip sours when TJ has to work late, and “didn’t text or call the entire time”. It’s like it’s representative of the problems with their entire relationship of something.

T.J. sighed and sat back against his chair. “This isn’t going how I wanted at all.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “I work fifty hours a week, Camille. I just don’t have time for…”
“Me,” I said finishing the cringeworthy sentence for him.
“Anything. I barely see my family. I talk to you more than I do them.”

Does anyone else actually feel kinda bad for TJ? Like, suddenly finding myself on track for a dream job and then doubting whether it’s worth the cost to your personal life is sort of a nightmare scenario. Too bad he’s this book’s Blando. Except for that time Blando showed up.

Cami points out that she can’t drop everything every time he decides he wants to see her, and also mentions that Trenton came to the airport. He asks her what kind of time they’ve been spending together, and she fills him about working together at the tattoo parlor, the second job to help Coby with the bills, and that Trenton has stopped taking girls home from the bar. In other words, seemingly the entire book. Which raises the question of whether it’s not just TJ that isn’t putting enough effort into this relationship – except it doesn’t, because this is Beautiful Oblivion and Cami is only at fault for the misfortune of loving two men.

It’s weirdly exactly like this.

TJ observes that – based on the strength of “Trenton isn’t sleeping with randos at the bar” – Trenton is in love with Cami, and asks her if she loves him. She freezes, and that’s enough of an answer for TJ.

“So you knew it was over?” [Cami said.] “Why bring me out here, then? To tell me it was okay that I couldn’t make it work?”
“I thought maybe if you were here, with me, we could both get a sense of what was really going on with you— if it was just too hard because we hadn’t seen each other in a while, or if you really had feelings for Trenton.”

You know what else might have accomplished that? If either of them ever talked to each other.

“We don’t need to make any decisions tonight. Or even tomorrow. Let’s just enjoy our time together.” He reached across the table, and intertwined his fingers in mine.
After a moment’s pause, I pulled away. “I think we both already know what’s happened.”
With sadness in his eyes, TJ nodded.

The scene ends and, despite that dialogue confirming they both know what’s happened, the rest of the chapter continues with Cami and TJ uncertain if they’ve broken up or not. Both functionally…

He held me in his arms all night like he didn’t want to let me go, but the next morning at the airport, he hugged and kissed me good-bye like he meant it.

…and verbally.

“So, you broke up?”
“Kind of. Not really.”
“C’mon, Camille. You’re adults.”

So this book can be dragged out even longer, I guess.

Speaking of longer, we’re not close to done with this drama, and Raegan picks Cami up from the airport and tells her that Trenton has started sleeping with bar randos again. Well, which one is it, Trenton? This is the only way we have of knowing if you’re in love with Cami or not.

Anyway, remember that secret that keeps getting brought up more and more explicitly?

“Just . . . tell him,” Raegan pleaded. “Tell him about T.J.”
“I can’t,” I said. “And you can’t, either. You promised.”
“I still don’t understand what all the secrecy is about.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, looking up at her, straight into her eyes. “You just have to keep the secret.”

Don’t worry. When you too find out what the secret is, you won’t understand why this is a secret that has to be kept either. This isn’t just Cami begging Raegan to think this makes sense, this is the book begging the reader to think this makes sense.

Cami goes back to her job at Skin Deep, but before we get back to the ongoing adventures of the white boy bro’s suffering at the relentless hands of unrequited love (which we’re all just dying to get back to, I’m sure), it’s time for an intermission with Cami’s hilarious misogynist boss!

“What the hell are you wearing?” he asked.
I looked down at my plum skinny jeans and black-and-white horizontal-striped long-sleeved shirt. “Clothes.”
“I hired you to be the hot piece of ass at the counter, and you look like my cousin Annette. What is this look?” he asked Hazel.
“Hipster,” she said briefly before returning to her conversation.
“Yeah. Like my hipster cousin Annette. Next time you come in , I want to see cleavage and sex hair!” he said, holding up one finger, and then two.
“What the hell is sex hair?” I asked. Calvin shrugged. “You know. Messy, but sexy. Like you just had sex.”
Hazel slammed the phone down. “Everything that comes out of your mouth is offensive. Hot piece of ass? Cleavage? You’re a walking sexual harassment lawsuit!”
Calvin wasn’t fazed.
“Is it the shoes?” I asked, looking down at my favorite black combat boots.
“The scarf!” he said, pointing all four fingers at me. “What is the point in having a nice rack if you’re going to cover it up?”
Hazel smiled. “It’s a cute scarf. I need a black one like yours.”
Calvin frowned. “It’s not cute! I don’t want cute!”

So here’s what’s wrong with this scene – surprise, it isn’t the sexism! I mean, it’s problematic, certainly, but that’s the idea here. Cami’s boss is a sexist dick, and I’d be willing to bet that a great deal of people reading this book have had to deal with bosses (or colleagues or whatever) who are sexist dicks too. There’s nothing wrong with fiction offering a recognizably awful character who deserves our hatred. The problem is that this scene is played for laughs. Calvin’s attitude is passed off as no big deal, and thus hilarious, even though the characters recognize this is sexual harassment. Fuck your fucking sexy/hipster dichotomy joke. Fuck your fucking actual moments of self-doubt Cami experiences as her boss hilariously tells her what to do with her body. And fuck your fucking fucktoy entitlement whining passing off as humor.

I mean, I *personally* am not, but these are things I don’t have to worry about on account of my penis. Yay, patriarchy. Let’s go ask some women why they don’t love their tits.

Trenton shows up at work, thus ensuring that this novel’s casual sexism will totally improve.

He disappeared into his room, and Hazel shot me a look. “You mind-fucked him so hard.”

How. How does repeatedly telling someone “no, I do not want to date/have sex with you” repeatedly merit as “mind-fucking”, and how could we possibly have mismanaged our society so badly that we got to this point?

“It’s good for him. No man should get every woman he wants. Keeps their douchebaggery to a tolerable level.”

And yet this novel will feature zero of those things.

Cami tries to break the ice by asking Trenton to give her another tattoo, but he good-naturedly says he’s too busy. And then just tries to keep his distance. And then stops going to the bar and ignores her at work for the next six weeks. Just in case we weren’t sure what was going on during this time jump, Coby shows up to have a conversation with Cami to talk about what we caused it, which we just saw in this chapter. And is also literally the entire book.

“He doesn’t really… come over here anymore.”
“You guys broke up?”
“We were just friends, Coby.”
“No one thinks that but you.”

Also, arbitrary subplots are arbitrary.

“I feel better. You were right, a program made it easier.”
“How are things at home?” I asked.
Coby shrugged. “The same.”
I picked at the noodles swimming around in my bowl. “He’s never going to change, you know.”

Also, lines that are not as serious as they’re trying to be.

My breath caught when I came across Spaceballs.

The totally-necessary summary scene accidentally does too good of a job summarizing the book.

“I fucked up.”
“How?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s a long, boring story.”

To be fair, there is a line that does sum up the entire book pretty accurately.

“What am I supposed to say. ‘T.J. doesn’t want me, so you can have me, now’?'”

Although I guess in this case Tina is Trenton.

Time jumps ahead again, and all that’s happened is that TJ was in town but was too busy to say hi to Cami, and Cami realizes that with Cody’s drug addiction subplot anticlimatically resolved entirely off-screen, she technically doesn’t need her second job at Skin Deep anymore. And since Trenton is too busy pouting to talk to her ignoring her to try to get over her, she decides to tell him so.

But first – because this chapter just didn’t have enough shit in it – arbitrary fanservice.

I checked Travis in, and once he signed the forms, the Maddoxes walked back to Trenton’s room.
“You’re fucking kidding me!” Trenton yelled, howling with laughter. “You’re such a pussy!”
“Shut up, cocksucker, and just do it!” […]
“This has fucked me over in so many ways,” [Shepley] grumbled. […] “What if [America’s] pissed because I didn’t brand myself with her name? What if Abby’s not fine with it, she dumps Travis, and then it causes problems with Mare and me? I’m fucked!”

Good times! Remember that time Travis didn’t get Abby’s name tattooed on himself, but the nickname that he gave her and then everybody referred to it as her name? Remember how somehow all of Trabby’s problems are problems for Shepley? Good times! Good times! And now we can enjoy all those good times with all the wonderful new understandings we’ve gained from seeing this from Cami’s perspective! Such as:

1.  .

Ok, now it’s time for Cami to tell Trenton she’s quitting. That night at the bar…

“Okay, Maddox. It’s been five weeks.” […]
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay. So you hate me.” The words felt like poison coming out of my mouth. “Want me to quit Skin Deep?”
“What?” he said, finally looking at me for the first time in weeks.

As you can imagine, a very long, very repetitive, very “we have already read this” conversation takes place. As you can also imagine, some of it is great for unintentional humor.

“You wanted a reaction when you kissed me and you got one.”
“If I’d known you were going to get on a flight to California and fuck someone else a few hours later, I might have reconsidered.”

Someone else like her boyfriend? My, this story is full of twists and turns.

“You saw Travis on Halloween! He’s out of control over this girl! She left the morning after he bagged her the first time without telling him good-bye, and he trashed his fucking apartment!”

No, Travis had not come up in the conversation previously. You read it in this blog post with as much context as I read it in the book.

“I said if you like being a backup plan, that’s fine with me!” [Trenton said.]
“Backup plan? Are you fucking kidding me right now? All you deal in is backup plans! How many of those have you walked out of here with in the last month?”

Throughout this scene, a nameless patron at the bar keeps asking for someone to give him a Miller Lite. Naturally, Trenton beats the shit out of him, because this chapter came dangerously close to not having everything.

Question of the day: It might seem dangerous to ask for me, but what else was this chapter missing? What are you the most upset didn’t also get shoehorned in? I’m upset that Olive didn’t show up in this chapter too to make an astute observation about Cami’s predicament, like, “Twoo bwoys wuv woo!”, or “wwwwwwwwwwwwwww”

Previously, Peter is still evil and does not secretly have a beautiful heart made of rainbows, gold and bunnies.

Chapter 22

We open with Lynn’s sister Shauna having been shot in the back. To make things simpler to understand, a character we don’t really care about has a sister we heard about once, and now this sister’s life is in danger! If that doesn’t make your heart race, I simply don’t know what will.

Fourbias carries Shauna back to…Merciless Mart…and the book proceeds to forget about her in favour of another argument between Tris and Four. In case you felt like Four wasn’t trying to dictate what Tris does enough and thus you weren’t sure that he was a good enough romantic lead, fear not, here’s this argument:

“I’m not going to pretend to know what’s going on with you,” he says. “But if you senselessly risk your life again—”

“I am not senselessly risking my life. I am trying to make sacrifices, like my parents would have, like—”

“You are not your parents. You are a sixteen-year-old girl—”

I grit my teeth. “How dare you—”

“—who doesn’t understand that the value of a sacrifice lies in its necessity, not in throwing your life away! And if you do that again, you and I are done.”

I sat here for a good 10 minutes trying to figure out exactly why  this makes my blood boil. I put myself in Four’s shoes, and it’s not inherently wrong that he’s putting his foot down and telling the person he loves to stop risking their life needlessly. It’s just that he manages to do it by sounding like the most patronising fuckface ever. He frames it in a way that comes down to their relationship, an ultimatum, not because he’s worried about Tris not valuing her life or being in a place where she’s depressed and reckless.

Even Tris is taken aback by this:

I wasn’t expecting him to say that.

“You’re giving me an ultimatum?” I try to keep my voice down so the others can’t hear.

He shakes his head. “No, I’m telling you a fact.” His lips are just a line.

No, pretty sure that’s an ultimatum, dude.

“If you throw yourself into danger for no reason again, you will have become nothing more than a Dauntless adrenaline junkie looking for a hit, and I’m not going to help you do it.” He spits the words out bitterly. “I love Tris the Divergent, who makes decisions apart from faction loyalty, who isn’t some faction archetype. But the Tris who’s trying as hard as she can to destroy herself … I can’t love her.” I want to scream. But not because I’m angry, because I’m afraid he’s right. My hands shake and I grab the hem of my shirt to steady them.”

If you really love Tris, you love all of Tris. If someone who you love like this is acting out of character (a character Four hasn’t even known for very long!) and clearly there is something wrong with Tris right now, telling her you can’t love her when she’s hurting and acting out isn’t the solution.

To be fair, he does end this on a more tender note, which is nice:

He touches his forehead to mine and closes his eyes. “I believe you’re still in there,” he says against my mouth. “Come back.” He kisses me lightly, and I am too shocked to stop him.

I can see how from Four’s perspective it might be hard to see Tris throwing herself into danger, but I don’t exactly see how she’s doing anything worse than Four or anyone else. They’re in a dangerous situation!

Anyway, Tris talks to Tori and they call a Dauntless meeting and realize that they need to elect new leaders because all of their old ones are totally evil. Tris, Four, Tori, and some guy named Harrison. He’s middle-aged, so I guess there are some older folks in Dauntless after all.

Then this stupid shit happens:

“We only need three leaders,” Tori says. “We’ll have to vote.” They would never have considered me if I had not stopped the attack simulation. And maybe they wouldn’t have considered me if I hadn’t stabbed Eric by those elevators, or put myself under that bridge. The more reckless I get, the more popular I am with the Dauntless.

Tobias looks at me. I can’t be popular with the Dauntless, because Tobias is right—I’m not Dauntless; I’m Divergent. I am whatever choose to be. And I can’t choose to be this. I have to stay separate from them.

“No,” I say. I clear my throat and say it louder. “No, you don’t have to vote. I refuse my nomination.”

Tori raises her eyebrows at me. “Are you sure, Tris?”

“Yes,” I say. “I don’t want it. I’m sure.” And then, without argument and without ceremony, Tobias is elected to be a leader of Dauntless. And I am not.

The fuck? So Tris chooses this because she’s worried about disappointing Four? Whatever way you slice this, this is coming off the back of the conversation where Four basically told Tris that she needs to start acting the way he prefers or their relationship is done. Tris worries a leadership roll will force her to be more reckless and less…Divergent for some reason, and so she concedes leadership to him? Fuck this noise.

Chapter 23

Having just decided on new Dauntless leadership in order to leave the faction that’s not even subtly about to betray them, the leader of that faction announces over the HQ intercom that they’re going to betray them.

Jack Kang’s voice speaks all around us.
“Attention all occupants of Candor headquarters. A few hours ago I met with a representative of Jeanine Matthews. He reminded me that we Candor are in a weak position, dependent on Erudite for our survival, and told me that if I intend to keep my faction free, I will have to meet a few demands.”

He relays the terms of the surrender, save for the part about the Dauntless, and Tris talks about the themes of the story.

Sometimes I feel like I am collecting the lessons each faction has to teach me, and storing them in my mind like a guidebook for moving through the world.

Yes, remember all those times that Tris learned what she could from each faction, didn’t criticize them, and most certainly didn’t completely write off the one pursuing intellectual advancement because science is totes grody? I remember all those times. Anyway, it’s time to execute Eric halfway through the book because I guess none of the factions’ lessons are about narrative pacing.

I have had to google this graph for this blog approximately eight bajillion times.

The popular YA book series about nonconformity and the dangers of mind control continues to tell the reader what every part of its story means.

Eric scans the crowd for a few seconds, and then his eyes settle on me. […]
“I’d like her to list [my crimes]. Stiffs don’t do that sort of thing. They just tie each other’s shoes and cut each other’s hair.”
Tobias’s expression does not change. I think I understand: Eric doesn’t really care about me. But he knows exactly where to hit Tobias. […]
“I have a request.” [Eric says.] “All I want is for Four to be the one who fires that bullet.”
“Why?” Tobias says.
“So you can live with the guilt,” Eric replies. […]
I think I understand. He wants to see people break [and] he believes that if Tobias has to kill him, he will see that before he dies.
Sick.

Ok, but, why? Why are we unpacking these themes now? Eric hasn’t played a real, thematic part in the narrative since the first book, so none of the themes accompanying him make sense now, halfway into Insurgent. We’ve read half a book of Tris and Four running away from people who want to kill them because… because, so it’s really weird to suddenly have to care about Tris’s rivalry with Four and how it represents the contrast between cruel Dauntless and brave Dauntless for three pages out of the blue before Eric is killed off and they go away again, forever. It’s sort of like how in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith how Christopher Lee’s character, Count Dooku, the villain of the previous movie, showed up for a five minute fight scene in the middle of the first act and was killed off. But at least that awkwardly shoehorned scene was done to develop the main character, Anakin. What happens here would basically be like if they brought back Count Dooku for five minutes and then made it all about Count Dooku.

Basically what I’m saying is, wow, the Star Wars prequels were written better than this.

Which is a stunning feat, when you think about it.

To be fair, it does also make Tris contemplate her own themes. Themes she’s been struggling with the whole time. So there’s… that.

I hear my father asking me, “What makes you think you have the right to shoot someone?” […] Maybe we are not the ones deciding if Eric lives or dies. Maybe he is the one who decided that, when he did all those terrible things.

Maybe Eric’s execution forces Four to confront stuff too, but it would have to make sense why his stuff makes sense as stuff first.

“[Are you] afraid the Dauntless are going to change their minds about you? Realize that even though you’ve only got four fears, you’re still a coward?” […]
“Eric,” he says, “be brave.”
He squeezes the trigger.

TWIST. It doesn’t actually say who died  until the next chapter, when we find out it was the narrative pacing.

Chapter 24

The Dauntless run around celebrating and then Jack King finally does something that makes sense: wonders why they killed off Eric just now. Albeit for very different reasons.

“What have you done?” he says. “I was just told that Eric is missing from his holding cell.”
“He was under our jurisdiction,” says Tori. “We gave him a trial and executed him. You should be thanking us.”
“Why…” Jack’s face turns red. […]
“Because you wanted him to be executed, too, right? Since he murdered one of your children?”

Jack Kang’s Worst Day Ever continues as the Dauntless also tell him that they’re leaving.

If we leave, he will be incapable of fulfilling two of the three demands Max had of him. The thought terrifies him, and it is all over his face.
“I can’t let you do that,” he says.
“You don’t let us do anything,” says Tobias.

Things suddenly get more… how do I put this… “America, Fuck Yeah!”?

“If you do this, we will side with Erudite, I promise you, and you will never find an ally in us again, you—”
“We don’t need you as an ally,” says Tori. “We’re Dauntless.”
Everyone shouts

Dauntless is basically the Team America of Divergent, but not ironic.

The Dauntless run out of Candor, yelling and screaming, all the way back to old Dauntless headquarters, presumably leaving Jack Kang behind to wonder how he’s able to take the political climate seriously.

Now you may be asking yourself, “Wait, how does this make sense?” (You might have been asking yourself this for a while.) “I thought they were driven out of Dauntless HQ by the Erudite, as well as the other half of Dauntless who joined the Erudite, and have been on the run. Wouldn’t this give them away fairly quickly?” Well, they’ve thought of that, and they have an answer!

Bud passes out paintball guns. Someone else passes out paintballs. Soon the hidden corners of Dauntless headquarters will be coated in multicolored paint, blocking the lenses of the surveillance cameras.

Because nothing says “inconspicuous” like “If we cover up all the cameras this place is being actively monitored with, then they won’t know that we’re here!”

Question of the day! Who’s your craziest family member you’re going to see over the holidays? Unless they read this blog, in which case who’s your second craziest?