Back in the day, Matt and I started a Fifty Shades of Grey drinking game for the books. For some reason we only did one for chapters 1-10, but since the books basically just repeated themselves for thousands of pages, the rules mostly applied throughout the entire thing.

Now that the film is out, we thought a drinking game might be really helpful for getting through the traumatically dull experience of watching two hours of Christian and Ana saying each other’s names when they’re not having the same “edgy” sex over and over again until even the film even starts interchanging the objects Christian touches Ana with when she’s blindfolded (watch as the riding crop turns into a peacock feather!)

Fifty Shades of Drinking Game

1) Seriously, drink every time Ana and Christian say one another’s name. Writing the screenplay for this film would be incredibly easy – when in doubt, just have Ana breathe, “Christian!” or have Christian growl, “Ana!”

2) Any time they fly around in a plane/glider.

3) Each time a spank is administered.

4) When Ana rolls her eyes.

5) When Ana bites her bottom lip.

6) Weird closeups of hands.

7) Every time Christian appears out of thin air.

8) Every time Ana is startled by Christian appearing out of thin air.

9) When Mia has a scene – haha just kidding you’d have like a half a sip of wine. I was surprised they didn’t just cut her off in the middle of her one line.

10) Every time Ana declines offers of food/ignores the food in front of her.

11) Any time a parent shows up and is bland and unmemorable. Here, I’ll sum up all their lines for you in one sentence. “Hi, I’m {main character’s name’s} {mom or dad or stepdad}, I’m really intrigued by my {son or daughter’s} significant other. Nice to meet you, {other main character’s name}.”

12) Whenever Christian could be confused for a serial killer.

13) Drink when Christian/Dornan says a line that’s meant to be serious or sexy but actually just makes you burst out laughing.

14) When you see pubic hair.

15) When you see Ana’s boobs.

16) When Christian takes his shirt off.

17) When creepy music plays during a scene that is supposed to be sexy.

18) When Ana says, “I’m having computer problems” but what she actually means is, “I don’t own a laptop, don’t have an email address and have never used Google. What even is a Netflix?”

19)  When Christian plays piano in the moonlight.

20) Every time you can tell that Johnson and Dakota wish they were anywhere but in this movie.

21) When Christian gives Ana a present, and it’s just way too much, please stop.

22) Whenever you’re just like, “Why? Why is this relationship happening? I don’t get it at all.” Which is not the same as the general wonderment that this movie was made in the first place. Which is not the same as complete and utter confusion over the fact that this was just the first of a fucking trilogy.

Please add your suggestions in the comments, as with the differences between the book and the movie post, I’m happy to update the post and of course give credit where credit is due.

Also please do not play the drinking game with every single number on this list. Or you will die a very alcoholic death.

Yes, of course it’s terrible.

That’s my entire review! See you for the sequel!

Which you’ve probably heard by now, or probably presumed anyway months ago. Reading a review saying that Fifty Shades of Grey is not a good movie, for presumably most of you, would be like reading an article in the news saying that the sun set in the west last night. Reactions have generally fallen on one side or the other, either emphasizing that it’s better than the unreadable book (Ariel’s reaction, mirrored the Guardian going so far as call it “better than it has to be”, as well as pretty hilariously by Roxane Gay) or that it’s not watchable enough to be a good “bad” movie (thoughts shared by friend-of-the-blog Ellen and by my girlfriend). It’s sort of fascinating how reactions fall into this hazy abyss of “it’s not good… but not as bad as… but not bad enough to be good…”, which are ironically the only shades of grey actually involved in Fifty Shades of Grey.

So what does that actually mean? To the benefit of basically no one, the movie is painfully faithful to the book.

Sure, this does mean that because of the story’s stupidity and ineptitude, there is plenty of unintentional comedy gold. The movie tries in vein to filter out the book’s stupidest details, sure. Ana’s “I’ve never had a computer before!” is subtly replaced with “I’m having computer troubles” by at least someone working on this movie who had been in the 2010s decade before. But, inevitably, a great deal of it is even because of what must have been a serious journey on the strugglebus to try to bring this story to life. Ana has her cliched trip over nothing into Christian’s office, which is somehow even funnier with the magic of film, which cut the shot at her upper body so she literally trips on nothing. Jamie Dornan struggles mightily to find any way to deliver the “I don’t make love. I fuck. Hard.” line, which was about the point in the movie where I realized that Dornan’s interpretation of Christian Grey was basically “I don’t think he’s ever blinked”.

Which, of course, brings us to Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan. Dakota Johnson’s first fifteen minutes of dialogue are 80% loud breathing, and 100% of Dornan’s dialogue throughout is conveyed with the same raspy, vaguely amused, monotone. And that pretty much sets the tone for the movie. Much has been made of how Johnson’s portrayal of Ana was the unexpected highlight of the film, and I applaud the reviewers who put so much effort into trying to find something to like about this movie. This is still E.L. Jame’s brainchild; there’s simply nothing to bring to this character. It’s like praising the depth Amanda Seyfried brought Karen in Mean Girls. I suppose they both got the characters “right” – Johnson is a perfectly amorphous Ana and Dornan nails Christian Grey in that “If someone told me this was an episode of Dexter, I might believe them” way – but I’m not sure when I last watched a movie where you could see the actors trying this hard.

And then also not trying.

However, and if there is a single redeeming scene in the movie, it’s when Ana drunk dials Christian and starts doing a mocking imitation of him and the confusing way he’s pursuing her. The result is an unexpectedly beautiful five seconds where Dakota Johnson does a better Christian Grey than Jamie Dornan does. It says a lot about the quality of the script and the source material that these people are working with. Otherwise, Johnson and Dornan’s chemistry is so absent that even the audience (which had cheered at Christian’s first “Laters, baby” and – perplexingly – at the first shot of the helicopter) laughed when Christian and Ana admired their picture in the paper and Christian stated, “It’s a good picture”, because falser words had never been said.

But then again, maybe it’s not Johnson or Dornan’s fault. Maybe their chemistry is so bad because no human would have any idea how to react to any of the nonsense that happens in this story.

So it’s bad. Yes. It’s very bad. But those hoping for a new The Room or Sharknado will be disappointed. Once I gave up on the movie somehow being good (which, admittedly, is not a hope I can say I held onto for more than a few lines of dialogue), I shifted gears into its so-bad-it’s-good potential, but it fails there too. Zillions of people come through the revolving door of minor characters for their four minutes to four seconds of screentime. Christian’s mother is shown into Christian’s apartment before Christian politely announces he’s going to show her out about two minutes later. It was when I joked, “But you just got here!” during that scene that I realized I was making the exact same quips that I do during The Room, but having way less fun.

But perhaps the most damning moment where Fifty Shades of Grey reminded me of The Room was the sex scenes, which is really pretty bad.

Albeit with somewhat better cinematography.

Despite being first and foremost an erotic romance, the sex scenes in Fifty Shades of Grey are only just not-reminiscent of the sex scenes in The Room. They certainly go on as awkwardly, painfully, “are we really going to play the verse and the chorus of the song?” long. They’re also about as close together in places as they are in The Room, sometimes literally being every other scene. They don’t even have the benefit of being unintentionally hilarious like in the book, unless you count the astonishingly terrifying soundtrack.

But despite the point I made in my piece earlier this week about how without the book’s amateurism ultimately making the movie’s problematic and completely not self-aware story worse, there are actually a number of moments where the movie is worse than the book. The ending is spread out with agonizingly slow pacing, somehow proving there was a worse possible ending than the book’s abrupt and obvious cliffhanger, and even the introduction of Christian’s “Laters, baby” catchphrase, which he steals from his brother, happens more transparently in this movie.

But maybe the best example of the movie being worse than the book – that made me go, “there was no one who thought maybe they could take at least that part out?” – was the bit where Ana lies to two

“Look at him!” one of the girls beside me breathes enthusiastically to her friend.
“He’s hot.” […]
“Must be Christian Grey.”
“Is he single?”
I bristle.
“I don’t think so,” I murmur.
“Oh.” Both girls look at me in surprise.
“I think he’s gay,” I mutter.
“What a shame,” one of the girls groans.

Why would Ana do this? Maybe jealousy, but it’s hard to tell in the murky waters of E L James’s character motivations. But Ana’s “I think he’s gay”, inexplicably left in the movie, actually manages to be more gay panicky, as she leans forward with a smirk on her face, makes her insinuation, and then the scene abruptly cuts, allowing an even more uncomfortable homophobia to linger in the air instead.

“Hey, let’s keep in a single line where we joke that a character’s sexual orientation isn’t what you would expect! I dunno. There’s, like, three ironies. It’s one of them, so it’s funny, right?”

So the movie is bad. It’s bad as a movie, it’s bad as a so-bad-it’s-good movie, it’s bad as a story, and it’s bad as a cultural barometer. Maybe those first three are points you are already aware of, or have guessed or assumed, and have maybe long since stopped caring about. And I feel that. I recently wrote another piece about Fifty Shades and how tired I am of it for NPR, on which someone wrote a deeper-down-the-rabbit-hole kind of comment about how they’re tired of all the hate about Fifty Shades, simply because they couldn’t understand why people put so much energy into disliking it.

There are good questions to ask here. Why should anyone care? By this point, you know if you like it or not, and if you don’t, it’s just a movie. It’s just a voluntary cultural experience that you can decide isn’t your cup of tea and happily never indulge in it. But it’s that fourth point about why the movie is bad – as a cultural barometer – that is why I think it’s still worth bringing it up. Like it or not, Fifty Shades is still a product born of the society we participate in. Which isn’t to say that we all take a responsibility for it. Fifty Shades will continue to make shittons of money, to go on to make sequels that could even be written by E L James, and will probably have it’s third movie split into Fifty Shades Freed: Part One and Two, as is in accordance with the book-trilogy-to-movie-trilogy passed down to man from on high. It will continue to be a deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply problematic story that a distressing amount of people love, or at least casually enjoy.

But there’s still a conversation to bring some snark to.

Hope you all enjoyed Snark Week, and I hope equally as hard that you’re ready to get back into the sweet sweet world of Sweet Valley High. [Matthew says: And I hope that you’re as excited as I am that in two more years I will never have to write anything about Fifty Shades ever again.]

When we left off, bad twin Jessica had just gone on a crazy date with scum bag Rick. When a cop shows up, Jessica quickly lies and says she’s good twin Elizabeth. Even though literally everyone seems to be aware that Jessica is a conniving, whiny bitch, for some reason they are all super quick to believe Elizabeth was out being a badass. Ha! Unlikely.

Sweet Valley High: Double Love Chapter 8

We open to Jessica complaining about her date with Rick to Elizabeth. You’d think after spreading her dirty lies about Elizabeth, Jessica would find a more sympathetic ear for all her woes, but no.

“I wish I had been with Todd,” said Jessica. “He would never have taken me to that awful place! I’m telling you, it was all Rick’s fault. He practically dragged me in there, for heaven’s sake!”
“If it was all Rick’s fault,” Elizabeth asked, suspiciously, “then how come the police ended up with my name?” She wasn’t letting Jessica worm her way out of it this time.

Elizabeth putting her foot down is as about as effective as starting your diet by only eating five Oreos instead of six. I’m telling you, I’m going to make weight loss my bitch! One less Oreo today, one less pound tomorrow.

We’re only eight chapters in, so it’s pretty sad that I can already say things like, “Typical Jessica!” But really, in typical Jessica fashion, she just starts crying and insists it was all a wacky misunderstanding caused by the cop/other people in school/the government etc.

We also discover that Jessica has a lot in common with people like Christian Grey and Gideon Cross. Is it feminism when this happens? Look, a rich woman can be as terrible as a rich man too!

Jessica knew she shouldn’t make a crack about Enid, but she couldn’t resist. She didn’t like Elizabeth being close friends with anyone but her.

So we’re all in agreement, Enid is going to wind up dead by the end of this book? And the confrontation between Elizabeth and Jessica will go like this:

Elizabeth wasn’t going to let Jessica off the hook again. Not this time. “Jessica, I know you killed Enid!” Though Elizabeth was relieved that this meant Jessica wasn’t out with Todd the night before, she was still totally mad that her mischievous sister had murdered her best friend.

Jessica burst into tears. Her crystal blue perfect amazing spectacularly spectacular eyes leaked perfectly shaped tears, and Elizabeth knew there was no way she could stay mad at her crazy sister.

Back to what’s really happening. Jessica seizes this opportunity to try to mark her Todd territory:

“Is there anyone else you want me to tell the truth to? Maybe Todd Wilkins? Are you and he kind of buddies?” Jessica asked, never taking her eyes off her sister’s face.
Buddies? Buddies! The one boy in all the world whom Elizabeth loved, who made her heart beat faster and her breath catch in her throat. Buddies?
“Yeah, I guess that’s what we are,” she finally answered.

Wait she loves Todd? All they’ve done is glance at each other in the cafeteria and have two awkward conversations at school. Teenagers! [Matthew says: Also importantly, how did “Hey, uh, please clear up the legal trouble you got me in by impersonating me” turn into “Well, I guess if at least one boy knows I didn’t do it, that’s worth the cost of you dating him instead of me. I also don’t care about my legal record, btw.” Damn, Elizabeth is an impressively bad conversationalist, even given the standard of the other books we read for this blog.]

I’m even more incredulous over the fact that Jessica, who is supposed to be the queen of cool, says things like, “Are you and he kind of buddies?” I can’t think of a period of time when that was in a teenager’s lexicon.

Jessica continues to be an insufferable bitch and also make no sense:

Knowing she had won the battle, Jessica gave Elizabeth a hug. “Don’t worry about a thing, Liz. Todd and I have gotten very close. I’ll tell him the truth. I just know he’s too terrific a guy to hold it against you. No way do I want him mad at you, Lizzie. Like, wouldn’t it be impossible when he picks me up for dates for him not to say hello to you, at least?”

Why would Todd be mad at Elizabeth if he’s dating Jessica? Why would he pick Jessica up and give Elizabeth the cold shoulder because she went on a date with Rick?

Abruptly, the chapter changes focus and we go on a date with Ronnie and Enid…which is third-wheeled by none other than Todd. The teens discuss the drama, and for some reason cannot come to the conclusion that it was Jessica, not Elizabeth, who got busted by the cops.

“I know Liz better than just about anybody. And I can’t imagine her with a guy like Rick— especially in a place like Kelly’s.”
“Well, sometimes a person is not what she seems,” Ronnie said sharply.
Todd nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s true. I mean, that’s what I’m finding.”
Enid couldn’t believe her ears, and told them so. “I know there’s another explanation. I can’t accept these rumors, especially after Liz has denied them.”

So not a one of them even suggests that this other explanation is that bad twin Jessica is clearly the one who was in this situation.

The boys continue to be insanely judgmental:

Todd, a sad, faraway look in his brown eyes, said, “Maybe there’s just so much a person can take. I mean, how long can you go on trusting someone, believing in someone?” [Matthew says: Didn’t they stare at each other in the cafeteria once?]
“If you’re her friend,” Enid said, “you should never stop.”

Jesus Christ, there is melodrama and then there’s melodrama. 1) Again, Todd and Elizabeth barely know each other so aren’t even friends. 2) Seriously, they don’t even know each other. How much has he endured? What the fuck does he mean by, “there’s just so much a person can take”? [Matthew says: This must have been the most taking-est afternoon of his life!] 3) What the fuck else has he trusted Elizabeth to do?

Desperately, Enid turned to Ronnie. “Sometimes people make mistakes they’re sorry for later,” she said slowly and from her heart. “Don’t you think they should be forgiven?”
Ronnie thought for a moment, throwing a pebble over and over into the sand. Finally he shook his head. “Some things are unforgivable.”

HOW IS THIS UNFORGIVABLE??? I dread to think what would have happened if Elizabeth had smoked a cigarette or farted in public.

Enid at least realizes that Ronnie is terrible while the boys determine that Elizabeth is definitely guilty, no ifs ands or buts.

“I heard it from at least three people,” Ronnie answered. “She was seen getting out of the police car. She was overheard promising never to go to Kelly’s again— with Rick, especially.”
“Well, I guess that’s it, then,” Todd said with bitter resignation. “There’s no use arguing because it’s a plain fact—Liz was there with Rick, and no amount of explaining can change that.”

Yeah. I sure can’t think of another explanation either. [Matthew says: Nobody even mentions Jessica in this conversation. It’s like they collectively forgot she exists for the sake of the mistaken identity.]

The chapter ends on a very dark note:

“Well, I do know,” Ronnie said vehemently. “And if a girl I liked did something like that, I’d never speak to her again.”
Though the day was still warm, Enid shivered and pulled on a shirt. She had made a decision. He must never know about me. Never. He must never know about the time she was arrested after that horrible accident. Lost in thought about herself, Enid forgot all about Elizabeth’s problems.

Chapter 9

Elizabeth continues to be sad that everyone thinks she’s the one who was out with Rick the Dick, while Jessica is thrilled she’s in the clear. Jessica say’s she’ll totally set everyone straight, but Elizabeth says not to bother because if people believe the rumor they’re not really her friends…? I’ve seen some pretty terrible explanations in the books we write about, and this is one of the worst. [Matthew says: Don’t forget this is actual trouble with the law, by the way. I feel like a court wouldn’t really accept “If you believe what’s on my legal record, YOU’RE NOT REALLY MY FRIEND.”]

There also appears to be a plot line about a rich family buying the football field to build a factory. Uh oh, another rich family wants to buy it to turn into a “formal English garden”. But where will the teens play football? And what the fuck is going on in this book?

The football team and cheerleaders decide to form a sit-in on the football field. For Elizabeth, this is the scoop of the century. Things are sure heating up in Sweet Valley!

Jessica starts arguing with two teens who appear to be members of these rich and powerful families. They start calling one another disgraces [Matthew says: Aw geez! Rich white teenager problems!], and then shit gets super real:

“But, my backside,” said Bruce. “And when it comes to a disgraceful family, Wakefield, how about your father and Marianna West—that trampy broad he’s fooling around with.”
“Now, just a minute,” Elizabeth said, stepping forward. “Marianna West works for my father’s law firm.”
“Yeah? Where? On the couch, maybe?” Bruce sneered.
“You liar!”
Bruce laughed. “Sure! Your father spends all his time running around with a sexy woman and you call that ‘working for the firm.’ ”

This town is so fucked up.

Elizabeth remembers an argument she walked in on her parents having last week. Her father was upset their mother was working so much and he didn’t get a chance to see her enough…wouldn’t this be more a sign he isn’t cheating? [Matthew says: Man, I can’t wait to see how far this plot about their father maybe having an affair progresses through mere conjecture before someone actually asks him about it.]

Do you guys think the twins’ dad is a cheating cheater? Do you care?

[Matthew says: Nope! It’s not Monday again! Ariel is doing both Sweet Valley High posts this week and I’m doing both next week! Not because we’re bad at math or anything! Hahahaha! Not math!]

Chapter Ten

I know this is a stupid book. There’s no question about that, but this chapter really and truly depressed me.

Elizabeth runs into Todd, and it seems like they’re about to talk about everything when of course Jessica runs over and interrupts. Elizabeth, the most spineless person in the universe, just walks away when Jessica shows up. She doesn’t even say hi to her sister, she just runs off to leave those two crazy kids alone. [Matthew says: To be fair, if I had known Jessica for this long I’d probably just walk away when she shows up too.]

What follows is so stupid and so absurd, that I am truly embarrassed that it saddened me so much:

Jessica took a deep breath. “Todd, I can’t let this go on. Elizabeth is my sister. I love her! Todd—it wasn’t Elizabeth at Kelly’s.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. Todd, it was me!”

“What?”

“Yes. Me. My sister is not going to be blamed for this thing. It’s not fair!”

Jessica was totally amazed at what happened next. Todd Wilkins stared deeply into her eyes for a long moment, then slowly shook his head as though in wonder.

“I’ve never heard anything so noble,” he finally said.

“What?”

“You’d take the blame for your sister? Jessica, I don’t think I’ve ever known how truly special you are until this moment.”

You could say what you want about the last chapter and how no one even entertains the possibility that it was Jessica and not Elizabeth who got herself into a pickle with the police. But for Todd to completely reject the truth for no discernable reason is completely baffling to the mind. If he originally trusted Elizabeth so completely, wouldn’t this explanation cause everything to click into place for him? What a fucking idiot, he and Jessica deserve each other. [Matthew says: The mental gymnastics involved on Todd’s part so that Jessica gets yet another “oh… yes… yes that is exactly what I meant. Nope, don’t need to correct anyone here.” moment are absurd. Guys, this might be more contrived than Beautiful Disaster‘s platonic bed-sharing bet. This might have out-platonic-bed-sharing-ed platonic bed-sharing.]

“But, Todd—” Todd pulled her close, holding her tightly in his strong arms for what seemed an eternity. Then he gently kissed her. He didn’t even hear the whistles and yells from the students who saw the whole thing, right in the center of the campus in the middle of the afternoon. Jessica sat there, stunned. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that telling the truth could be so rewarding. [Matthew says: I’m amazed the person who wrote this sentence didn’t drop dead of too much irony.]

“Jessica, you’re wonderful,” Todd said.

“Todd, you’re the greatest guy I’ve ever met, do you know that?”

“Listen! I’m taking you to the Phi Ep dance!”

I feel terrible for Jessica that dumbass Todd is the greatest guy she’s ever met. He’s basically just a giant, steaming pile of poo masquerading as a teenage boy. I know that sounds two identical things, but you catch my drift.

Again, this is completely ridiculous, but when I read this bit, I felt sad:

The first thing Elizabeth heard about as she left the Oracle office was the Big Love Scene between Todd and Jessica on the bench in the center of campus.

Elizabeth might be a complete jellyfish, but damn it, at least she isn’t Jessica and she deserves better than all this.

They [Elizabeth and ugly friend and resident goofy guy Winston] walked down the steps. There, at the foot, Bruce Patman was gliding up to them in his black Porsche.

“Well, well, well,” Bruce said to Elizabeth. “If it isn’t Roadhouse Rhoda.”

Elizabeth froze.

“Listen, I never thought you were such a fast number until now. But from what I hear, I’ve decided you’re my type. I’d like to take you to the dance.”

“Is that so?” Elizabeth snapped.

“Sure. I can’t stand most of these wimpy girls. We can put in an appearance at the dance, then head for someplace where we can have some real fun.”

When I said Elizabeth deserved better, this was definitely not who I had in mind. Elizabeth’s friend Winston jumps in and says they’re going to the dance together already. After Bruce fucks off, Elizabeth agrees to go to the dance with Winston for real, and he’s positively thrilled and has an extremely weird way of showing it:

Winston Egbert stared at the beautiful, popular, intelligent Elizabeth Wakefield and almost fainted.

“OK!” he said, astounded, then turned and raced madly across campus, screaming like a deranged chimpanzee.

I’ll just leave you to digest that.

Chapter 11

This chapter mostly centres around Jessica’s insane mood swings, family drama, and frozen dinners. [Matthew says: So it’s basically most of this book.]

Elizabeth and Jessica continue to have the fakest close relationship I’ve ever seen. Like this series is basically Game of Thrones but for privileged Californian teenagers. Even though Elizabeth’s intentions are arguably purer than Jessica’s, both girls are actually incredibly duplicitous and insincere. Elizabeth pretends to be happy Jessica is going to the dance with Todd, while Jessica pretends to be clueless over the fact that she’s causing her sister so much pain.

Jessica’s mood quickly sours and becomes more sexist when she realizes mom isn’t going to be home to make dinner!

“Where’s Mom? I can’t wait to tell her all about this.”

“She’s going to be late. An appointment, I think.”

“Again?” Jessica pouted. “That makes three nights in a row! I thought mothers were supposed to stay home and fix dinner once in a while!”

Shut the fuck up, Jessica.

Elizabeth wondered how her sister could possibly descend from cloud nine with Todd Wilkins to the pits of depression so fast—and simply because she had to do a little thing like help fix dinner.

Preach it, Elizabeth. Jessica really needs to be diagnosed ASAP.

Also, want to bet either the mom is having an affair, or that the parents have been sneaking around with each other to rekindle the romance? When the twins’ brother Steve shows up, they all start speculating on the father’s affair again, but I think something must be going on with their mother if she isn’t home to make dinner. [Matthew says: At least once every post I have to look up that these books don’t take place in the 50s. I’m still only at “pretty sure?”.]

To shut Jessica up, Elizabeth offers to throw some frozen dinners together for Wakefield siblings. Jessica is such a lazy cow. But why should I insult her when Steve is here to do it for me?

“Isn’t that just like a man!” Jessica spat. “You always stick up for each other! You’re just as bad as Dad. As a matter of fact, you’re just like him. You both have bad taste in women!”

[…]

“Steve, I meant—I mean, I didn’t mean—how can you stand there glaring so hatefully? This was supposed to be my happy day, and now you’re trying to ruin it!” Jessica buried her face in her arms, sobbing helplessly.

“You selfish little twerp,” Steven said, glaring at Jessica.

This soon devolves into the girls asking Steve about his new girlfriend, and it turns out she dumped him because he was too embarrassed to be seen with her in public because her family is “trash”. This reminds me so much of Beautiful Oblivion where we were supposed to be invested in Raegan’s relationships that always happened off-screen. I couldn’t give two shits about Steve and his failed relationship.

What’s even odder about the whole thing is that Jessica and Elizabeth thought he was dating one girl who they thought was complete trash, but actually it’s her sister he’s dating! [Matthew says: The one whose existence was never previously mentioned until the book conveniently needed a totally different thing for Steven to be doing.]

“I’m sorry, too, Steve. I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. But you and Betsy Martin—it can’t be. She’s trash.”

“Betsy Martin? What are you talking about? I’m in love with Tricia Martin.”

“Tricia? You mean Betsy’s sister?” Elizabeth asked, stunned.

“Yeah, Tricia.” Saying her name conjured up memories for Steven. Lovely Tricia with her strawberry-blonde hair, her sweet nature, everything he wanted in this world.

“That’s wonderful, Steve,” Elizabeth said. “Tricia is a terrific girl—one of the best! I’m so happy for you!”

“She’s still a Martin,” Jessica reminded him.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS MIX-UP??? “Ohhh I thought you were dating one girl who is trash and her family is trash, but you’re dating her sister? She’s nice but still trash, so mixed feelings.”

R.I.P Fernando. Beloved, cherished character.

Insurgent Chapter 43

“I don’t mean to be insensitive,” says Marcus, “but we have to go before the Dauntless and factionless enter this building. If they haven’t already.”

Marcus, you motherfucker. We are all still mourning Fernando, who again, just to remind you, is a beloved and cherished character that you loved and cherished.

I hear tapping against the window and jerk my head to the side, for a split second believing that it is Fernando, trying to get in. But it’s just rain.

Tris, you motherfucker. You made my hopes soar, made me dare dream that Fernando, beloved and cherished Fernando, was alive and well. BUT IT WAS JUST THE ELEMENTS.

[Matthew says: I’d just like to point out the irony in that, since we’re making such a big joke out of this, Fernando’s becoming the only minor character we actually remember the name of.]

Tris notes that they’ve just walked into an Erudite hallway that looks like every other Erudite hallway, but then proceeds to freak out when they go two floors up, and she realizes that’s where she’d previously been Jeanine’s prisoner. This raises the question, if all Erudite hallways look alike, wouldn’t any one of them trigger Tris’ PTSD? I’ve never heard of such specifically triggered PTSD.

Once in Control-A, it’s time to try to send the super important data to all the other factions. That is, unless Caleb can stop them! [Matthew says: Aw, man, not Caleb! He’s almost an effectual character!]

“Caleb,” I say. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m here to stop whatever you’re doing!” His voice trembles. The gun wavers in his hands. [Matthew says: See? Nobody has any idea what’s going on in this book. They just do stuff.]

“We’re here to save the Erudite data that the factionless want to destroy,” I say. “I don’t think you want to stop us.”

“That’s not true,” he says. He jerks his head toward Marcus. “Why would you bring him if you weren’t trying to find something else? Something more important to him than all the Erudite data combined?”

“She told you about it?” Marcus says. “You, a child?”

“She didn’t tell me at first,” Caleb says. “But she didn’t want me to choose a side without knowing the facts!”

Pro Writing Tip: When in doubt about the plot, just have characters yell at each other about exceedingly vague topics. It’ll alienate the reader and save you time actually figuring out what the fuck you’re going for in this scene! [Matthew says: Seriously. The only nouns in this exchange are “data”, “facts”, “whatever”, “something”, “something else”, and “it”. This is the first time I’ve read dramatic hero-villain dialogue in a book that was actually a Mad Lib.]

“My sister,” says Caleb gently, looking at me again, “doesn’t know what she’s getting into. Doesn’t know what it is that you want to show everyone … doesn’t know it will ruin everything!”

Oh Caleb, things can’t possibly be even more ruined. Fernando is gone.

Tris tells Caleb that he’s a piece of shit who didn’t help her when she was getting tortured.

“You could have tried, you coward!” I scream so loud my face gets hot and tears jump into my eyes. “Tried, and failed, because you love me!” I gasp, just to take in enough air. All I hear is the click of keys as Cara works on the task at hand. Caleb doesn’t seem to have a response. His pleading look slowly disappears, replaced by a blank stare.

“You won’t find what you’re looking for here,” he says. “She wouldn’t keep such important files on public computers. That would be illogical.”

Using her powerful reasoning skills, Tris determines that if they’re not on a public computer, they must be on a private one!

Marcus picks up Caleb’s revolver and turns it in his hand so the butt of the gun protrudes from his fist. Then he swings, striking Caleb under the jaw. Caleb’s eyes roll back, and he falls to the floor.

I don’t want to know how Marcus perfected that maneuver.

I know the implication is that he was practicing on Fourbias but I don’t buy that. That would have definitely made it into the fear landscape.

Marcus and Tris go in search of the private computers where Jeanine must be keeping the secret files, and they leave Cara to “take care of the rest.” I don’t understand; I thought Cara was trying to help them get the files…so leaving her behind to “finish the rest” on the public computers that don’t have any of the secret files is a complete waste of time. Not that this is any major departure from the entire series. [Matthew says: Honestly, I already forgot Cara was even here anyway.]

“Caleb said what we’re looking for won’t be on a public computer, so it has to be on a private one. As far as I know, Jeanine only has two private computers, one in her office, and one in her laboratory,” I say.

“So which one do we go to?”

“Tori told me there were insane security measures protecting Jeanine’s laboratory,” I say. “And I’ve been to her office; it’s just another room.”

“So … laboratory, then.”

“Top floor.”

It takes an entire book for absolutely nothing to happen, and yet this takes only a few lines? How can things be simultaneously so easy and so laborious in these books, it truly is astounding.

We reach the door to the stairwell, and when I throw it open, a group of Erudite, including children, are sprinting down the stairs.

Tris quickly slaughters the Erudite children, preventing another generation of annoying assholes from reaching adulthood.

Then for some reason Tris and Christina have to battle Crazy-Eye-Edward at the top of the staircase in order to get to Jeanine’s laboratory. YOU CAN TRUST NO ONE! [Matthew says: At this rate, there won’t be any tertiary antagonists left for the third book.]

Christina gets injured enough in the scurfuffle that she can’t go forward with Marcus and Tris, but she’s fine enough to make sure Edward stays incapacitated. Not plot devicey at all.

Chapter 44

Also not plot devicey at all is the fact that there are two ways to get into Jeanine’s laboratory (?) so they have to split up. I’ve decided that I’d like to picture Jeanine as Dexter of Dexter’s Lab. Tris is clearly the equivalent of Dexter’s sister Dee Dee.

And just like that, I enjoyed Insurgent for 30 seconds.

Tris asks Marcus what she should look for on Jeanine’s computer, but of course he gives her a vague answer, “Well, if you find Jeanine’s computer, there’s nowhere else she’s going to be. So torture her for the information. Kthanks.”

I put my hand on the door handle. There doesn’t seem to be a lock.

When Tori said there were insane security measures, I thought she meant eye scanners and passwords and locks, but so far, everything has been open.

Why does that worry me?

I’m so angry that this book made it impossible for me not to use this gif.

Don’t ask questions, Tris, that can be answered with an overused gif.

Tris walks into a room with the stupidest security system known to man. Instead of fucking shooting at her, the room attacks Tris with a mysterious serum/gas that causes her to, you guessed it, hallucinate.

“Intruder,” the voice says, and now it sounds like Jeanine, but that could be my imagination. “You have five minutes to reach the blue door before the poison will kick in.”

“What?”

If you were really serious about keeping intruders out and protecting your shit, you sure as fuck would not give them an elaborate puzzle to solve unless you were part of the Saw franchise and trying to teach people valuable life lessons. Next thing you know, Tris will have to answer an insane lateral thinking puzzle, and then this book will get super crazy.

So of fucking course, Tris hallucinates herself and she has to battle herself in a way that is totally definitely completely not metaphorical. At one point, Tris even realizes that the rules are the same as all the other simulations so she imagines a gun appearing…if you could imagine anything, surely she could have just imagined her hallucination of herself away? Maybe I’m not smart enough to get serum-logic. [Matthew says: Also, Tris uses her simulation-breaking Divergent powers to make a gun appear, which hallucation-Tris also does? Does the book now expect us to believe that Jeanine can code something that can break its own coding?]

And then she has to kill a hallucination of Will in a way that is totally definitely completely not incredibly unimaginative.

Guys! Guys! We’re fucking done with Insurgent today! I mean, we still have Allegiant, but we can still feel like we’ve accomplished something now. Let’s reflect back on Insurgent! Remember that time we hung out with people that didn’t contribute to the plot? And then those other people who didn’t contribute to the plot? And then Tris was captured and then she wasn’t? And then someone said “Insurgent”? Can anyone tell me what the fuck happened in this book?

Chapter 45

Okay, honestly, I miscounted how many chapters were left, but it’s fine because this one is just Tris walking through a room and then not talking Tori out of killing Jeanine, because she doesn’t believe her when Tris tells her about the secret computer file Jeanine needs to find that Tris had never ever mentioned to anyone previously ever. See? It’s like you read it yourself.

Chapter 46

So Tori just killed Jeanine (that happened), which really puts a damper on Tris’s plan to sort of try to not kill Jeanine first.

Tori stands, a wild look in her eyes, and turns toward me. […] all the sacrifices I made – my relationship with Tobias, Fernando’s life, my standing among the Dauntless – were for nothing.

There, there, Tris. You refused to communicate with anyone about these plans, so they were always for nothing.

Tobias and Uriah storm in as if to fight a battle—Uriah coughing, probably from the poison

Okay, wait, why is Jeanine’s last line of defense a room that tasks people with solving a puzzle before it kills them, rather than just being… something that kills them? The only people that can solve this puzzle are the people trying to kill her. Jeanine’s not divergent, so she can’t even solve that puzzle. This is like hiding in a closet and thinking, “Ha! That fire will never get me now! There’s a wood door in the way!” Why was her last line of defense so bad that the first people to try to break through it – who totaled four people – were able to do so?

Yes, you will be seeing this gif a lot today.

Regardless, Jeanine is dead, Tris tried to stop Tori from doing so, and Tori tells Four and Uriah that Tris is a traitor. Nobody believes Tris when she says that she was looking for secret information, which is probably unrelated to how she had just lied to them about not being involved at all.

“Tris, what’s going on? Is she right? Why are you even here?”

It’s almost like most of this was pretty avoidable!

Tobias tells Tris that they found Marcus in the other room, and is seriously hurt that she teamed up with his abusive dad to work behind his back, which is maybe the first time Tobias has had a pretty good point in this book. Tris tries to convince Tobias that she’s telling the truth about Jeanine keeping A Secret. Not with logic or explanations. God, no. With the power of love.

“The truth.” He snorts. “You think you learned the truth from a liar, a traitor, and a sociopath?”
“I think that you are the liar!” I say, my voice quaking. “You tell me you love me, you trust me, you think I’m more perceptive than the average person. And the first second that belief in my perceptiveness, that trust, that love is put to the test, it all falls apart.” […]
I stare at him like I can communicate the truth with my eyes, but that is impossible.

Tris might have an affinity for three factions, but she totally has only has the one worst Captain Planet power.

Tori announces that Tris should be taken downstairs with “all the other war criminals”, and Tobias… doesn’t do anything. Man, I wonder if he’s going to conveniently come back later with all the answers?

Uriah takes Tris downstairs, and this super not-subtle thing happens:

“Give me your gun, Uriah,” says Therese. “Someone needs to be able to shoot potential belligerents, and you can’t do it if you’re keeping her from falling down the stairs.”
Uriah surrenders his gun without question. I frown— Therese already has a gun, so why did it matter for him to give his?

Reading Insurgent is basically 500 pages of people doing this.

Tris sees the aftermath of the battle for the first time and sees that there are a lot of dead Candor, whom the Erudite used as mind-control soldiers. In a surprising show of restraint for the Divergent series, it lets the weight of all the dead speak for itself rather than try to induce emotion by killing off a bunch of minor characters we never cared about. Don’t worry it’ll fuck up this same theme really soon.

Four suddenly reappears and takes Caleb with him.

“I want you to disarm the security system for Jeanine’s laboratory,” says Tobias without looking back. “So that the factionless can access her computer.”
And destroy it, I think, and if possible, my heart becomes even heavier.

*long sigh* Okay, we only have to play along for, what, another 15 pages? Oh yeah. That’s totally what’s going to happen! It is NOT obviously something else! Uh… oh no!

Tris and Christina, waiting for the same obvious twists that we know are coming to just happen already, suddenly realize something in this book had an inadequate explanation.

“Wait,” she says. “It was a simulation? Without a transmitter?”

They muse on this for about a page, as though it ever mattered, will ever matter again in the narrative, or as though it isn’t ranked at like #132 on the list of things in Divergent that didn’t make any sense.

Also, Lynn dies, giving us one last chance to struggle to remember who Lynn is.

…drink?

The doctor purses her lips, and I know that Lynn is as good as dead.
“Fix her!” says Uriah. “You can fix her, so do it!”
“On the contrary,” the doctor says, looking up at him. “Because you set the hospital floors of this building on fire, I cannot fix her.”

Uriah spends his last moments with his dear friend Lynn, who has surprising last words for him.

“Uri, listen. I loved her too. I did.”
“You loved who?” he says, his voice breaking.
“Marlene,” says Lynn.
“Yeah, we all loved Marlene,” he says.
“No, that’s not what I mean.” She shakes her head. She closes her eyes.

And that was how Lynn died. The one girl character in this book with a buzz cut was revealed to be a lesbian.

Nothing says “dystopian future” like “stereotypes from the mid-20th century”

Chapter 47

Okay, ready for more plot twists than you can shake a stick at? Then you’re gonna love the last chapter of Insurgent.

Tori and Harrison-

-come down to the main room with the others carrying Jeanine’s body. Johanna Reyes (the former Amity leader) shows up and has a confrontation with Tori.

“Yeah, I saw you and your little band of peacekeepers, getting in everyone’s way,” says Tori.
“Yes, that was intentional,” Johanna replies. “Since getting in the way meant standing between guns and innocents, and saved a great number of lives.”

I think Amity just stood in between two armies shooting at each other because they were the only faction that hadn’t yet been massacred and were feeling left out.

Tori informs Johanna that they’re going to form a new political system excluding Amity’s faction from representation. Johanna doles out some clunky, heavy-handed themes.

“Do remember, though, that sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like.”

Whatever could that mean? Man, if only the main character would explain it to me over the course of the next three paragraphs.

Something about her words hits me. I am sure she meant them as a threat, and a feeble one, but it rings in my head like it was something more— like she could easily have been talking not about the Amity, but about another oppressed group. The factionless.

Aw snap! That sucks! Thanks, Tris!

And as I look around the room, at every Dauntless soldier and every factionless soldier, I begin to see a pattern.

Mhm. Indeed! Thanks, Tris!

“Christina,” I say. “The factionless have all the guns.”

Thanks. Tris.

THANKS, TRIS.

Evelyn (Four’s mom/factionless leader) pulls out her gun and fires above the crowd and announces a plot twist we all knew was happening either last chapter or half a book ago, depending on when you started counting.

“The faction system that has long supported itself on the backs of discarded human beings will be disbanded at once,” says Evelyn.

Tori breaks in, looking scandalized. “What are you talking about, disbanded?”
“What I am talking about,” says Evelyn, looking at Tori for the first time, “is that your faction, which up until a few weeks ago was clamoring along with the Erudite for the restriction of food and goods to the factionless, a clamor that resulted in the destruction of the Abnegation, will no longer exist.”

It’s really weird that the story’s loudest voice that the faction system doesn’t work – the only conclusion that could possibly work in a story that has something as stupid as the faction system as its entire premise – are also characterized as its chaotic voices of insanity. Like, this ending should make perfect sense. Every faction has been partially slaughtered at the hands of the other factions. If it weren’t for Tris, Team Evelyn would be looking like the underdogs free from the faction system that tore itself apart right about now.

Evelyn tells us something we’ve been told like 9000 times, but in a punnier way, so it’s totes worth hearing it again.

Evelyn smiles a little. “And if you decide to take up arms against us,” she says, “you will be hard pressed to find any arms to take up.”

But, of course, this theme would have made too much sense, so we have to quickly get rid of it.

Behind her, the door to the stairwell opens, and Tobias steps out

Basically how this book wants us to see Tobias.

“You were right ,” Tobias says quietly, balancing on the balls of his feet. He smiles a little. “I do know who you are. I just needed to be reminded.” […]
Then all the screens in the Erudite lobby— at least those that weren’t destroyed in the attack— flicker on […]
“This,” he says, only to me, “is the information that will change everything.”

…DESPERATELY wants us to see Tobias

Okay, ready for number two?

It’s also funny because it’s “number two”

Everyone goes silent as the video begins, which is simply a woman sitting at a desk, talking to the camera.

“Hello,” she says. “My name is Amanda Ritter. In this file I will tell you only what you need to know. I am the leader of an organization fighting for justice and peace. This fight has become increasingly more important— and consequently, nearly impossible— in the past few decades. That is because of this.”
Images flash across the wall, almost too fast for me to see. A man on his knees with a gun pressed to his forehead . The woman pointing it at him, her face emotionless.
From a distance, a small person hanging by the neck from a telephone pole.
A hole in the ground the size of a house, full of bodies.
And there are other images too, but they move faster, so I get only impressions of blood and bone and death and cruelty […]
“The battle we are fighting is not against a particular group. It is against human nature itself— or at least what it has become.”

So… Divergent is happening… because an intangible concept that has somehow caused something no more specific than vaguely connected themes… is being dealt with in a conversely extremely tangible way. Like… the rest of the book. Oh, god, this isn’t going to make any sense at all, is it?

Wait, really. What’s going on here? Is this really what’s happening? Chicago post-apocalypse dystopia is a social experiment to fix human nature? Jesus, how bad was this vague apocalypse that made humanity, uh, worse? This has to be the first time in history someone has looked at Chicago and said, “This. This will fix human nature.”

Every time someone asks me what part of Chicago I’m from, I avoid eye contact and mumble, “The suburbs…”

Ok. Some of this has to start making sense soo- oh my god, who am I fucking kidding? This is Divergent.

“In order to keep you safe, we devised a way for you to be separated from us. From our water supply.”

I thought this was an issue of human nature itself. Now it’s in the water? This book made it to one example before it immediately contradicted itself.

“From our technology.”

“Except for our guns. In order to fix human civilization, we’re going to lock up a bunch of people in a box and give them guns.”

“From our societal structure.”

So they came up with the faction system???

“We have formed your society in a particular way in the hope that you will rediscover the moral sense most of us have lost.”

“In order to help you rediscover this sense of morality, we designed your entire social structure to be like a BuzzFeed quiz.”

“The reason I am leaving this footage for you is so that you will know when it’s time to help us. You will know that it is time when there are many among you whose minds appear to be more flexible than the others. The name you should give those people is Divergent.”

Oh my goodness, you have to be kidding.

Let’s get this straight. The Chicago faction system in Divergent is a scientific/social experiment which wants to increase certain genes/personality traits/morality, which are all apparently interchangeable things, in the population, to save humanity from having become… something.

Guys, their actual solution to their problem is inbreeding. That solves zero problems.

Seriously why is the premise of Divergent using inbreeding to give people more moral genes?

DRINK

So. Uh. This is actually a book about the benefits of inbreeding now. I have no idea where we go from there. Can this get stupider?

“Once they become abundant among you, your leaders should give the command for Amity to unlock the gate forever, so that you may emerge from your isolation.”

Oh my god, it did. How is a subpopulation expressing one beneficial phenotype (not to mention all the not-beneficial phenotypes, like hemophilia, because inbreeding) going to save the much larger rest of humanity from their, uh, evil phenotype? What are they supposed to do? Fuck them to salvation? Literally?

The woman in the type explains that she is one of the first generation of the experiment, which means she is voluntarily having her memory wiped and being given false memories to join this new experimental society. And because there wasn’t enough plot twisting:

“My name will be Edith Prior,” she says.

Me, reading every word of this chapter.

Seriously. Of all the things to suspend dis-

Prior.

THANKS. TRIS.

The video stops. The projector glows blue against the wall. I clutch Tobias’s hand, and there is a moment of silence like a withheld breath.
Then the shouting begins.

Which is a funny ending, because I seem to recall it was when everyone finished reading Allegiant that everyone started shouting.

But you want to know what the weird part is? I mean, the extra weird part? Aside from how inbreeding is going to save humanity? You know how the Divergent series constantly overexplains itself? How Tris breaks down every little theme and every single narrative development, like the book is absolutely terrified that someone will miss a single thing that happens in it?

You know how the book ends with everybody watching a video about how human nature has turned evil and resulted in overwhelming death and destruction, so these people are their only hope? These people, who are surrounded in a post-battle, wartorn building by overwhelming death and destruction?

And that this is more than a little ironic?

Why is this the one thing that the book doesn’t feel the need to beat over the reader’s head? The book explains everything to the reader, so… did… did the book not pick up on its best, most ironic theme?

Question of the day! What the fuck?

Welcome back to another week of Sweet Valley High! As a reminder, I’m doing both Monday and Tuesday’s post this week, because Ariel and I decided to split up our chapters. We realized pretty late that more shit happens in the 159 pages of one Sweet Valley High than in the 525 pages of Insurgent.

Chapter 12

This chapter begins with a Jessica-Elizabeth scene that serves as a handy overview of all the people who are with the wrong people:

• Jessica is going to the dance with Todd, although Todd and Elizabeth were the ones with feelings for each other.
• Elizabeth is going to the dance with Winston, whom neither Jessica nor Elizabeth find attractive, but as Elizabeth points out, “he doesn’t have three heads, for heaven’s sake”, so there’s, um, that.
• But the only reason Elizabeth is going to the dance with Winston at all was so she could turn down Bruce Patman, who is actually totally Jessica’s type! Also, his name sounds like Bruce Batman. This isn’t really a fault on the book’s part, but I can’t shake the mental image anyway.

I try to stick to fair criticisms on this blog, but then sometimes a character’s name sounds like “Bruce Batman”

Jessica asserts what a mistake Elizabeth made by explaining all of Bruce’s many delightful qualities.

“Bruce Patman!” Jessica squealed. “Liz Wakefield, how dare you sit there calmly and tell me Bruce asked you out as if it weren’t important! […] No girl alive would turn Bruce down. He’s handsome, Liz. He is sooooo rich. And he drives that awesome Porsche!”

Man, Bruce’s parents Bruce sounds well-off and that’s pretty much it like quite a mega hunk!

Elizabeth asks Jessica if she’s sure she wouldn’t rather go to the dance with Bruce instead of Todd. Jessica asks Elizabeth if she’s sure she’s okay with her going to the dance with Todd. Nobody explains how they really feel, so the book can continue instead of solving all its problems right now.

As soon as Jessica left the room, the smile left Elizabeth’s face. Will it really be such a terrific night? she asked herself, tears filling her eyes.

I mean, mostly. That still would have been awkward to explain to the boys, but baby steps.

Speaking of the boys, the book continues to lay “everyone really wants to be dating someone else” on pretty thick.

“Hi, Mrs. Wakefield. I’m Todd Wilkins. I’m here to pick up Li—Jessica, I mean, for the dance.”

It’s like that episode of Friends, except nobody noticed it happened.

When Elizabeth is ready and enters the room, she finds both Winston and Todd there, which is mega awks! Almost as awks as the dialogue:

I’ve died and gone to heaven!” Getting up, he made a grand bow. “Princess Elizabeth, you are totally—totally—that’s what you are, Liz Wakefield—totally!”
Elizabeth found herself laughing so hard she was nearly in tears. “Win Egbert, you are totally crazy! And if you make me cry and ruin my eye makeup, I’ll kill you!”

The prose manages to get even more unnatural than “eye makeup” somehow.

Alice Wakefield was smiling that particular smile every mother does when her child is happy.

Jessica is upset that Todd is obviously not in highest spirits, but manages to look on the bright side anyway.

Maybe he’s not good with words, she thought. But she knew from the other day that he was good with kissing—and there certainly would be more kisses that evening!

At the dance, Jessica and Winston are upset that their respective dates aren’t acting super into it! At the end of the night, Todd merely kisses Jessica on the cheek! Jessica, furious that her sister and Todd have ruined her night, continues to ruin everyone’s life by instead telling Elizabeth that Todd  “tried just about everything” and that she “had to beg him and beg him to please stop!”

Chapter 13

Meanwhile, back in Steven’s subplot, Steven hasn’t left his room in two days, so his parents make him talk to them about Tricia Martin, who is also a character in this story we have to keep track of.

he told them how he had pretended that her family’s problems didn’t matter. He loved her “anyway,” he had told her, and he was above that sort of thing.
“She saw right through me,” Steven said bitterly. “She saw the truth—a truth I didn’t even realize—that I was ashamed of her family.”

This is a truth that he didn’t realize? It’s literally the only detail we’ve been given about this character and her family. This would be like not realizing the Cat in the Hat is a cat.

His parents help Steven realize that it doesn’t matter if other people approve of Tricia but “whether you approve of her”. Steven goes to Tricia’s and things escalate from “I approve of you!” very fast.

“Can you forgive me, Trish, for being a complete fool? I love you. I love you so much.”
“Oh, Steve,” Trish said. “I love you, too.”

As Steven drives home from the world’s fastest-resolved subplot, he spots his dad’s car and follows him, when the story unexpectedly shifts over to the parents’ subplot when he discovers his dad isn’t going home, but is driving with Marianna West to her house!

Steven didn’t know what to do. He certainly hadn’t planned to spy on his father. But there he was, following his father and Marianna—and wondering what in heaven’s name was going on. It was too late, he realized, for them to be coming home from work.

Spoiler: Nobody thinks about how weird it is that his dad was giving sage romance advice earlier in this chapter.

He sat in the car for a long time, waiting for his father to come out. He listened to at least a dozen songs on the radio, without hearing any of the music, before he finally gave up and drove home. […] He wanted to be awake when his father arrived home—if he came home at all.

And that was a whole chapter of not-the-twins’ high school romance plot, which is way more serious than their relatively light one. So I guess I would recommend this book for everyone who liked the sweet pangs of adolescence on Lizzie McGuire, but wished there were an episode where Lizzie’s younger brother suspected their parents of infidelity.

Meanwhile, Matt is tailing his dad to find out if he’s having an affair.

Question of the day! What music are you listening to right now? Make something up if you have to, it’s cool. Nobody will know you’re lying.

Sometimes I really struggle to title these posts. [Ariel says: I’m glad you have this problem too. Most of the time I just want to write, “Insert Joke Here: Book/Chapter Numbers.] [Matthew adds: Right? So who noticed yesterday’s post went out to all of BBGT’s social media as “Blah: Sweet Valley High #1″?]

Chapter 14

Chapter 14 begins with yet another handy summary of literally the entire plot so far:

Elizabeth couldn’t remember a time when life had been such a mess. Everything was in a shambles. Her father was chasing around after another woman, and her mother was blind to it. The money-grubbing Fowlers were grabbing the Sweet Valley High Gladiators’ football field away from them just when they had a really terrific team. And who was trying to stop the Fowlers? The Patmans, who were just as bad—a formal English garden! The whole disgusting mess was now in the courts, which only threw her father and that woman lawyer, Marianna West, together even more.
And to top it off, Todd Wilkins had turned out to be practically as bad as Rick Andover.

Elizabeth has to keep covering the football story for the school paper and has to go to the Court at 9:30 on Tuesday, because apparently she doesn’t actually have to go to school, I guess. Making things even more complicated, Todd finally gets a word in with Elizabeth, who’s been trying to avoid him. But we still have about 33 pages of book left, so it’s just for another misunderstanding.

“I just wanted to say that—well, people make mistakes. I know that. People do things without realizing it, and then they’re sorry. And you can’t hold it against them forever! It’s not fair.”
No, Elizabeth thought. That was true.
If Todd apologized for what he tried to do to Jessica, that wouldn’t make it all right, exactly. But it would make her at least stop hating him some.
“I just wanted to apologize, Liz, for the way I’ve been acting. […] I’ve cooled down some
now, but it took me a lot to be willing to forgive you.”

He forgives her?

“You’re willing—?” Elizabeth felt she was going to explode. “Just forget it, Todd.” […]
“Elizabeth, I’m trying to keep my cool. But this is getting to me.”
“Isn’t that too bad.”

Aw snap! Elizabeth finally stood up for herself! Not to Jessica, though. But then this book would have been like six pages long if anyone ever stood up to Jessica.

[Ariel says: Also seriously, what the fuck is Todd forgiving Elizabeth for in the first place? He’s not her boyfriend or even her friend. Even if she had been the one to get caught by the police, she doesn’t owe Todd jack shit.]

Chapter 15

Elizabeth goes to court to report on the football field trial for the school paper, which is still evidently a thing that high school papers can do. Elizabeth also gets recognized by a writer at the local paper, because everybody in this town knows everybody else, even though none of them can fathom that Jessica is maybe the one that ran into legal trouble and not Elizabeth.

Speaking of legal trouble, Elizabeth notices her father (a lawyer on the school’s side) with none other than Marianna! Get it? Because it looks like trouble, and he’s a lawyer and they’re in a court room and… ok nevermind.

After the other two minor characters deliver speeches for their respective arguments (that aren’t really important because this subplot is over, like, superfast), Elizabeth is surprised that her father isn’t delivering his firm’s statement, but Marianna is! And then she’s really good!

Elizabeth scribbled frantically, trying to keep up with Marianna’s powerful argument. She seemed to know everything about the matter, all right. Her father must have told her every detail.

He must have! Her womanbrain sure couldn’t have done this on its own. [Ariel says: I’m surprised Elizabeth wasn’t like, “Marianna was clearly on her period, so without the help of a man, she never would have been able to handle herself in the courtroom.”]

A recess is called and Elizabeth’s father introduces her to Marianna, whom Elizabeth is confused to find she actually likes. Then the judge decided school wins the property and gets to keep the football field.

and there was much rejoicing

Elizabeth writes the story for the school paper, and words stop having meaning for a moment.

Mr. Collins read over her story and nodded approvingly. “Good, Elizabeth. Very objective.”
Elizabeth sighed. She didn’t feel very objective. […] How could she be happy when her father was about to leave them for another woman?

Things get worse when Elizabeth’s mom tells her that Marianna West is coming over for dinner!

“Marianna West!” her mother said, smiling. “And—”
She didn’t have a chance to say who the other guest was because Elizabeth interrupted. “Marianna West?”
“Yes! And your father has a very important announcement to make.”
“An announcement about Marianna West?”
“Yes!”

Being the rational soul she is, Jessica is on TEAM DIVORCEAPALOOZA.

“I know!” cried Jessica, collapsing in tears on her bed. “They’re going to announce they’re getting a divorce. Oh, I could just die!”

There’s more.

“This is the most horrible day in my entire existence!” Jessica raged, stomping out and heading for her room.

I’m not saying this wouldn’t be terrible, but bear in mind that Jessica’s previous “worst day ever” announcement was when she had to microwave dinner because her mom wasn’t home to cook.

The scenario gets some more wacky mishaps when Steven’s subplot gets roped in.

“He’s going to make an announcement at dinner,” said Elizabeth. “We’re not sure yet what it is, but under the circumstances, it’s got to be terrible.”
“Oh, no,” he said, falling into a chair. “But I’ve invited Tricia Martin to dinner!”

The book, of course, misses no opportunity to shit on Tricia Martin’s family.

[Steven wasn’t] able to reach Tricia to tell her not to come. She would discover that she was not the only one whose family was a mess.

It’s not often you read a book that sounds like it was written by Draco Malfoy.

The big moment comes.

Mr. Wakefield raised his glass. “Listen, everybody,” he said. “I was going to announce this at dinner, but I just can’t wait. […] I offer a toast to Marianna,” said Ned Wakefield,“the newest partner in our law firm!”

Question of the Day: ARE YOU TOTES SURPRISED?

- – -

Dear Readers,

On a personal note, a family friend was recently diagnosed with cancer. They’ve set up a campaign on Go Fund Me in the hopes of some help to pay for the treatment. In the spirit of crowdfunding, I thought I would reach out to our readership. A few thousand people will read this message at the end of this post today. If you are in a position where you have a few dollars to spare, I hope you – and anyone else here in the BBGT community – could consider helping to make a little difference together.

Many thanks from your friends at Bad Books, Good Times

No, I haven’t forgotten about this feature that I did for two weeks only and then skipped for a month!

From Russia, With Love

Around sixth or seventh grade was when I first decided to try watching James Bond, since I had heard they were pretty good. They were not. Not letting crappy stories get in my way, I kept trying for some unfathomable reason anyway (I write this blog, after all). There have certainly been moments I’ve enjoyed (generally the new ones, because I can only take so much camp), enough where I didn’t write it off enough to have some curiosity about the original books, and felt I should give one a go. I picked up From Russia, With Love, because I seem to recall it being the one that bored me the least, and give it a go in a genre my girlfriend rather humorously penned as, “books about a white man written by a white man”.

Now, before I get into this, and whether this is any good or not, we’re going to play a quick game. It is a game I like to call “James Bond Chapter Title or Black Sabbath Song?”

• The Slaughterer
• The Straightener
• The Moguls of Death
• Children of the Grave
• Konspiratsia
• Behind the Wall of Sleep
• Hand of Doom
• The Wizard of Ice
• Into The Void
• The Tunnel of Rats

Can you tell the difference? What if I told you there were half of each? Do you think that a cold war spy series sharing tonal similarities with a death metal band is maybe not the best thing to be tonally similar with?

I don’t know where to begin. It’s paced horrendously, fluffier than most of the books we read on this blog, misogynistic, homophobic. Bond doesn’t show up page 90 of a 250 page book. Characters show up, are given elaborate backstories and motivations, and then dismissed without any further development. Women take their shirts off for no particularly clear reason. Everything about this book is terrible. And to top it all off, it’s dumb. It’s really, really dumb. The villains’ evil plan is, I shit you not, to do something bad. I’m not kidding. There’s like a whole chapter where Soviet spies are sitting around a table talking about how the world thinks the USSR is so good now, so they have to do something bad. And that is why the book happens. Because the bad guys want to do a bad thing so the world knows that they’re bad.

‘The foreign policy of the USSR has entered a new phase. Formerly, it was a “hard” policy. […] A new polcy was created – the “hard-soft” policy. Geneva was the beginning of this policy. We were “soft”. China threatens Quemoy and Matsu. We were “hard”.’

I swear to god, there’s a whole chapter of this. There’s a whole chapter of the bad guys explaining that sometimes they’re bad, but sometimes they’re not bad, and now it is time to be bad.

Sure, you might think, it’s a dumb spy novel. Once we get the obligatory – maybe super obligatory, in this case – motive out of the way, it’s all action and fighting and all manner of exciting daring-do!

WELL, THAT’S WHERE YOU WOULD ALSO BE WRONG.

The main premise of the novel is that the USSR is going to trick Bond into what he thinks is an assignment rescuing a girl (obvs) wishing to defect from the commies, but is actually a set up for a scandalous murder-suicide that will shame the English spy ring as the Western world is shocked by the lurid story. Naturally, half of the book takes place in Turkey with an unrelated plot to kill another agent who is not Bond, and also gypsies. As one does when writing a story about not that.

When the book finally does remember what’s going on and gets back to the bit with Bond and the USSR scandal plot, one of the previously elaborately-developed characters comes back with a completely different character, who is then defeated in an action scene that contains plenty of stupid shit, which can be best summed up with the bit where Bond dodges a bullet at point blank range by diving towards the gun. If the worst Bond movies can be described as movies where you check your brain at the door, this is a book that requires you to leave your eyeballs at home in order to read it.

And that’s, of course, to say nothing of the sexism, because everybody knows that James Bond is misogynistic as a swine flu-infected grizzly bear wrapped up in the meth trade is a poor house-pet. But I will leave you with this delightful gem, because it is an actual sentence made by an actual character in this novel we’re supposed to like:

‘All women want to be swept off their feet. In their dreams they long to be slung over a man’s shoulder and taken into a cave and raped.’

This point actually segues into my final reason why everything in this book is inane nonsense: everything in this book is based on generalizations. It makes for a sexist work when it declares all women are like x, certainly. But what’s the point of a spy novel where all English are like x, all Soviets are like y, all Americans are like z, all Middle-Easterners are… and that’s literally everything. All the espionage falls flat, because instead of ever feeling like clever, insightful subterfuge, it just feels like everything is based on broad, sweeping generalizations. Which brings me to my next point…

Can You Explain It In Terms Of Other Books We Read On This Blog?

A book where everybody’s motivations and characteristics are based entirely on a very broadly defined and not-especially-specific group they belong to, and those generalizations are somehow supposed to drive the entire conflict? Goddammit, I’m just rereading Divergent!

And that’s basically all you need. It’s as fluffed up and driven by overgeneralizing characters and “we’re evil because we’re evil” villains as Divergent, so if you’ve ever had any particular curiosity to read the novels behind the James Bond movies, just know they’re not really that far off of Divergent. And then I guess you replace Tris with Christian Grey.

And you know what? If I’m going to read something this dumb, I’d much rather read it with a reasonably complex female lead than a bland white dude with inexplicable universal charm. Might as well get some diversity up in here.

And Also Currently Listening

My girlfriend and I have shared Postmodern Jukebox with each other for a while, and I recently discovered it’s also all on Spotify, too. It’s the perfect solution for people who wish that if pop music has to be so catchy, then that it didn’t also have to be so shitty. Evidently all it takes to make it not ridiculously shameful to listen to “Timber” is an old-timey 1950s doo wop rewrite.

Having at long last become a Spotify convert has, on the one hand, presented me with a quandary about whether the value of things has any meaning (If I sign up for Premium, then am I paying forever to not own all of something? Isn’t that why I’m already doing now?). But on the other hand, it has made it a lot easier and faster to go through end of year music lists. From a year ago. Anyway, this is all to say that I discovered CocoRosie, which is a sort of gothic electronic/folk, which is in turn all to say that I realize I’m sort of pretentious, and probably shouldn’t be surprised I fucking hate James Bond.

Lastly, I rediscovered an album a college friend of mine showed me senior year by Prinz Pi. It is a German rap album about Lord of the Rings. This is a real thing that is real.

It hit me today that both Allegiant and Captivated by You (which we’ll be starting after Sweet Valley High is done) both alternate points of view between the two love interests. We didn’t even plan for this!

Allegiant Chapter 1: Tris

When we’d last left off, a woman named Edith Prior (who Tris helpfully points out shares her last name) revealed that she was about to forget who she was in order to become part of the experiment that led to the whole Divergent series. I would explain this experiment to you, but I really don’t fucking get the point of it. Neither does Matthew really, because it is the most ill-conceived experiment ever, but here’s Matt’s take on it. [Matthew says: You should really read it if you want any hope of understanding what’s going on in this book, but TL;DR, everything is a science experiment, but a shitty one where instead of having a control group, they gave all the subjects guns.]

Christina and Tris try to figure out how Edith is related to Tris, and it manages to take what is meant to be this massively interesting reveal, a reveal that the rest of the story is meant to hinge on, and make it as boring as anything else we’ve read thus far:

“Is she a grandmother or an aunt or something?”

“I told you, no,” I say, turning when I reach the wall. “Prior is—was—my father’s name, so it would have to be on his side of the family. But Edith is an Abnegation name, and my father’s relatives must have been Erudite, so . . .”

“So she must be older,” Cara says, leaning her head against the wall. From this angle she looks just like her brother, Will, my friend, the one I shot.

If I’m this bored and the book has only just started, I can only imagine what I’m in for. [Matthew says: Welcome to my life when we started the first book.] Like Veronica Roth doesn’t even think we can remember Will or that Tris shot him because she knows we probably fell asleep while reading that scene and all the minor characters blur together. Never mind that even if you managed to only stay awake for a small fraction of the first two books you would have inevitably encountered Tris angsting over this.

Luckily, there is a much needed reminder about what the fuck is actually going on with the plot:

My ancestor, and this is the inheritance she passed to me: freedom from the factions, and the knowledge that my Divergent identity is more important than I could have known. My existence is a signal that we need to leave this city and offer our help to whoever is outside it.

I still do not get why people had to form factions and start breeding until Divergent people appeared…I mean, haven’t we established that pretty much everyone is Divergent? I still don’t even understand what sets Tris apart from anyone else, and yet she’s the only one who can save the mysterious people outside the city…somehow? This whole plot just sounds like someone wrote an outline for a story and never really bothered to fill in the plot. Teenager finds out she’s super special because of X and this means she has to do the super important Y and save the day while falling in love with Z.

Tris let’s us know that she and her pals have been locked up by Evelyn for the past few days and Fourbias still hasn’t come by to see them. In the chaos that happened completely off-screen, though, Fourbias told Tris to trust him and do as she was told.

Allegiant Chapter 2: Fourbias

Fourbias immediately shows up to see Tris and co, and his narration reads almost exactly like Tris’. They both think in stupid metaphors, cliches, nonsensical phrases, and the most straight-forward and bland narration imaginable. They’re truly made for each other. Well, that or Veronica Roth can’t figure out how to distinguish two characters. [Matthew says: I partly disagree. I found that Four’s narration read pretty differently from Tris’s. But it’s because his prose is EXTRA full of overwrought, flowery, metaphorical language, so I agree about the “it’s not good” part.]

There is a wavering expression in her eyes, like she is a heap of leaves about to be scattered by the wind. [Matthew says: Case in point.] “What’s happening? What took you so long?”
She sounds desperate, pleading. For all the horrible memories this place carries for me, it carries more for her, the walk to her execution, her brother’s betrayal, the fear serum. I have to get her out.
Cara looks up with interest. I feel uncomfortable, like I have shifted in my skin and it doesn’t quite fit anymore. I hate having an audience.

I think that about sums it up. Heaps of leaves = wavering expressions. Skin never fits our characters. Events have to be reiterated to us every 30 seconds.

[Matthew says: I do, however, want to take a quick moment to say that the book actually managed to change my mind on something I thought was stupid. Tobias, of course, isn’t in trouble because his mom rules the world now (ugh, MOM), and there’s an interesting moment where he reflects on how people treat him:

Tobias Eaton was a shameful name, and now it is a powerful one.

I mean, the prose isn’t interesting, but I’ve come around on the Four/Tobias/Fourbias silliness, and I actually kind of like how the evolution of this person’s name has been used as a tool for developing his character. It’s still not well-written, and he’s still an insanely boring character who errs towards the bad kind of unlikeable, but I’m actually gonna say that I kind of like how we built up our understanding of him as we got closer and closer to his real name. Okay, praise over. You can stop skimming now!]

Fourbias also sums up what’s happening with the rest of the plot:

I slide my hands into my pockets. “Evelyn—and a lot of people, actually—think we shouldn’t leave the city just to help a bunch of people who shoved us in here so they could use us later. They want to try to heal the city and solve our own problems instead of leaving to solve other people’s. I’m paraphrasing, of course,” I say. “I suspect that opinion is very convenient for my mother, because as long as we’re all contained, she’s in charge. The second we leave, she loses her hold.”

That is a fair point from Fourbias, but on the other hand Evelyn has a point here too. I wouldn’t want to help the people who started these idiotic factions in the first place. Like if Veronica Roth was outside the fence right now, and I was supposed to mysteriously help her, I’d be like, “Fuck no, I’m not leaving my bed to help the person that thought this series was a good idea. BASED ON MY VERY LOOSE UNDERSTANDING OF DIVERGENCE, I’M TOO DIVERGENT FOR THIS SHIT.” [Matthew says: Right?! I have no idea what I want to have happen, because both options sound super unappealing! Which I guess is one way to create moral ambiguity, but “confusion resulting in indifference” isn’t really the most well-regarded way to do so.]

Fourbias let’s us know that he is here under the guise of breaking up with Tris, and then he lets her know that even though it seemed like things were starting to get going in the series, actually there are just going to be more fucking truth serums. Can we please, oh please, stop with the serums? For the love of Christ there has to be another way.

I’m not sure I want to offer myself to them to solve humanity’s problems, whatever that means. [Matthew says: Incidentally, “whatever that means” is the shortest summary of this book’s plot yet.]

But I do want to leave, in the desperate way that an animal wants to escape a trap. Wild and rabid. Ready to gnaw through bone.

That metaphor would actually be completely fine if it wasn’t entirely undermined by the preceding sentence. “I don’t really want to help anyone outside the fence, and I don’t seem to care about this at all, except actually I want to leave MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD.” You can’t be desperate to leave while being completely indifferent to finding out what’s outside the fence and all the things that go along with that. [Matthew says: Unless you’re reading this book, in which case “desperate to leave” means “desperate to put this book down”.] You can’t be expressing a complete lack of urgency and then convince me in one sentence that, no, actually you are ready to gnaw through the bone, or whatever the equivalent here is meant to be.

Fourbias reveals that he came to warn Tris that she needs to think of a lie to exonerate her and her friends so they’re not tried as traitors for showing everyone the Edith Prior video. Why even bother with this truth serum shit if Divergent people can lie under it so easily? Let’s just do something different with the storylines already, please.

Fourbias angsts about what a good liar Tris is and how she’s lied to him soooo many times (and then he lists two times that she’s lied). But then they make out so it’s obviously fine. Christina is appropriately grossed out by the happy/unhappy couple.

Fun Fact! My girlfriend was under the impression that the last book was the third book in the Divergent trilogy, and was super upset that there was more. [Ariel says: I feel like all you do these days is hurt Christina.] You know what my least favorite part about all this is? Allegiant isn’t even a real word. I look forward to the next couple months of spelling this word, seeing a red squiggly underline, and instinctively and unavoidably wondering if I spelled it wrong.

~hello, darkness, my old friend~

[Ariel says: What’s been annoying me most is that I keep typing it like Divergent and Insurgent. You know, writing “Allegient” because THEY ALL NEED TO END WITH ENT DAMN IT.]

Chapter 3: Tris

My first chapter starts out agreeably enough.

“I think you’re all idiots.”

My body is heavy with truth serum. “You should be thanking me, not questioning me.” […] For just a moment, [Tobias’s] eyes touch mine, and I know it’s time to start lying.
It’s easier not that I know I can do it. As easy as pushing the weight of the truth serum aside in my mind.

That’s great, except… this is what Tris believes is the truth anyway. So what exactly is she lying about? Ugh. Eleven pages in this book and there’s already a logical fallacy supporting the whole story. So just like the first Divergent book. Never change, Divergent.

Apparently I have an episodic memory of Lizzie McGuire still

The actual lie part of Tris’s story (which fine, I guess) is that she thought Marcus wasn’t working independently, but under Dauntless-factionless orders, so she’s not a traitor. Just an idiot. [Ariel says: To be fair, this is actually a brilliant move. It doesn’t work if you’re, like, the government (even though governments are known to use this tactic to varying degrees of success. “OMG But the CIA said they weren’t torturing anybody…”) but in Tris’ situation this is a good move. It’s how I often get out of doing housework. “You mean this is a vacuum???”]

“So Marcus told you he was working under my orders,” she says, “and even knowing what you do about his rather tense relationship with both the Dauntless and the factionless, you believed him?”
“Yes.”
“I can see why you didn’t choose Erudite.” She laughs.

Oh, good. I was wondering how Divergent would continue after killing off Jeanine. Turns out it was by not even writing a new character. Good thing the writing is as stupid as usual.

She knows that whoever holds the guns holds the power.

Who doesn’t know that?

From one tyrant to another. That is the world we know, now.

Casual reminder that Divergent is totally different from The Hunger Games. For instance, The Hunger Games ended when the character leading a coup against a totalitarian government was determined to be as bad as the leader she was replacing, where Divergent just keeps going.

To be fair, there are some moments in this scene I genuinely do like. As usual, it’s Tris’s PTSD.

Which brings us to our second casual reminder that Divergent is totally different from The Hunger Games.

“Since I couldn’t join the fight as a soldier, I was happy to help with something else.”
“Why couldn’t you be a soldier?” […]
“Because I couldn’t hold a gun, okay? Not after shooting . . . him. My friend Will. I couldn’t hold a gun without panicking.”
Evelyn’s eyes pinch tighter. I suspect that even in the softest parts of her, there is no sympathy for me.

Tris even has a properly bamf moment where she lays out exactly why Evelyn is wrong!

“I brought you the truth about our city and the reason we are in it. If you aren’t thanking me for it, you should at least do something about it instead of sitting here on this mess you made, pretending it’s a throne!”

Evelyn raises a pretty ok counterpoint.

“I have known the truth far longer than you have, Beatrice Prior.”

Evelyn then suddenly goes weirdly Psycho on us, because there isn’t a faction in this book that has an affinity for quitting while you’re ahead.

I don’t know how you’re getting away with this, but I promise you, you will not have a place in my new world, especially not with my son.”

Evelyn finds Tris not guilty of being a traitor (albeit a fool), and the trial ends. Uriah (who for some reason is not a prisoner, and is allowed to walk his old friend public enemy number one around on his own) escorts Tris back to her cell, where they discuss their plan to find a way out of the city (SEE?).

But first, delightfully clunky symbolism.

Former faction members are required to […] mix, no more than four members of a particular faction in each dwelling. We have to mix our clothing, too. I was given a yellow Amity shirt and black Candor pants earlier as a result of that particular edict.

And thus Divergent‘s faction system narrative ends where we always knew it would: as an episode of What Not To Wear.

Tris also touches on how Caleb, her brother who turned her over to Jeanine, is also on trial.

Caleb is still there, because he was a well-known lackey of Jeanine Matthews, and the factionless will never exonerate him.

Because this teenager is somehow the most strategically valuable evil mastermind in the world. Still. [Ariel says: Why do all of these adults who are apparently so clued in on everything that’s going on relying so heavily on the Prior children? Are there really no better options?]

Chapter 4: Tobias

In today’s chapter from Tobias’s perspective, his mom is totally, like, making him think about his future and stuff.

“I think we have to talk about your loyalty,” she says, but she doesn’t sound like she’s accusing me of something, she just sounds tired.

Ugh, mommmm

Evelyn tells Tobias that maybe no one else does, but she knows he released the video containing the truth to everyone, to which he claims he didn’t know what was in the file, he just trusted Tris. I dunno, dude, “my girlfriend that you hate made me do it” doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that would get you off the hook.

Of course, this is the Divergent series, so we’re not even close to the bottom of the rabbit hole of stupidity.

“I’ve been receiving disturbing reports of a rebel organization among us. […] The kind that wants to leave the city,” she says. “They released some kind of manifesto this morning. They call themselves the Allegiant.” When she sees my confused look, she adds, “Because they’re allied with the original purpose of our city, see?”

I like how even the book knows how stupid this made-up word is. It makes so little sense that it immediately has to explain what it means. [Ariel says: If you have to provide this level of explanation about the name of your organization, it’s probably not the right choice.] 

“The original purpose— you mean, what was in the Edith Prior video? That we should send people outside when the city has a large Divergent population?”
“That, yes. But also living in factions.”

OF COURSE. THE PEOPLE LOVE THEM SOME FACTIONS. WHY THE FUCK NOT.

She said to the faction system, serums, and simulations.

[Ariel says: I am firmly in the camp of WE NEED EVEN MORE FACTIONS!! Why stop at Abnegation/Dauntless/Erudite/Amity/Candor when you can also have factions like Snarky/Tardy/Horny/Applesause-y(THEY LOVE APPLESAUSE, SEE)/Batshit Cray/Humblebraggers/Lactose Intolerant. Think of the amazing Buzzfeed quizzes we could have.] 

Tobias and I continue to agree on one thing: the faction system is stupid.

With the factions dismantled, part of me has felt like a man released from a long imprisonment. I don’t have to evaluate whether every thought I have or choice I make fits into a narrow ideology.

Tobias asks Evelyn how she plans to “get them under control”.

“With simulations?” I say slowly.
She scowls. “Of course not! I am not Jeanine Matthews!”

YAY NO SIMULATIONS

She winces […] “I will never resort to simulations to get my way. Death would be better.”

STILL WAY BETTER THAN READING MORE SIMULATIONS

[Ariel says: Aw, man, if we’re not gonna get a simulation, I sure hope we’ll get a serum instead!]

There’s an oddly poignant moment where Tobias reflects on how his relationship with his mother has changed over time, from when they lived with the abusive Marcus, to now:

We were united in fear then, and now that she isn’t afraid anymore, part of me wants to see what it would be like to unite with her in strength.
I feel an ache, like I betrayed her, the woman who used to be my only ally

Question of the Day! We’ve gone from Divergent to Insurgent to Allegiant. We’ve already hit the “not even real words” threshold. What’s the best “-ent” word you can make up for a hypothetical fourth book?

Double Love Chapter 16:

This chapter is a mere three pages long, and all that happens in it is that Elizabeth and Enid are having a burger when they spot Todd dining with a girl they know named Emily. Who is the drummer in a band that we’ve never heard of before. [Matthew says: They might have been fleetingly mentioned once. You know, like most of this book’s subplots.]

Elizabeth held her head high and wore her brightest smile as she and Enid approached the front of the Dairi Burger.

“Hi, Emily. Hey, The Droids were terrific at the dance. You guys are really something else.”

“Thanks, Liz,” said Emily.

“Hello, Liz.”

“Hi, Todd. See you two around.” Elizabeth walked as fast as she could out the door, through the parking lot, and to the car. There was only one thought in her head: don’t let me cry, don’t let me make a fool of myself!

[Matthew says: Although the “Somebody That I Used To Make Eye Contact With In The High School Cafeteria” version of the song was much less popular.]

However, there’s never before been an issue shoving all of the book’s various “plots” into one chapter. SO WHY HERE? WHY NOW?

Chapter 17

Elizabeth mourns the loss of Todd who she never had, and who she’d already seen dating another girl (Jessica). But the sight of him with Emily send Elizabeth into a tailspin.

After a sorority meeting, Elizabeth and her sisters return to the scene of the crime (good old Dairi Burger) to grab burgers, and Elizabeth encounters Todd again. They both ignore each other/notice they’re both ignoring each other.

It was over. He never called her anymore. They avoided each other in the halls. Still, Todd was being careful not to look at her, and she was being just as careful not to look at him.

Wait, didn’t he only call that one time when Jessica told him Elizabeth was too busy to come to the phone before school? I guess Elizabeth had a very rich fantasy life, so this loss is hitting her in a lot of unexpected and inaccurate ways.

After chowing down on some burgers, our heroines run into their arch douchebag Rick. By ‘run into’ I mean he stalks them and approaches their car when the engine stops. So this is where the book turns into a horror film!

In case you don’t remember, Rick’s the guy who got Elizabeth sucked into all that mistaken identity nonsense. He continues to think of the least clever ways to hit on women. I feel like he’s the inspiration for pick up artists everywhere.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Heaven and her sister, Heavenly.”

Jessica exploded. “Rick Andover, you scared me to death! I didn’t recognize you without your car.”

“Aw, sorry,” he said mockingly. “Mine’s in the shop. I borrowed that little number. You like it? Or would you rather I took you for a ride in this one?”

The girls immediately take off their panties, unable to resist Rick’s charm.

Actually, they quickly realize Rick is drunk, and before they can stop him, he jumps out of his car, and shoves his way into the driver’s seat of the twins’ car. [Matthew says: Apparently just leaving his car at the stoplight or whatever.]

Rick starts driving the car wildly around Sweet Valley. Of course, he starts by driving crazily around the parking lot of Dairi Burger for some reason, and then he speeds off into the rest of the Valley – with our girls still in the car!!! This looks like a job for…A MAN!

Looking back, the last thing Elizabeth saw was Todd Wilkins standing near the front door, looking after them in bewilderment.

But Todd’s bewilderment vanished the instant he saw the terror on Elizabeth’s face and turned to sheer fury at the sight of Rick Andover at the wheel. Within seconds, he had jumped into his Datsun and was speeding after them.

While Todd drives into action, Jessica and Elizabeth acknowledge the fact that Rick is actually a terrifying person:

“Rick, you stop this car, or I’ll—” Elizabeth commanded.

Rick uttered a harsh bark of laughter. “Scream as loud as you like. Who’s going to hear you?”

Elizabeth shot Jessica a terrified look. Rick was really crazy. He could wind up killing them!

I think somehow a book intended for middle schoolers features a villain slightly scarier than the one from Fifty Shades. I feel that Jack Hyde is pretty heavily based off of Rick Andover in the sense that they’re both based off of very loosely drawn and basic EVIL male characters everywhere. [Matthew says: Side note, I totally forgot Christian Grey isn’t the villain of Fifty Shades.]

Jessica misses the point completely.

“Oh, no!” Jessica wailed as he made a screeching turn down a familiar road. “He’s taking us to Kelly’s!”

GIRL, REALLY? That is what you’re worried about?

To be fair, apparently Jessica fears that Rick is going to get them arrested because no one will believe they aren’t with him. I feel like they could play the kidnapping card here/everyone at the Dairi Burger can confirm there was a lot of terror in Jessica and Elizabeth’s eyes. [Matthew says: Although they might run into a little bit of trouble with the “how did he even GET IN YOUR CAR” detail, because HOW DID HE EVER GET IN THEIR CAR?]

Todd shows up to fulfill his manly duties and fight Rick.

Basically what happens, but if Todd was a woman.

[Matthew says: It might just be me, but for some reason this was one of the most confusing action scenes I’ve read for this blog in a while. I had to reread a paragraph like three times to check that Todd didn’t drive alongside the car and literally pull Rick out of it. ANSWER: I don’t think so? This scene was way more confusing than it had any reason to be.]

“I thought he was going to kill you!” Jessica gushed. “Oh, Todd, you were wonderful! You practically saved our lives!” She glared in the direction of Rick and the roadhouse. “I never want to see this place again. It’s even worse inside.”

Todd gave her a funny look but said nothing

For some reason, when Jessica actual told Todd that she was the one who was at Kelly’s in the first place, he was like, “OH, JESSICA YOU ARE SO NOBLE.” But now THIS is what gives him pause? It would be like if the murderer immediately confessed to Sherlock Holmes but he was like, “Impossible! You can’t be the murderer. But thank you for being so noble and trying to protect the real murderer.” But by the end of the book, he found an incriminating piece of evidence in the murderer’s home and then acted like he’d solved the crime in the most interesting and unexpected way possible.

Elizabeth finally stands up for herself, but it’s really awkward:

“I could just kiss you!” Jessica squealed, rushing toward him.

She was intercepted as Elizabeth stepped in front of her. “Not this time, Jess. It’s my turn.” With that, she turned to kiss a surprised Todd squarely on the mouth.

I guess there’s nothing like a fight to get a girl like Elizabeth to take back the boring bro!

Todd and the twins head back to the Wakefield’s house. Todd continues to be the most terrible detective in the world.

“Hey, Jessica,” he said. “What did you mean when you said you never wanted to see Kelly’s Roadhouse again?”

“Well, I don’t, Todd.”

“But how do you know how rough it is in there?”

“I really am simply too worn out to go on with this,” Jessica said suddenly, looking from Todd to Elizabeth. “Good night!”

This would be like if at the beginning of The Sixth Sense, the kid was like, “I see dead people. Bruce Willis, you’re dead.” But then Bruce Willis was just like, “LOL good one, I’m obviously your very alive therapist and nothing weird is going on.”  And the end of the movie is exactly the same, with Bruce Willis realizing he’s dead. He wouldn’t be like, “OMG this has never been alluded to before.” Right? He’d be like, “My bad for not believing sooner.”

Thank fuck, Elizabeth finally points this out to Todd. And he has a very reasonable explanation for why he’s being such a dunce.

“Liz, do you mean that—that other time—it really wasn’t you?”

Elizabeth only looked at him.

“But—”

“Todd, didn’t Jessica tell you it was her?”

“Well, yes. But—”

“But what?”

“That’s really amazing. She said it was her, but—Liz, I’m so sorry. I should have known you wouldn’t have— that you never could have. . . . How could I have been such an idiot?”

So we’re not even going to try to find a reasonable explanation for this? When in doubt, just have a character babble and then have the other character immediately jump in to excuse their behaviour. In this case, Elizabeth is like, “Oh that totally makes sense, everyone doubted me.” Except Jessica didn’t tell everyone else the truth!

Todd and Elizabeth clear the air about everything, all the truths come out! Jessica’s lies come undone! And yet no one seems angry with her at all…they just make out. Oh also Todd just has a history project with the drummer he was a getting a burger with. So that was a completely useless thing to have happen and have a whole chapter dedicated to it.

My question for you is what the fuck kind of name is “Dairi Burger” Is it supposed to be parodying people who replace a ‘y’ with an ‘i’ when they’re spelling their name? Like Kelly vs Kelli? Amy vs. Ami? If it is just meant to be “Dairy Burger” WHY? [Matthew says: Also, why is the distinguishing feature of their burger that they’re advertizing their… dairy content?]

Hopefully you enjoyed our brief intermission with Sweet Valley High and/or descent into madness with Jessica Wakefield. We finish up the first SVH book’s last two chapters today, with a surprisingly glorious ending in which Elizabeth also can’t even with Jessica anymore.

Chapter 18

Elizabeth just kissed a boy and life is good! Although she’s still identical twins with a manipulative psychopath, so there’s that to deal with.

“You’re the closest person in the whole world to me.”
“Jessica.”
“There’s no one in the whole world who means more.”
“Todd told me everything.”
“And you believe him over your own sister,” she said, switching gears without missing a beat.

Classic Jessica!

“He said he never tried to kiss you or anything else.”
“Is that all?” She brightened. That was an easy one for a pro like Jessica.

I’m concerned why Jessica has so much experience getting caught making libelous claims about sexual assault.

“As for Todd trying to paw me, well, it’s true that he didn’t, but I only told you for your own benefit. […] Lizzie, honey. I did it because I felt he was wrong for you.”

Elizabeth calls bullshit, and also brings up the date to a seedy bar with Rick (although for some reason still isn’t bringing up the legal trouble she’s presumably in, because rich white teens in California probably don’t, I suppose), and eventually Jessica cracks because “Elizabeth was only four minutes older than Jessica, but in a pinch she could make those minutes really count”. I don’t have any idea what that means.

She burst into tears.

Drink.

“I’m sorry, honestly, I swear I am. Forgive me. […] I knew if it got around school that I was in that bar with those terrible people (probably not the most important point, but, not counting the dropout she went there with, that’s like the guy who saw what was happening and offered her a ride home?), I’d be finished! [You] can’t be on the cheering squad if you have any black marks against your name. […] You know how much being co-captain of the cheerleaders means to me.”

I guess we do now that this is the first time a character we’re sometimes in the head of has ever explicitly explained why she did a thing that made most of the book happen.

“What about me? Didn’t you care if I got into trouble for something I didn’t even do?”
“But you wouldn’t have – and you didn’t!”

This would be more plausible if one of the subplots didn’t literally take place in a courtroom. But, sure, Jessica. Go on. Do explain why you knew your sister wouldn’t get in trouble for underage drinking somehow.

“You’re not a cheerleader”

Jessica argues that the worst that could have happened is that “some dumb kids gossiped about you”, clearly indicating that since this is the worst thing that can happen to a person in high school, that’s not too comforting. (Also, wait, now that I think about it, Jessica didn’t drink at the bar. She was clearly brought there against her will with no knowledge of where she was being brought. What exactly did the cop give her a legal warning for? Her taste in men?)
Elizabeth accepts the apology, but comes up with a plan…

Chapter 19

While Jessica and Elizabeth are getting ready for Todd to pick them up and bring them to the school rally – which promises to be absolutely scintillating:

“I promise not to embarrass you, Jess. Maybe we’ll do a little hand-holding.” Maybe a lot of hand-holding.

Steamy!

Elizabeth wears her “tuxedo shirt” outfit that Jessica borrowed without permission that one time, and then “accidentally” spills water on Jessica’s outfit! Which is somehow one of the worst “accidentally”s we’ve seen on this blog yet.

Elizabeth picked up the glass of water that was on her dresser, and somehow it spilled all over Jessica’s white blouse and blue miniskirt.

NOW WE’LL NEVER KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED.

Elizabeth offers Jessica one of her own outfits to wear instead, which the book helpfully spells out is leading exactly where you think it is.

“If I didn’t know which of us was me,” [Jessica said,] “I would swear you were me and I was you.”

Honestly, it’s probably a good thing the book is taking such pains to spell out the ending, since it’s based entirely on this world where nobody seems to ever remember that Jessica and Elizabeth are identical twins.

When they get to the rally, Elizabeth puts her plan into motion.

“Thanks, Dana. It really is me, isn’t it?” Elizabeth said, flashing a truly glorious Jessica Wakefield smile.
“Sure thing, Jess.”

…or maybe everyone else at this school is already bored of their identical twin hijinks? Maybe that’s what’s really going on?

Elizabeth, pretending to be Jessica, spills the secret that Elizabeth (whom Jessica currently looks like!) is the writer of the school paper’s “Eyes and Ears” column! Because there’s a school tradition where once the secret identity of the “Eyes and Ears” writer is revealed, the school bands together to throw them fully-clothed into the pool, because high school is wonderful. This was a detail mentioned earlier in the book that I honestly can’t remember if Ariel or I even mentioned, so I promise this isn’t coming out of nowhere. Look, this blog is harder to write than it looks. It’s not all gifs and dick jokes.

Anyway, back to high school being a wonderful place.

Two linebackers got to her first. One took her arms, the others her legs. They headed for the pool, followed by a laughing crowd.
“No! No! No! I’m not Liz, you jerks! I’m Jessica!”

Seriously, though, how does no one remember that these two are identical twins?

“One! Two! Three!” Jessica was thrown screaming into the middle of the pool.

This joke doesn’t work these days because now everybody’s first reaction would be, “Holy shit! Her phone!”

Elizabeth and Todd laugh at Jessica and stroll off, arm in arm, into “a long good night filled with kisses and sweet words, and still more kisses.”
And then the book sets up the sequel.

Elizabeth opened the door. There stood her friend, [Enid,] tears streaming down her face.
“Enid! What’s wrong?”
“Liz, I don’t know what to do. Something terrible has happened. I can’t even tell you, it’s so awful. But I know Ronnie is going to hate me, and I could just die!”

Just in case that wasn’t enough to get you hooked, the book offers a handy summary of why you should be hooked.

What is the dark mystery in Enid’s past, and how does Jessica use it to her own advantage?

Classic Jessica!

Question of the day! We’re returning to the horrible world of Crossfire next week (you might remember I didn’t even read the third book, so get excited for me to probably not be too terribly lost anyway), but what did you think of Sweet Valley High? Should we do more of these in the future?

Allegiant Chapter 5: Tris

Post-trial, Tris goes looking for Fourbias.

“I see Tobias standing in the middle of the lawn, wearing mixed faction colors—a gray T-shirt, blue jeans, and a black sweatshirt with a hood, representing all the factions my aptitude test told me I was qualified for. A backpack rests against his feet.”

So basically dressing like a male college student/any guy working at a tech start-up is dressing Divergent-chic?

In case this scene didn’t feel collegy enough, Tris and Fourbias start making out on the quad on Erudite’s front lawn, and Fourbias points out that they’ve never been on a real date. How they don’t classify their time together as prisoners at Erudite quarters as a date is beyond me.

In traditional Divergent fashion, Tris and Fourbias’ date takes place in a location that is so intricate it takes pages to describe, but in my mind just looks like a big metal lump.

We reach the end of the lawn. The metal structure is larger and stranger up close than it was from far away. It’s really a stage, and arcing above it are massive metal plates that curl in different directions, like an exploded aluminum can. We walk around one of the plates on the right side to the back of the stage, which rises at an angle from the ground. There, metal beams support the plates from behind. Tobias secures his backpack on his shoulders and grabs one of the beams. Climbing. […]
Tobias climbs to a spot where two metal plates meet in a V, leaving enough room for two people to sit. He scoots back, wedging himself between the two plates…

I would also like to point out that moving forward I’d like to start describing events like so: “He picked up his fork and started moving food towards his mouth. Eating.” While also elaborately describing the table the diner sitting at in as confusing a way as possible. FOR THE READER’S BENEFIT OF COURSE.

[Matthew says: Okay, I hate to be the spoilsport here, but since I grew up in the Chicago area, I actually know exactly what she’s talking about, and to be totally fair, I have no idea how the fuck to describe this thing either.

Don’t ask why it looks like that. The early 2000s were a weird time.

There’s probably a point to be made though about how I literally had to live where the book takes place for me to know where they were, though.]

Furthering the college vibe, Fourbias asks if Tris wants to get shitty have a drink.

“He takes a blanket out of his backpack and covers us with it, then produces two plastic cups.

“Would you like a clear head or a fuzzy one?” he says, peering into the bag.

“Um . . .” I tilt my head. “Clear. I think we have some things to talk about, right?”

Is underage drinking a thing in the Divergent world? We haven’t heard enough about their drinking policies. [Matthew says: Well, it depends on – you guessed it! – THE FACTION SYSTEM. We saw people getting shwasty all over the place in the first book in Dauntless camp, but they’re the high school dropout Hot Topic parkour demographic, so I imagine that, say, Abnegation wouldn’t be so into this. And all of Amity is stoned, so idk, there’s a lot of problems in this scientific experiment to save the human race.]

They finally have a completely reasonable conversation where they explain their actions without flipping out at each other, promise not to lie and to trust each other moving forward. Fourbias even forgives Tris for working with his father behind his back without much fanfare at all. Seriously, it’s shockingly straightforward and doesn’t devolve into complete and utter nonsense.

 “Well,” he says. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like I didn’t respect you.”

High five, book. High five.

If you were worried that Allegiant wasn’t going to get back to its roots, let me assuage your fears. The Dauntless cake is delicious. Never forget. Always remember.

“This stuff is kind of gross,” he says, draining his cup and setting it down.
“Yes, it is,” I say, staring at what remains in mine. I drink it in one gulp, wincing as the bubbles burn my throat. “I don’t know what the Erudite are always bragging about. Dauntless cake is much better.”

R.I.P. Beloved, Dauntless cake.

“I wonder what the Abnegation treat would have been, if they had one.”
“Stale bread.”
He laughs. “Plain oatmeal.”
“Milk.”

No! Not fair! That was going to be my joke. Except I was going to remind everyone about the delicious Abnegation muffins that the factionless went apeshit for. Never forget. Always remember the Abnegation muffins.

This seems like a clever way to bring up condoms, so Tris and Fourbias discuss what the Dauntless teach their kids about sex (really):

“Sometimes I think I believe everything they taught us,” he says. “But obviously not, since I’m sitting here holding your hand right now without having married you first.”
“What do the Dauntless teach about . . . that?” I say, nodding to our hands.
“What do the Dauntless teach, hmm.” He smirks. “Do whatever you want, but use protection, is they teach.”

[Matthew says: Personal anecdote time! My dad’s version of this was, “Well, I should probably give you the sex and drugs talk. Look before you leap, and don’t, in that order.” Thought I’d share that with ya.]

In a very heavy-handed fashion, Tris and Fourbias agree they need to find a middle ground between Dauntless and Abnegation’s sex policies. Just when you thought these two crazy kids couldn’t get anymore Divergent!

Tris and Fourbias make out and Fourbias takes off his shirt, in preparation for the Allegiant film adaptation of course, but they don’t have sex. However, Tris does “smell the wind on his skin,” which is the most confusing smell I’ve ever read about in my life.

Allegiant Chapter 6: Fourbias

Fourbias informs us that action is going to take place soon. I think it’s nice Veronica Roth feels like she has to warn us that the plot is going to move forward because it’s a very easy thing to miss in this series.

Fourbias also notes that he doesn’t think Evelyn trusts him as much as he’d like and that he’s not convincing her enough of his fake loyalty. Shortly after Fourbias’ revelation that the plot will soon move forward, many factionless gather for some sort of demonstration/protest. In the middle of breakfast, a bunch of them just jump up, run outside, and start chanting:

“Death to the factions!” and others pick up the phrase, turning it into a chant, until it fills my ears, Death to the factions, death to the factions. I see their fists in the air, like excitable Dauntless, but without the Dauntless joy. Their faces are twisted with rage.

Fair enough, I’ll chant to that as well. [Matthew says: I don’t see how this is the plot progressing. This has been the entire series.]

The protestors start smashing the bowls from the choosing ceremonies (the bowls the choosers spilled their blood into to indicate which faction they were joining.) This makes Fourbias sad because choosing ceremony nostalgia.

A fight breaks out, and Tris and Fourbias get caught in the middle of it until they hear three gun shots. Fourbias spots Edward – who had been leading the bowl smashing protest – lying in a pool of his own blood. Other people we don’t know die too.

I close my eyes. The faction bowls are printed on my eyelids, tipped on their sides, their contents in a pile on the street. The symbols of our old way of life, destroyed—a man dead, others injured—and for what?

For nothing. For Evelyn’s empty, narrow vision: a city where factions are wrenched away from people against their will.

She wanted us to have more than five choices. Now we have none.

I get that Evelyn is not a good person and all, but since when do we love the factions? Since when are they being “wrenched away from people”? [Matthew says: For all its faults, the first book at least had an undertone of menace, entirely vis a vis the faction system. But now all signs are pointing towards “SAVE THE FACTION SYSTEM”. I have no idea what this book is about.]

The chapter ends with Fourbias pretending to feel sorry for his mother for losing Edward who was apparently super tight with her (who knew). He angst a bit more about being a double agent just in case we’d forgotten that he’s not actually on Evelyn’s side.

My question for you is, how does wind smell?

No, we’re still not done yet.

Chapter 7: Tris

After the riot, Christina points out how last-few-Harry Potter-books this is all getting.

“I didn’t really want to bring this up, but I can’t stop thinking about it,” she says. “That of the ten transfer initiates we started with, only six are still alive.”

“I came down here with the rest of the Order; Lupin, Tonks, Mad-Eye Moody, Sirius, and your brother Fred.”
“Oh awesome, where are they?”
“They’re all dead.”

Christina then says something that sums up the book a little too well.

“Sometimes I get where Evelyn’s coming from. So many awful things have happened, sometimes it feels like a good idea to stay here and just… try to clean up this mess before we get ourselves involved in another.” She smiles a little. “But of course, I’m not going to do that,” she adds. “I’m not even sure why. Curiosity, I guess.”

Yep, that sounds about right. The bad guys kinda make sense, the good guys don’t know why their idea is better, and the book doesn’t know either, but it’s going full steam ahead with one side anyway.

To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a story where the bad guys have some ideas that are better than the good guys’. There’s a lot of cool, morally grey territory to explore in a story like that. Divergent doesn’t really do that, and instead gives us scenes where the characters don’t realize they’re raising good questions about why not to do what they’re doing.

“What if it’s just more of the same? Just . . . more crumbling city, more factions, more of everything?”
“Can’t be,” Uriah says, shaking his head. “There has to be something else.”
“Or there’s nothing,” Zeke suggests. “Those people who put us all in here, they could just be dead. Everything could be empty.”

Just so we’re clear here, “out there” is, you know, the rest of the North American continent. Which they’re just gonna… walk around?

Good luck, you guys.

Later, Evelyn announces new rules for the city, including a curfew, and that everybody will “learn the jobs the factionless have done” and do them “on a rotation schedule”, because the most efficient way to run a civilization isn’t with specialized labor, but with a giant chore wheel.

Anyway, ready to see the book try way too hard with its symbolism?

[A]fter Evelyn’s announcement, [I leave]. As I walk past the fourth floor, I hear a yell [and see] a cluster of young people – young, younger than I am, and all sporting factionless armbands – gathered around a young man on the ground.
Not just a young man – a Candor, dressed in black and white from head to toe. […]
“He’s in violation of the dress code.” [says one of them.] “I’m well within my rights.”

Keep in mind the dress code is to NOT wear matching clothing. This is literally what is happening right now in this book we’re supposed to be taking seriously.

Tris solves the problem by… giving him a blue sweatshirt.

The factionless immediately stop beating up the boy, and warn Tris to watch her back, to which she responds that she won by giving someone a fucking sweater that, “I guarantee you that I don’t need to”, which is still pretty bamf.

On her way back, Tris then gets kidnapped by the Allegiant, who throw a bag over her head to protect their identities. For some reason, this is the first time in the series that the book also thinks it’s being absolutely ridiculous.

“We are the Allegiant,” the voice replies. “And we are many, yet we are no one. . . .”
I can’t help it: I laugh.

Oh, sure, when someone else is cheesy and ridiculous, then it’s okay to laugh. Who are you to point fingers, Divergent?

“We’re going to have a meeting tomorrow night, at midnight. We want you to bring your Dauntless friends.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let me ask you this: If I’m going to see who you are tomorrow, why is it so important to keep this thing over my head today?”
This seems to temporarily stump whoever I’m talking to.
“A day contains many dangers”

Seriously, Allegiant. Where are you getting off on this? The last thing you tried to get us to take seriously was a faction system social experiment designed to create pure divergent genes.

[They leave behind the] pillowcase with the words “Faction before blood” painted on it.
Whoever they are, they certainly have a flair for the dramatic.

Train jumping.

That is all.

Chapter 9: Tris

The next morning, Tris’s brother is on trial.

The factionless only make trials private when they feel the verdict is obvious, and Caleb was Jeanine’s right-hand man before she was killed.

Once again, this is a book where it’s totally ridiculous that an underground opposition in a city under military rule would want to keep their identities secret, but a seventeen-year-old boy with no formal scientific education is a mad scientist’s number two guy.

Also, this fucking train jumping scene.

Tris is conflicted, since her brother betrayed her and gave her up to be executed, but he’s still her brother. She also tells her friends about the Allegiant meeting, and they agree to sneak out and go to it to see what their plan is, and to see who the Allegiant are:

Susan and Robert stand together, talking; Peter is alone on the side of the room, his arms crossed; Uriah and Zeke are with Tori and a few other Dauntless; Christina is with her mother and sister; and in a corner are two nervous-looking Erudite.

How the fuck did Peter get an invite before Tris and the rest of the A Team even hear about this?

We meet Christina’s sister, who has as much subtlety as this book.

her sister turns to me and says, “So you killed Christina’s boyfriend.”

We then meet the leaders of the Allegiant:

The first is Johanna Reyes, former spokesperson of Amity […] The second is another woman, but I can’t see her face, just that she is wearing blue. […] An Erudite from head to foot, but not Jeanine Matthews.
Cara.

They explain their plan, which isn’t surprising for anyone who has actually read the book thus far.

“We believe in following the guidance of the city’s founders, which has been expressed in two ways: the formation of the factions, and the Divergent mission expressed by Edith Prior, to send people outside the fence to help whoever is out there once we have a large Divergent population. We believe that even if we have not reached that Divergent population size, the situation in our city has become dire enough to send people outside the fence anyway.”

This seems like kind of an important point of omission, since all you know about the situation outside the city is that it’s worse.

“In accordance with the intentions of our city’s founders, we have two goals: to overthrow Evelyn and the factionless so that we can reestablish the factions, and to send some of our number outside the city to see what’s out there.”

They all formulate a plan to use the Amity trucks, tomorrow night, to sneak the A Team out of the city. And also Peter, because haha why not.

Speaking of why not, this action sequence, because what the fuck is this?! Seriously, I can’t stop laughing at this part of the Insurgent trailer. Send help.

Question of the Day! What’s a movie/book/tv show that you would probably like if it weren’t for one single scene that ruins it for you? I was recently reminded of A Fish Called Wanda, which a lot of people think is one of the funniest movies ever (someone has literally died of laughter while watching this movie, which is apparently a real thing that can happen), but the first thing that pops into my head is the scene where Kevin Kline eats Michael Palin’s fish, which almost brought me to tears instead.

Returning to the Crossfire series fills me with both excitement and dread. Though it’s not as boring as the Divergent books, there are often stretches of these books where nothing fucking happens, but then BAM hilarity ensues in the form of greedy cunts, cum on floors, and ridiculous living room orgies. Plus this time we have Gideon’s point of view, which I promise you is as terrible as you’d expect from what I’ve read so far.

Captivated by You Chapter 1

Gideon is alone in the apartment he owns, which is conveniently right next door to Eva and Cary’s place. Gideon angsts about how he can’t even sleep in the same room as his wife because of his nightmares and that he longs for “her lush body.” He also thinks in a way that suggests he knows how forgettable even the main characters in this series are.

I’d left the apartment Eva shared with her best friend, Cary Taylor, only a couple of hours earlier, wanting to give her time to catch a few hours of sleep before she headed into work.

Because if he hadn’t identified Cary by his full name, we’d all be like, “Wait just a minute, does he mean Cary like Eva’s best friend Cary, or some other dude?”

Gideon calls one of his security guards, and even though he felt like he needed to remind us who Cary was, he doesn’t feel the need to remind us who Anne Lucas is:

“Mrs. Cross and Cary Taylor are heading to San Diego today,” I said, my hand curling into a fist at the thought. I didn’t have to say more.
“Got it.”
“I want a recent photo of Anne Lucas and a detailed rundown of where she was last night on my desk by noon.”

Don’t feel ashamed if you forgot who she was, I barely remembered that she’s the wife of the psychiatrist who screwed Gideon over when he was a child, saying he was crying rape, so Gideon screwed his wife (Anne Lucas) in return. As an adult, obviously, but just wanted to clarify. I guess that’s a lot less succinct to explain than, “Cary Taylor, Eva’s best friend.”

Eva shows up, and Gideon is like, “Hot sexy boobs boobs lush boobs, sex. Angel.” And then this:

I caught her by the waist when she came close enough, choosing to pull her onto my lap instead. Bending my head, I caught her nipple in my mouth, drawing on her with long, deep sucks. I heard her gasp, felt her body jolt at the sensation, and smiled inwardly. I could do whatever I wanted to her. She’d given me that right. It was the greatest gift I had ever been given.

Because everyone knows that once you marry someone, you can do anything you want to them and it’s cool because by marrying you they’ve already given you permission to do anything! Just stick it right on in ‘em any time any place! [Matthew says: I’m so glad we’re seeing this from Gideon’s perspective now. I was having a really hard time understanding this character before I knew that he acted like he owns Eva’s body because he thinks of Eva’s body as something he owns. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.]

Eva has serious things to discuss, though, so there’s no time for Gideon to do anything he wants to her! Eva starts talking about how Brett is going to be in San Diego, but then in terms of making sense, things deteriorate rapidly. Oh how I missed Gideon and Eva’s completely nonsensical and confusing arguments:

“She took a deep breath and then held my gaze. “Something’s not right. I’m confused.”

“About what, exactly?”

“Don’t be like that,” she said quietly. “Don’t get all icy and freeze me out.” [Matthew says: This is actually up there with The Room dialogue.]

“You’ll have to forgive me. Listening to my wife tell me she’s confused over another man doesn’t put me in a good mood.” [Ariel says: She never even said about was confused about having feelings for him or anything. Maybe she was just confused about how we’re supposed to believe that Brett’s shitty band is gaining any traction in the music bizz.]

She squirmed out of my lap and I let her, so I could watch her—gauge her—with some distance between us. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

I deliberately ignored the cold knot in my gut. “Try.”

“It’s just—” Looking down, she chewed on her lower lip. “There’s something … not finished.”

My chest grew tight and hot. “Does he turn you on, Eva?”

She stiffened. “It’s not like that.”

“Is it the voice? The tattoos? His magic dick?”

I get that Gideon’s feeling jealous and threatened [Matthew says: vis a vis magic penises] but he’s not even letting Eva try to explain and just jumping to a lot of conclusions in the grossest possible way in true Gideon fashion. At least he’s in-character, I guess. But like where is this magic dick nonsense coming from? I hope this book is about to take a supernatural turn for the best.

I raked her from head to toe, wanting to fuck her and punish her at the same time. I wanted to tie her up, lock her up, safe from anyone who could threaten my grip on her. “He treated you like shit, Eva. Did seeing the ‘Golden’ video make you forget that? Is there something you need that I’m not giving you?

“Don’t be an ass.” Her arms crossed, a defensive pose that angered me further.

I needed her open and soft.

I love how there is no hint of irony when Gideon says he wants to tie and lock Eva up, and in the same breathe talks about how another man treated her like shit. [Matthew says: We can also assume that by “I needed her open”, Gideon’s going to go Jack the Ripper on her, right? Seriously, though, it’s only a matter of time before Crossfire pulls a woman in the refrigerator on us.]

They continue to argue with Eva making increasingly vague statements like, “Please don’t be ugly about this.” ABOUT WHAT EVA?

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” The diamond on her ring finger—my claim to her—caught the light and shot sparks of multihued fire against the wall. “I hate that you’re upset and pissed off at me. It hurts me, too, Gideon. I don’t want him. I swear I don’t.”

We all know you don’t love Brett and that you don’t want to be with him but that you still think he’s hot. Who cares? Why are you even bringing this up to Gideon when nothing is going to come from this? Having someone from your past who you still find attractive but don’t actually want anymore because you’re in love with someone else is completely harmless and a massive non-issue.

Gideon continues to fret because, “I’d done everything I could. I had said the vows, slid the ring on her finger. Bound her to me in every way. Yet it still wasn’t enough.” Yeah, maybe getting married isn’t a magic panacea for everything wrong in your relationship. Just a thought.

Gideon feels like Brett is edging him out, and he’s haunted by that time Brett kissed Eva. According to Gideon she was kissing him with “desperation” which I do not recall at all and we were in Eva’s head.

Gideon continues to turn nastier and nastier and says maybe they should take a break and while Eva clears up her confusion with Brett, he’ll go to Corinne. I don’t even understand how Eva could find Gideon attractive anymore.

“Tell me how to handle this,” I said hoarsely, circling her wrists and exerting gentle pressure. “Tell me what to do.”

“Handle me, you mean?” Her shoulders went back. “Because I’m what’s wrong here. I knew Brett during a time in my life when I hated myself but wanted other people to love me. And now he’s acting the way I wanted him to back then and it’s giving me a head trip.”

“Christ, Eva.” I pressed harder, flattening my body against her. “How am I not supposed to feel threatened by that?”

“You’re supposed to trust me. I told you because I didn’t want you to get weird vibes and jump to conclusions. I wanted to be honest about it so you wouldn’t feel threatened. I know I’ve got some stuff to work out in my head. I’m going to see Dr. Travis this weekend and—”

“Shrinks aren’t a cure-all!”

Says the man who seems to believe that marriage is. [Matthew says: These books are like the mental health equivalent of anti-vaxxer children’s books.]

“You’re not listening.”

“Just stay the hell away from him.”

“That’s avoidance, not a solution.” [Matthew says: Not a recommended strategy for minefields.] Her fingers dug into my waist. “I’m broken, Gideon, you know that. I’m piecing myself back together.”

I loved her just the way she was. Why wasn’t that enough?

“Thanks to you I’m stronger than I’ve ever been,” she went on, “but there are still cracks, and when I find them, I have to figure out what made them and how to seal them up. Permanently.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Eva never does explain the fuck that means, unfortunately. Even though Gideon is pissing me off, I’m confused by what Eva even means here. [Matthew says: Actually, if there’s any advantage to seeing this story from both perspectives, it’s that we can really appreciate what terrible conversationalists these two are.] What cracks is she talking about? How is her way going to seal them up permanently? Oh my god how is this book more confusing than Allegiant. 

Gideon quickly realizes that he needs to be more in control because that’s what Eva needs to be able to keep it together herself, so he uses their safe word.

She went lax in my arms. Her submission was total and swift. I had the upper hand again.

Man, I just can’t stop quoting how creepy Gideon is. From the man’s mind himself! How does Day not see how insane he is? [Matthew says: An actual line from Gideon’s narration in this scene is “She never gave me an inch unless my cock was inside her.” Guys. Guys. This is changing my entire perspective on Gideon.]

Gideon asks Eva to tell Brett she’s married, and it sounds like Eva was already planning to. Well, if that’s what she meant by permanently shutting this whole thing down, why the fuck didn’t she say so?

Eva and Gideon have a more pleasant ride to work, and he says nice things that make her go mushy and forget what a shit head he was earlier (that Corinne thing was fighting dirty). [Matthew says: Eva even takes in the wonderful majesty of New York City!

I’d stopped noticing it [but] Eva’s fascination and delight with my hometown had reintroduced it to me.

Aren’t they in, like, Midtown, though? The bland, characterless part that’s just offices and chain restaurants? This is like going to Disney World and being impressed by the vending machines.] Eva also tells him she needs time alone to tell Cary they’re married, because she doesn’t want him to feel like he’s on the outside of their lives. Except he is because they’re married and he’s not going to want to be the third wheel in their marriage when he has his own shit going on anyway. [Matthew says: Although it’s yet to be seen if Cary actually gets to have any shit going on in this book. Remember that Cary’s role in book 3 was “guy who Googles stuff”.]

Once at work, Gideon reminds us that he really wants Eva to work with him. “I was determined to get her on my team and working for me. It was an objective I strategized every day.” It’s pretty shameful that he strategizes every day, but his strategy boils down to just telling Eva he wants her to work with him.

The rest of the chapter is about Gideon meeting with his lawyer to talk about selling his “fuck pad” – that hotel room he owned where he fucked people. [Matthew says: Although this is done by Gideon selling the entire apartment building, because everything is a penis.] Apparently his rival wants to buy it for a low price…and then Gideon and his lawyer argue about that and other things his rival has done in the past. I have no idea if this dude will ever be mentioned again, but I think I’ve conveyed enough important information about him for you guys to get the gist.

My question today is more of a challenge. Can you find a more succinct and clear way to describe who Anne Lucas is? Please help. I’m getting concerned they’re going to add yet another minor character who is like her second cousin’s third fish’s first owner and then I’ll never be able to explain any of this ever again.

Yes, we’re reading Captivated By You, the fourth book in Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series! Long-time blog readers might remember that I did not actually read the third book in the series. This has not posed a problem thus far. [Ariel says: I have ever so graciously allowed Matt to return to the series with me. I mean, obviously I was desperate to cover each and every delightful (and not at all tedious) chapter on my own.]

Today’s chapter is from Eva’s perspective, because somehow we just started reading two books in completely different genres with narration jumping back and forth between the two main characters in a relationship. Trends gonna trend! [Ariel says: This was completely unplanned. What a beautiful disaster accident!] 

Captivated By You Chapter 2

Eva calls Gideon because it’s only been a few hours since their last directionless fight.

Something in his voice didn’t hit me right. “I can call back later.”
“Eva.” The authoritative bite when he said my name had my toes flexing in my nude sling-back Louboutins. “Say what you need.”

Surprisingly, this conversation isn’t a fight about their relationship! Totally mixing things up, this conversation has Eva immediately succumb to his authority, and then reintroduces the subplot implying that Megumi has been kidnapped by the Russian mob. Only one of those is really doing the mixing up, but boy does it mix things up.

Eva asks if Gideon can break some rules and give her Megumi’s address (btw, this is apparently the first time Gideon learns about Megumi’s existence, and yet doesn’t flip shit that his wife has friends who are not him. Is this series better than Fifty Shades again? I can’t keep track anymore) because she’s been out sick all week and isn’t returning her calls.

“It’s just not like her to not get in touch with me, especially when she’s calling in sick to work every day. She’s a chatty girl, you know?”
“No,” he drawled. “I have no idea.”
If it had been any other guy who’d said that, I would think he was being sarcastic. But not Gideon. I didn’t think he’d ever really talked with women in any meaningful way. He was too often clueless when interacting with me, as if his social development hadn’t quite been well rounded when it came to dealing with the opposite sex.

I like how the book is trying to say that Gideon is a desirable man with a complicated past, but he basically just sounds like The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon. [Ariel says: Oh my god YES! Also, I feel like we’ve been comparing everyone to Sheldon recently. I think that should give these writers pause because it’s definitely not what they’re going for, especially in this case.]

Arguably still more charismatic than Jamie Dornan’s Christian Grey, though.

Gideon tells Eva to use Raúl, his personal private detective-type, which she’s a little uncomfortable about.

[I]t made me feel as if our relationship were unbalanced in his favor. While I didn’t believe he would ever hold that over me, I didn’t think he’d see me as equal to him, either, and that was really important to me.

Evidence to the contrary: Their entire relationship.

Anyway, you were probably wondering when their conversation would turn into an incoherent fight again.

“I want either myself, Angus, or Raúl with you when you go see her.”
“And that wouldn’t be awkward at all.”
“Don’t throw me that ‘chicks before dicks’ line, Eva. You need to give me something here.”

After the phone call, the executive chairman, Christine Field, stops by to congratulate Eva on her engagement. The book reminds us how batshit insane it is.

Telling her I had been with Waters Field & Leaman longer than I’d been with Gideon, when I had been employed there only a couple of months, would open up speculation I didn’t want floating around.

To clarify, this is probably the only plausible subplot so far. The batshit insane part is that this entire series has all taken place in only a couple months. Eva’s probably got stuff that’s been in her fridge for more time than has passed since Gideon murdered a dude two books ago. [Ariel says: That was so last week! Murder shmurder. Brett Klein has a magic penis, let’s focus on that] 

Eva reflects on the fight she had with Gideon that morning.

Something important had shifted between us that morning. I felt as if a core column of trust had been shaken.
Did he know that? Did he understand how big a problem that was?

Does Eva understand what a big problem Gideon is? I feel like we’re not seeing the forest for the trees, here. I’m not sure Eva knows what a tree looks like.

Yes, of course I have a gif for that. I’m a goddamn professional.

Eva gets a call from her mom, flipping out about Eva being married. For those of you having trouble telling this book’s characters apart, or telling them apart from their Fifty Shades analogues, Eva’s mom is the nuts one who tracked her movements through her phone. Eva’s mom is basically also this book’s Christian Grey.

No mother should find out on the Internet that her daughter is getting married!”
I stared at my monitor blankly, my heart rate kicking up. “What? Where on the Internet?”
“Take your pick! Page Six, HuffPost…”

A very effective way to explain that something is all over the place is to start with the least-familiar examples.

As you might imagine, conflicts happen! Eva’s mom wants to talk with Eva about wedding planning! Eva wants to talk with her dad about her engagement so he hears it from her first! I want to talk about how wasn’t their engagement secret and why does Eva not find it strange that it suddenly isn’t?

[Ariel says: It’s not the engagement that’s secret, it’s that they got married in secret. They decided they’ll just be like, “Ah yes, we’re only engaged” but then they’re going to tell Cary (and apparently Brett) that they’re actually already married. Eva doesn’t want to deny her mom the pleasure of wedding planning, so she can’t tell her the truth.] 

As for Eva’s dad, we get this gem of an understatment.

I was torn between doing what I was paid to do— work— and making sure my dad heard about the engagement from me. […] my dad had been in a funk since he’d messed around with my mom and I was worried about him. He wasn’t the kind of guy to take sleeping with a married woman lightly, even one he was in love with.

Eva only has time to shoot him a text before she has to go to a meeting, and hopes it’s enough.

Question of the Day! What will the over-the-top consequences be when we inevitably discover it’s not enough?

Ug two Fourbias POV chapters. Guess I’m in charge of all the menfolk this week! [Matthew says: This week on BBGT, women take over, feminism wins, all men murdered by their womanly fire breath and lightning magic. That’s what feminism is, right? I’ve been spending a lot of time on Twitter lately.]

Allegiant Chapter 9: Fourbias

This chapter is a mere 6 pages according to my Kindle app. Literally all that happens is that Fourbias takes Tris somewhere private and asks her what she wants to do about Caleb being on trial.

“Tris.” I set my hands on the wall on either side of her face and lean into them. “You don’t want him to die. I know you don’t.”

“The thing is . . .” She closes her eyes. “I’m so . . . angry. I try not to think about him because when I do I just want to . . .”

“I know. God, I know.” My entire life I’ve daydreamed about killing Marcus. Once I even decided how I would do it—with a knife, so I could feel the warmth leave him, so I could be close enough to watch the light leave his eyes. Making that decision frightened me as much as his violence ever did.

“My parents would want me to save him, though.” Her eyes open and lift to the sky. “They would say it’s selfish to let someone die just because they wronged you. Forgive, forgive, forgive.”

“This isn’t about what they want, Tris.”

“Yes, it is!” She presses away from the wall. “It’s always about what they want. Because he belongs to them more than he belongs to me. And I want to make them proud of me. It’s all I want.”

I can completely understand that since her parents died she’d want to honour them by saving her brother or at the very least not want everyone in her family to die. I don’t understand, though, saying that it’s always been about what they want because that’s so untrue. [Matthew says: I mean, I can get Tris’s “I want to make them proud of me” angle, but it is weird that it somehow turned into “It’s always about what they want”. Like, somehow the first is a normal (and nice!) “I miss my loved ones and want to do right by them”, but the second is more of a “GOD. MOOOOOOM.” Which is a strange way to honor the dead.]

Anyway, Fourbias says he’s going to save Caleb tomorrow, and then Tris and Fourbias proceed to make out.

Allegiant Chapter 10: Fourbias Again

Back in Four’s head, we get the most flowery description of feet that I never needed:

I used to run all the time and fight all the time because I cared about muscles. Now my feet have saved me too often, and I can’t separate running and fighting from what they are: a way to escape danger, a way to stay alive.

I do not fucking care about how the dramatic changes in your life have affected your feelings about running and fighting, Fourbias. I cannot stress that enough.

For some reason suddenly Fourbias injects himself with a serum so he can get into his fear landscape. Why the hell is this happening? I think I’m in my fear landscape right now writing a post where it’s all Fourbias’ point of view and we will never ever escape serums and fear landscapes even when they are coming out of absolutely nowhere.

I don’t know what I will see next.

I wait for a long time without anything changing. The room is still dark, the floor still cold and hard, my heart still beating faster than normal. I look down to check my watch and discover that it’s on the wrong hand—I usually wear mine on my left, not my right, and my watchband isn’t gray, it’s black.

Fourbias’ greatest fear is that one day he’ll realize his watch is on the wrong hand. [Matthew says: Maybe he only has four fears because the others all died of boredom.]

But actually he looks in a mirror and sees that he’s Marcus, so I guess his real fear is that some sort of Freaky Friday situation will occur when they both reach for the same piece of Dauntless chocolate cake and they’ll swap bodies, but then realize it’s actually super hard to be one another! They’ll encounter wacky situations along the way and ultimately reach a heartwarming resolution.

In decidedly un-Freaky Friday fashion, Fourbias/Marcus winks at himself in the mirror and then starts choking himself. Because one should always remember to wink at themselves in the mirror before choking oneself ~ Emily Post.

All Four has to do to get himself out of this situation is to, “imagine my reflection as water running over Marcus’s skin, replacing every piece of him with a piece of me. I remake myself in my own image.” So that was resolved very quickly.

In case any of this was at all ambiguous (it wasn’t), Veronica Roth saves you the trouble of interpreting anything yourself

I was still afraid of him, I knew, but in a different way—I was no longer a child, afraid of the threat my terrifying father posed to my safety. I was a man, afraid of the threat he posed to my character, to my future, to my identity.

Or OR Freaky Friday. 

The next fear features Tris coughing up blood and Four trying to save her, but he can’t. Then he comes out of the fear landscape, which raises the question: wasn’t that only two fears?

After abruptly leaving his fear landscape, Fourbias goes to rescue Caleb from his cell. It’s absurdly easy because he just reminds everyone that he’s Evelyn’s son and they’re like, “Right this way, sir, please do kill this prisoner if that’s what you wish to do. I’ll just give you some privacy.”

Zeke helps Fourbias slip away with Caleb, and Zeke gets a really long goodbye scene, which is completely lost on me given I can barely remember who he is or why this is significant:

“I probably won’t be seeing you again, will I? I mean, I know the others might come back, but you . . .” He trails off, but picks up the thought again a moment later. “Just seems like you’ll be happy to leave it behind, that’s all.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” I look at my shoes. “You sure you won’t come?”

“Can’t. Shauna can’t wheel around where you guys are going, and it’s not like I’m gonna leave her, you know?” He touches his jaw, lightly, testing the skin. “Make sure Uri doesn’t drink too much, okay?”

It’s hard to feel sad that Fourbias might not see Zeke again, and it’s even harder to be impressed by Zeke’s generosity (?) by staying with Shauna (who?), or to be concerned about Uriah’s drinking (is that an issue?) [Matthew says: Even if Uriah’s drinking is suddenly an issue now, aren’t they still wandering into an empty wasteland with no clear idea where civilization even is? Much less liquor stores?] But the book tries really hard for us to believe it’s a significant scene:

I know I should leave, but I have to stay in this moment for a little while, feeling its significance. Zeke was one of the first friends I made in Dauntless, after I survived initiation. Then he worked in the control room with me, watching the cameras and writing stupid programs that spelled out words on the screen or played guessing games with numbers. He never asked me for my real name, or why a first-ranked initiate ended up in security and instruction instead of leadership. He demanded nothing from me.

After summing up an entire, allegedly meaningful friendship in five lines, Fourbias hugs BFF Zeke, and they make some lame, typical teenage boy jokes like, “Bye sweetie.” Adorbs. But really, did we even know they were that close before this moment? Did we care? More importantly, were were supposed to care? Zeke is no Fernando, that’s for sure.

Fourbias takes Caleb to the train station, and takes this moment to wax poetic about train jumping and also answer our questions about who operates the trains:

I see the train coming from a long way off, making its last journey through the city. Once, the trains were a force of nature to me, something that continued along their path regardless of what we did inside the city limits, something pulsing and alive and powerful. Now I have met the men and women who operate them, and some of that mystery is gone, but what they mean to me will never be gone—my first act as a Dauntless was to jump on one, and every day afterward they were the source of my freedom, they gave me the power to move within this world when I had once felt so trapped in the Abnegation sector, in the house that was a prison to me.

I would like a comprehensive list of what the factionless are responsible for, because operating trains doesn’t seem like a shitty enough job to be delegated to them. How are jobs determined in this society, damn it.

After jumping on the train, Fourbias and Caleb reunite with Tris and Caleb finds out he’s not headed to his execution, but is actually going outside the fence with them. Tris and Four talk about how they’re ready to leave the city behind them. Me too, you guys!

Does anyone think the book is going to get more interesting now that they’re going “outside the fence”?

I use Spotify a lot these days, and – like probably 99% of the people who use it – am a free user. I don’t particularly mind the ads; it actually sort of reminds me of listening to the radio and getting to zone out from time to time, but in a good way. That being said, I’m curious how many people too cheap for pay for ad-free streaming music are really the target audience for the nonstop barrage of car insurance ads I’m getting.

Allegiant Chapter 11: Tris

The train gets closer to the fence, which would seemingly be the most straightforward thing that could happen, but has already thoroughly perplexed me.

“It looks like we’re getting close to the fence,” I say.
I can tell because the buildings are disappearing, leaving just fields

Okay, wait, how fucking far away is the fence from the city itself that Tris can see the buildings disappearing? Because remember the Amity all live outside the fence (because this is the worst-designed science experiment ever), so how far away from Chicago are they? Do these poor bastards have to commute from the suburbs to their dystopia every day?

[Ariel says: The more Veronica Roth tries to explain things, the more confusing she gets. If she just wrote, “It looks like we’re getting closer to the fence” we would have just accepted that and moved on.]

Tris also describes her intense anger with Caleb:

I want to scream into the darkest parts of him so he can finally hear me, finally understand what he did to me, but instead I just hold his stare until he can’t take it anymore and he looks away.

I hear that. That’s exactly how I feel about this book.

When they get off the train, Caleb tries to run away again, but Tobias catches him, leaving him to an even worse fate: hearing these assholes try to make jokes about people with future slang. [Ariel says: Oh, Matt, if you think this slang is bad, I can’t wait till you check out Maze Runner. You’re in for a real treat.]

“Not sure why an Erudite like you can’t get it through his head,” Tobias is saying, “but you aren’t going to be able to outrun me.”
“He’s right,” says Uriah. “Four’s fast. Not as fast as me, but definitely faster than a Nose like you.”

Yep. We read that right. The hot new insult is “Nose”. Let’s hear the riveting explanation of why the actual fuck.

“Nose.” Uriah touches the side of his nose. “It’s a play on words. ‘Knows’ with a ‘K,’ knowledge, Erudite… get it? It’s like Stiff.”

“The Dauntless have the weirdest slang. Pansycake, Nose . . .”

“Weirdest” is a word.

[Ariel says: Why is it necessary to keep introducing us to Dauntless slang when it only comes up once or twice? If from day one this slang had been established, it would be dumb but at least arguably part of Roth’s world-building strategy. But what the fuck is the point of giving a detailed explanation of a terribly conceived bit of slang only to forget it forever.] 

Tori gets everyone to calm down and explains that they have about a ten-minute walk to Johanna’s rendezvous point, and they’re not out of danger yet. Which is a good time to realize that Tori isn’t really a particularly important character…

She moves farther away from us by the minute, her pace more like a jog than a walk. […] She is so far ahead that when the shots go off, I only see her flashlight fall, not her body.

Farewell, Tori. You weren’t like all those other minor characters who did one or fewer things and were then killed off in a moment of high-stakes drama. You told Tris she was Divergent and killed Jeanine. So, two things.

Tris suddenly gets over the PTSD and gun-phobia that was a recurring theme throughout the entire second book with zero fanfare.

I hear someone approaching , and I aim flashlight and gun in the same direction. The beam hits a woman wearing a factionless armband, with a gun pointed at my head. I fire, clenching my teeth so hard they squeak.
The bullet hits the woman in the stomach and she screams, firing blindly into the night.

Tris escapes and eventually happens upon Christina and Johanna. She explains that Tori’s dead, and then they go off and find the others – Tobias, Caleb, Cara, and Peter – their factionless attackers having apparently completely disappeared.

Allegiant Chapter 12: Tobias

The group finds some extra Amity greenhouses as they get close to the edge of their city. You know, the part that isn’t the city which is apparently way inside the fence, which still isn’t even inclusive of the Amity who live outside of that, even, where we are now also nearing the edge of. I have no idea where we’re going.

“What are those?” Tris says.
“The other greenhouses,” Johanna says. “They don’t require much manpower, but we grow and raise things in large quantities there— animals, raw material for fabric, wheat, and so on.” […]
“You don’t show them to visitors,” I say. “We never saw them.”
“Amity keeps a number of secrets,” Johanna says, and she sounds proud.

How the hell does raising a large quantity of animals qualify as secret and not requiring much manpower? Do you know how hard it is to keep one goddamn goldfish alive?

[Ariel says: Unless they’re raising dinosaurs or something, I don’t get the secrecy around raising animals either. I mean for fuck’s sake in this society, wheat is top secret? It does not get duller than top-secret wheat. Unless it’s wheat that they’re feeding to the dinosaurs.]

Anyway, we finally reach the edge of their dystopia. Sort of.

“This is it,” Johanna says. “The outer limit of the Dauntless patrols.”
No fence or wall marks the divide between the Amity compound and the outer world

So, there’s… nothing stopping the evil humans from getting into the science experiment designed to save them? Like, literally anyone could get in and fuck up some shit? “Some shit” being 1/5 of their population (the population that’s important to the experiment anyway) and ALL OF THEIR FOOD. Seriously? There’s nothing?

I remember monitoring the Dauntless patrols from the control room, making sure they didn’t go farther than the limit, which is marked by a series of signs with Xs on them.

Every chapter of this book that goes by, the stupider the science experiment it’s all about becomes. Somehow. I can’t wait for three chapters from now when we find out they also didn’t have water or some shit. [Ariel says: I’m also surprised no one has expressed any curiosity at all over this before? Like even in The Village at least people thought there were crazy monsters outside the village, so they were happy to stay inside. Somehow The Village has better inner-logic than this series.]

Sigh. Ok. I’ll bite. Let’s learn about how their important, humanity-saving experiment is only separated from the outside world with some signs that say, “SERIOUSLY DON’T CROSS THIS LINE I’M BEING SO SERIOUS RIGHT NOW”. How does that work?

The patrols were structured so that the trucks would run out of gas if they went too far […]
“Have they ever gone past the limit?” says Tris.
“A few times,” says Johanna.

Wow, that contradicted itself fast.

“It was our responsibility to deal with that situation when it came up.”
Tris gives her a look, and she shrugs.
“Every faction has a serum,” Johanna says.

OF COURSE IT’S A SERUM

“Every faction has a serum,” Johanna says. “The Dauntless serum gives hallucinated realities, Candor’s gives the truth, Amity’s gives peace, Erudite’s gives death, [and] Abnegation’s resets memory.”
“Resets memory?”
“Like Amanda Ritter’s memory,” I say. […]
“Exactly,” says Johanna. “The Amity are charged with administering the Abnegation serum to anyone who goes out past the limit”

Then how is it the Abnegation serum if it’s the Amity’s responsibility to use it? Did Veronica Roth read this sentence after she wrote it? Did anyone read these books before they got published? [Ariel says: I’m shocked no editor was like, “Abnegation is no Men in Black. Please get rid of this nonsense.] 

The chapter ends with the group walking into the outside world beyond the, uh, signs with Xs on them. Also, Tris turns into Taylor Swift.

because the farther we get outside the outer limit of the Dauntless patrols, the closer we get to seeing what lies outside the only world I’ve ever known. I am terrified and thrilled and confused and a hundred different things at once.

In the next chapter, Tris will describe a situation as trouble, trouble, trouble, and then a few chapters after that she’ll make an album everybody actually really likes and adopt two cats.

Question of the Day: If Tris is Taylor Swift, then who’s Four/Tobias? My vote’s for Bruno Mars, because I don’t understand what anyone could like about him.

This year my friend Ellen and I decided to try something new for March Madness. Once a year, Ellen lapses into an otherwise uncharacteristic sports bro frenzy during the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Around this time, I also lapse into a period of remembering that sports exist, and that brackets are sort of fun looking. Of course, not knowing anything about said sports, there’s not really much I can do about filling out a bracket. What am I gonna do? Research?

Rather than have me do any work myself, Ellen and I thought it would be fun if we each entered her bracket in our own respective office pools. It actually sounded like a pretty fun idea, when we thought about it. With both of us invested in exactly the same thing, our victories were our victories. Our losses were our losses. At the very least, it would be a fun thing to gchat about at work share!

Our losses quickly dominated our victories.

But before I get into that, there’s a little bit of context to establish. Namely, the bracket itself is probably important information. (You can click on each to make big/legible.)

Now, Ellen put time and care into these. I quickly entered all of it into my bracket for my office pool as fast as possible, without question. Or understanding. I had her screenshots in one window and my browser in the other, vaguely gazing at the tiny little team logos, going, “Ok, the Ms win this round… the birds win this round… the paperclips win this round…”

Look, 1) the logos were really tiny, and 2) I was so upset that the paperclips didn’t even make it to the Sweet Sixteen.

So how is our bracket actually doing? Well, I’m happy to say that on the second day of the tournament, not a single one of our teams lost! Day one is a very different story however.

Ouch

Ouch ouch ouch

Two games into the tournament, one of our Final Four teams was out. So it goes! Or, as I eventually put it on Twitter for some reason:

To reiterate, for some reason.

By this point, Ellen and I were definitely feeling the “our losses are our losses” part of the experience. Ellen was devastated – all her sports-ing for naught! I was mostly just upset that I was losing to someone in my office whose ESPN username is, I shit you not, kanyepimpnugget. We were sharing the same bracket, but we were not sharing the same disappointments.

(To clarify this slightly, I had learned on Twitter that one of my former colleagues at NPR from back when I interned there was doing a bracket based simply on what mascots she liked best, and at the moment it was dominating. Ellen was lamenting sports; I was lamenting not thinking to do a quirky bracket. Our priorities are not the same.)

As Thursday wore on, I was tied for last in my office pool. This situation didn’t last long, though! By Friday morning, the bracket was dead last in both my office pool and Ellen’s.

Meanwhile, kanyepimpnugget was in a three-way tie for first.

Now, there is an important point to make, since otherwise there’s seemingly no reason to stay invested in this. I’m the only person in my office pool who has UVA as the winner. There is still a chance. The stakes – however insanely slim – can nonetheless be described as “there”.

And things have since gotten better!

As of writing on Saturday (are there more games after Saturday afternoon? I have no idea), I’ve now risen from my lowly squalor to second-last, and Ellen has risen to the prestigious sport of third-to-last place! (And kanyepimpnugget is now winning, whoever kanyepimpnugget is.)

Now, sure, maybe this doesn’t seem like an especially high-stakes drama, but keep in mind you’re reading it on this blog, and compare this to the plot of the books we’re reading currently. Yeah, I bet you’re slightly more invested now too! Will our bracket rise through the ranks with a single, fortuitously-chosen winner? Will kanyepimpnugget continue to dominate? Will I ever figure out who kanyepimpnugget is? Is kanyepimpnugget in accounts? Will I have a more sports-related investment in this whole thing? We’ll have to find out! It’s madness!

I feel like there’s another joke I can make out of that last one.