Captivated by You Chapter 3: Gideon

There’s a new minor character on the block. [Matthew says: Just what this book was missing!] Arash, Gideon’s lawyer, appears to have not fucked off into beautiful oblivion after being briefly mentioned in the first chapter, so I thought it would be worth turning the spotlight to him. He exists and he is apparently more than a lawyer, he’s a friend, because the chapter opens with him teasing Gideon about how smooth he is for talking to Eva’s dad about their upcoming marriage.

The reason for Arash’s abrupt introduction and seemingly overnight transplant into Gideon’s tight-knit group of buddies (which also materialized overnight) quickly becomes apparent:

He stood. “Yes, I heard. Your mother’s here. Let the wedding insanity begin. Since you’re free this weekend, how about we round up some of the usual suspects at my place tonight? It’s been a while, and your bachelor days are numbered. Well, technically they’re over, but no one else knows that.”

The usual suspects? You could maybe convince me that Arash is a fairly good friend of Gideon’s who has never been mentioned before, and then there’s that guy Arnoldo (you deserve to be hailed for your excellent memory if you remember who he is) who Gideon hangs with. But to try to convince me there are “usual suspects” is a step too far.

[Matthew says: This is less a criticism and more my state of unwavering confusion concerning key details of the premise (…which I guess makes this a criticism anyway) but Gideon is a hyper-successful businessman in his twenties, because fiction. So what about his “usual suspects”? Is Arash a twenty-something lawyer? Are all of Gideon’s friends way too young to be so succesful?]

Arash heads off, and before Gideon’s mother enter the room, Gideon quickly tells us this:

During the two minutes I had alone, I texted Angus about getting to California. I still had unfinished business there, and taking care of it while Eva was visiting her dad gave me a legitimate excuse to be where she was. Not that I absolutely needed one.

Eva’s been pretty clear about not wanting you to hang out with her in California, so I guess you don’t need a reason to follow her there, Gideon. Sense-making!

Gideon’s mother tries to convince Gideon he’s making a huge mistake by marrying Eva, and she obviously fails to change his mind about marrying her. It’s about as suspenseful as watching someone butter toast. [Matthew says: The conversation also lasts about as long as it takes to butter toast, but it’s long enough to feature Gideon describing his mother with “Her pretty pink mouth tightened with disapproval”, because everybody in this book must be sexy, even when being described by their son.]

Raul, Gideon’s private investigator/body guard (I’m still not quite sure what his preferred job title is), provides Gideon with an up-to-date report of what Anne Lucas looks like. This leads Gideon to realize that the woman who annoyed Eva and flirted with Cary at the end of the last book isn’t Anne Lucas! THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

This is a rare opportunity for Gideon to take a stroll down memory lane:

“Eva said the woman had long hair,” I murmured, noting that Anne still had cropped hair. I remembered the plastic feel of it, the sharp-gelled spikes scratching my thighs as she deep-throated my cock, working desperately to get me hard enough to fuck her.

Not only is no current woman in Gideon’s life a threat to Eva, but he isn’t really even attracted to women he used to sleep with! A woman’s greatest fantasy is that the sexiest and richest man in the world will fall in love with her and that he’ll have had lots of sex and be amazing at it, but he won’t have really enjoyed the sex beforehand. I think the closest we came to something more complicated was Christian Grey being in love with “Mrs Robinson” but she was treated as an evil child molester, so it doesn’t really count, I guess.

There were a number of women in my past who might cause problems for me with my wife. The women I’d slept with were aggressive by nature, ones who put me in the position of needing to take the upper hand. Eva was the only woman who’d ever grabbed the lead and made me want more.

See what I mean? If you don’t, it becomes even more apparent when Eva shows up in Gideon’s office:

“You’ll make me come,” I murmured. All the effort I’d once had to expend to become aroused enough to orgasm was unnecessary with my wife. The fact that she existed stirred my blood. The strength of her desire was enough to set me off.

Now try a variation of that for a pickup line: “Your existence alone makes me want to come.” Super flattering!

[Matthew says: There’s also something for those of you dying to see how hearing the story from Gideon’s perspective fleshes out his character, since previously all we really got out of him was that he thought Eva was super duper fuckable but, boy, she sure likes to be her own person! Now we can see how this duality seems from Gideon’s perspective!

[She] challenged every dominant instinct I had. I wanted to fist her ponytail in my hand, take her mouth, and grind against her.

Revelatory!]

Gideon asks Eva not to go to California, and she says she has to see her dad now that he knows about the engagement.

“Is there something you should be telling me?”

“No. He sounded good when I talked to him, but I think he was hoping we’d have more time together before I got married. To him, it seems like you and I just met.”

You are not alone in feeling that way, Mr. Reyes, I can assure you.

Things start getting heated between Gideon and Eva even though Gideon needs to be on a conference call soon! Relationship issues take precedence of course, and Eva and Gideon discuss their earlier argument over Brett and Corinne. Resolving a pointless fight really gets these two going, so they have sex while Gideon is on the call. [Matthew says: Not absurd enough for you? IT’S A VIDEO CONFERENCE.]

Most of this scene is actually an argument between Gideon and some creative-types who are working on generic app and trying to create an awesome user experience (insert more buzz terms here.) But then there’s this gem:

Staring into a half-dozen angry faces with a riot of protests exploding from my earpiece, I felt the orgasm hit me like a freight train. I fumbled for the mute button and let the groan tear from my throat as I spurted powerfully into Eva’s greedily working mouth. She moaned and milked my dick with both hands, pulling and squeezing as I kept coming in a flood I couldn’t stop.

His video is still on, so presumably he’s groaning really loudly but keeping his face completely neutral. I encourage you to attempt to groan (sexily?) while maintaining a completely blank and/or menacing expression. It’s highly entertaining. [Matthew says: Meanwhile, I want to never hear “dick” and “milked” in the same sentence ever again.]

Afterwards, they need to fill the void left behind from their resolved conflict and create a new one. Eva is concerned that Gideon will be hanging out with his boys tonight and that there’s a chance they could go to a club!

“I’m not worried about you,” she muttered, her arms dropping to her sides.

[…]

“Arnoldo doesn’t trust me, Gideon. He doesn’t really want you with me.”

“It’s not his decision to make. And some of your friends aren’t going to like me, either. I know Cary’s on the fence.”

“What if Arnoldo tells the others how he feels about me?”

If Eva is worried about Arnoldo turning Gideon’s beloved friends (who have never been previously mentioned) against her, then he wouldn’t need to be at a club to do that. In fact, I’m pretty sure he could just group message everyone on Facebook and call it a day if he really wanted to.

Later that night, we meet Manuel, who actually appears to be the only new minor character added since that crazy kid Arash. Manuel is the element that’s been missing all along from Gideon’s crew of dude-bros. He’s the jovial guy who gives Gideon crap for causing him to lose a bet over who’d be the first to get married. Oh, Manuel, never change.

Gideon talks to Arnoldo about Eva’s concerns:

I didn’t waste time with small talk. “Eva worries that you’ve got a problem with her.”

He glanced at me. “I’ve never been disrespectful to your woman.”

Except for right here right now with that line. Always change, Arnoldo.

Two more problematic things come up during this conversation. I mean, I’m sure there are loads more problematic things because trying to count the things that are wrong in the Crossfire series is like trying to count the fucking characters during a Mario Party mini game. Except it’s even harder than that, really.

1)

“If her happiness depends on what I think,” he answered in Italian, “you ask too much. I will never say anything against her. I’ll always treat her with the respect I feel for you as long as you are together. But what I believe is my choice and my right, Gideon.”

I looked over at Arash, who was lining up shot glasses on the bar in the living room. As my lead attorney, he knew about both my marriage and Eva’s sex tape, and he didn’t have a problem with either one.

Well, he shouldn’t because Eva didn’t make the sex tape on purpose. she was having sex with her boyfriend at the time and someone taped them.

2)

“I sat with Eva and Brett Kline at dinner. I observed them together. There is chemistry there, not unlike what I saw between Bianca and the man she left me for. I wish I believed Eva would ignore it, but she’s already proven that she can’t.”

I really have to ask, why is this Brett thing still an issue? Why is Arnoldo fueling the least threatening fire of all time? Fuck off, Arnoldo.

Gideon at least sticks up for Eva and said he was to blame for a lot of the negative stuff that’s happened between him and Eva, and Arnoldo is just like, “No fucks are given.”

[Matthew says: I actually have a third one to add:

Manuel grinned. “Latinas rule, my friend. Sexy, curvy. More than a handful in bed and out. Hot tempered. Passionate.” He hummed. “Good choice.”

So, first, we have the problematic detail that this is pretty racist? Not like an “I hate X people!” hateful racist, but nonetheless a “aw man, X people are super hot!” objectifying racist, which isn’t an improvement to really brag about. (Of course, there’s nothing problematic about including racist characters in a story, per se – the problematic part is when a story doesn’t identify those characters as such, so ultimately the book is only helping to construct the same racism as its characters.)

But there’s something else with this I’d like to talk about: somehow I totally missed that Eva is Latina? This could just be me skimming through these books or being an inattentive reader (or, to be honest, white privilege – I don’t even know what kinds of cues I might have missed), but somehow I feel like there’s a problem if it took me four books of a series to learn the main character’s race? Surely this should have come up more than a few times? If not in explicit statements, surely they would be elements of her experience that would clue us in, since I’m almost certain that a Latina girlfriend of a white man in the public eye would probably experience this differently than a white woman would.

[Ariel says: I hate to say anything that even remotely sounds like it’s in defence of this book, but this fact has come up loads of times. Eva mentions her father is latino a bunch of times, and she also mentions it about herself quite a few times. I’m pretty sure one of the reasons she gave for her parents not being able to overcome their ~differences~ was “he’s latino and she’s white!”]

I talked with my girlfriend about this one, since she reads about how race is typically coded in literature more than I do and had recently discussed how – unless stated otherwise – readers and writers tend to assume that their characters are white. Unsurprisingly, she put what I wanted to try to say better than I was ever going to:

I feel like saying she’s “Latina” is used like her hair color, in that it’s a random detail used for cursory physical description. No language used, no culture described. Nothing. She’s coded as white in the sense of being completely blank.

Blankness is, of course, a huge problem with this series in a myriad of ways (albeit less so than in Fifty Shades, where every character is essentially a paper cutout), and we’re definitely not suggesting peppering in random spurts of other languages apropos of nothing (again, considerably more of a problem in Fifty Shades – remember José “Dios Mío!” Rodriguez?). Nor am I saying that writers shouldn’t try writing outside of their experience, but that does come with a certain responsibility and care that I’m not feeling in Crossfire, where the first time I noticed the main character wasn’t white was because another character was being casually racist about it.]

My question is, if you could choose a character to hang out with Gideon’s crew, who would it be and why?

In case you’re interested in sports, I wrote up a piece on Sunday about the March Madness bracket my friend and I are sharing for our respective office pools, even though I know nothing about sports. If you did enjoy it, you may be dismayed that our brackets have since gotten even worse, so there may not be much point in writing, say, Worse Brackets, Good Times. Just assume it got worse. Much worse.

Chapter 4

Cary and Eva are in Gideon’s private jet (which, oh, I will be getting into later), which means that Cary has finally shown up, and with six words reminds me why I hate him.

“What’s got you frowning, baby girl?” Cary asked

It’s probably a bit late – four chapters into the fourth book – to make this complaint specifically (have we been reading these books?), but could we not have every single character constantly coding Eva as a tiny, delicate womanthing?

I mean, sure, it would be boring if every female character were smart, strong, sensual, etc. But it’s conversely just as boring when every single character treats her like she isn’t.

But I digress. What is making Eva – who is constantly referred to as a literal infant by a character to whom she looks for emotional support – upset?

Staring at the choices in the dropdown menu my cursor hovered over, I debated which to pick. Engaged or It’s complicated?

Heavens, the indecision! We agreed to tell the world that we’re engaged for the sake of an appearance we’re both comfortable with, but how to put it on my Facebook page??

To its credit, the book does do something interesting here – especially in comparison to Fifty Shades’ “I’ve never had my own email address before!” – even though it looks about as stupid at first glance:

“I’m trying to set up some social media accounts,” I answered.
“Whoa.” He sat up with effortless grace, his posture surprisingly and instantly alert. “Big step.”

But then Eva reminds us she has a pretty legit reason for this…

Nathan had kept me hiding, afraid to put myself out there and risk making it easy for him to find me.

There’s also a whole thing about how now she doesn’t know how much information to put out there, since Gideon is a public figure under constant scrutiny, which seems like it could be an interesting theme to explore. It would seem, except it’s just yet another way to explore Eva getting jealous of other women again.

All the pictures posted by his social media admin were business-related, but the unofficial pictures he’d been tagged in weren’t. There, in living color, were images of him with beautiful women. And they hit me hard. Jealousy clawed and twisted my stomach.

Also, Eva tells Cary she’s married, because this airplane ride is nothing if not a roller coaster of emotion.

“I’m married,” I blurted out, tearing my gaze away from the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. “To Gideon, of course. Who else would I be married to?”

You have just as much context as I do for who asked her to clarify with those last two sentences. It really does read like Eva suddenly felt the need to clarify who she’s married to, to herself.

Cary reacts so exactly like you’d expect that it’s almost a waste of time trying to summarize it. Except I can’t actually disagree with a single point he makes…

• “What’s the damned rush?” Cary snapped.
• “You two are whack jobs separately. Together, you’re a goddamn nut house.”
• “What incentive has he got to fix anything? He’s bagged and tagged the prize. You’re stuck with his psychotic dreams and Grand Canyon– sized mood swings.”

PRO WRITING TIP: If a character is explaining why the central plot is awful, maybe don’t have them make way more sense than the person defending said plot. Except when he starts talking about his own life.

“I’m having a baby and I’m not getting married. You know why? Because I’m too fucked up and I know it. I’ve got no business hitching a passenger on this wild ride.”

Cary Taylor’s Wild Ride was a much less popular attraction.

Glossing over Cary’s actually much more interesting plot – again – Eva texts Gideon that she misses him.

He texted back almost instantly. “Turn the plane around.”
That made me smile. It was so like him. And so unlike me. Wasting the pilots’ time, the fuel… it seemed to frivolous to me.

Girl, you are already in a private jet. You are not on a super high horse with this not wasting fuel angle.

When the plane lands, Eva’s dad picks up Eva and Cary. As has become a bizarre calling card for this series, Eva continues to describe her dad in a weirdly sensual way.

He was my father, but that didn’t stop me from appreciating the fact that he was ridiculously attractive.

Eva also takes a moment to – rather more appropriately – consider her father’s appearance for any signs that 1) he’s having trouble adjusting to her new multibillionaire lifestyle (as opposed to her previous merely multimillionaire one), and if 2) he’s feeling any pain over having had an affair with his remarried ex-wife. She also gets a text from Brett saying, “Call me when you get into town”, which she ignores, which would have been a great approach for this book to take with this subplot as a whole.

The next morning, Eva and Gideon talk on the phone. Gideon briefly discusses his night out with his friends, which is – say it all together now! – a way to bring up Eva’s jealousy again.

“The usual. Drink. Give each other a hard time.”
“Did you go out?”
“For a couple of hours.”
My grip tightened on the phone as I pictured a pack of hot guys out on the prowl.

Casual reminder that Gideon is – despite his absurd success – in his twenties, as are his friends, presumably. This “hot guys on the prowl” was basically a bunch of drunk twentysomething Wall Street dudes out and about in Manhattan. So don’t worry, Eva. Nobody else liked them either.

They also talk about Eva’s plan to deal with Brett.

“What I have to say won’t take very long, so either I’ll see Brett tomorrow before I leave or we can chat on the phone. […] I’m gonna keep it simple. With ‘Golden’ and my engagement, I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to see each other socially. I hope we’ll be friends and keep in touch, but e-mail and texts are better, unless you’re with me.”

Wow! That sounds like a surprisingly mature and rational approach to a complicated issue for this book! Naturally, it’s shot down immediately.

“So your solution is to avoid him.”

I still don’t understand how this is an issue. What exactly is the problem with simply avoiding someone who brings up too many painful emotions to deal with? I don’t understand why Eva isn’t avoiding Brett more. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “I have to stay friends with my ex!” is the “The murderer is somewhere in this abandoned warehouse. Let’s split up.” of the romance genre.

This results in another conversation where Eva and Gideon pour out their heart and soul for each other about how much they need and love each other. It’s the sort of thing that almost everybody does at some point, but nobody wants to actually overhear, especially between two characters that absolutely cannot sell their likeability. Or have any particular talent for prose.

“Because I have it so bad for you. I get—well, hot.”

Now, sure, not everyone is good with words. And there’s no reason why a story shouldn’t be able to portray a character trying to express the depths of their emotions while struggling with their shallow linguistic talents.

This is not one of those books.

“I heard you talking,” [My dad] said without looking at me. […] “I think I understand what you’re feeling. […] You express it far better than I ever could”

Somehow I was not similarly moved by “I get hot”, but to each their own.

I know I’m not being totally fair because I do cherry-pick my quotes sometimes, but keep in mind this is Eva’s dad. Who has been moved to “understand[ing] what [she’s] feeling” by statements such as “I get hot”. Good thing she didn’t have Gideon’s side of the conversation on speakerphone!

“You shouldn’t be settling at all. You deserve so much better. You could have anyone—”
“That’s enough!”
I jumped at the lash of his voice.
“You will not ever say anything like that to me again,” he snapped. “Or I swear to God, angel, I will punish you.”

Somehow I doubt that would have given him the warm fuzzies. Although this actually did in Fifty Shades, so I guess we can’t be sure (which is terrifying).

Anyway, Eva and her dad talk about her relationship, which covers how Gideon wants her to work for him, but she wants her own achievements. This includes some frank, but potentially constructive, discussion:

“It could cause problems. He isn’t used to not getting what he wants.”
“Then you’re good for him.”

And some horrifyingly unaware inner dialogue:

“He’s a good man, with a beautiful heart. He’d do anything for me, Dad.” Even kill for me.

I would like to draw your attention to how in this single paragraph, Gideon is described as someone who would commit murder, but also as someone with a beautiful heart, because who’s to say those two things aren’t mutually exclusive?

Because this chapter won’t just end already, Eva and Cary go to their old therapist, where they run into a previously unmentioned character, whom we know in a single page will eventually end up with Cary. Because Eva all but tells us.

“Oh my God.” Kyle stood in a rush, her pretty red mouth falling open and a cloud of vapor billowing out. “I didn’t know you two were back!” She launched herself at Cary […] I had my suspicions that Cary had slept with the pretty blonde at some point, and that she hadn’t brushed it off as easily as he had.

Of course, there’s that little matter of how Cary is having a child out of wedlock with a fuckbuddy he doesn’t like as a person.

Cary jerked his thumb at me. “She’s getting married. I’m having a baby.”
Kyle gasped.

I think Cary just summed up the entirety of Entwined With You in seven words. Thank God I didn’t read it!

Eva catches up with Kyle while Cary and their therapist… play basketball. Kyle is surprised that Eva and Cary didn’t end up together, and Eva explains their relationship was never like that. And that’s it for Kyle so far.

During Eva’s session with he therapist, Dr. Travis, Sylvia Day tries desperately to explain why the plot is important Eva tries to explain her problems concerning Brett Kline.

“I don’t understand why Brett has any effect on me at all. It’s not that I want him. I can’t imagine being with anyone else but Gideon. Sexually or otherwise. But I’m not indifferent to Brett.”
“Why should you be?” he asked simply.

THAT’S WHAT WE’VE BEEN SAYING. FOR LIKE TWO AND A HALF BOOKS NOW.

“The other [possibility] is that you might not feel you deserve what you’ve found with [Gideon].”
A rock settled in my gut. “And I deserve Brett?”
“Eva.” He gave me a kind smile. “The fact you’re even asking that question . . . that’s your problem right there.”

This is a generous count of Eva’s problems.

Question of the day: I hate reading this book (you might have guessed). Let’s spice things up a bit! Give me a word to swap out with another word while I read the next chapter (like the “wand for a wang” reading of Harry Potter), and I’ll report back with the most hilarious findings! Doesn’t have to be suggestive – the surreal works nicely too:

My daily commute to work is about 45 minutes of the New York subway, which means that I see a lot of posters advertizing things I have zero interest in, but unfortunately have to see all the time. So I spend time thinking about these things that I otherwise never would. Here are a few reviews of a few upcoming movies and tv shows, based entirely on the posters I’ve seen for them on the MTA.

Get Hard

I’m pretty sure I experienced this entire movie based on this poster alone:

1. A successful but arrogant man is successful, but arrogant
2. Despite his confidence otherwise, he gets convicted for some white collar crime and is going to jail!
3. He worries about going to jail. This contains somewhere between one to seven minutes of jokes about getting butt raped.
4. He (somehow) finds a man who will teach him how to get by in prison without much trouble. This will contain somewhere between one to seven hours of racist jokes.
5. Through his struggles, he learns how to be a better person. But his dialogue is still mostly written as though he’s an arrogant asshole. Nobody notices.
6. You will leave the theater, overhearing a group of college students talking about Anchorman.

Insurgent

The movie will be as slick-looking as this poster, but provide just as much explanation for why.

The Royals

Like most American media adaptations of British culture, it will probably not explain why her arm looks like it’s being eaten by ladybugs.

Salem

They didn’t have anything more to add to this poster than three nouns, so I probably have nothing to add either.

Allegiant Chapter 13: Tris

The world outside the fence is…pretty anticlimactic. [Matthew says: Clarification: The world outside the big circle of signs with Xs on them.]

There is no life in it, as far as I can see; no movement, no sound but the wind and my own footsteps.

It’s like the landscape is an interrupted sentence, one side dangling in the air, unfinished, and the other, a completely different subject.

What in fuck’s name does that metaphor even mean? Is the interrupter’s sentence the completely different subject or the other half of the unfinished sentence? Tris may as well have said, “It’s like the landscape was a cake, only if the cake was decorated one way on one side and another way on the other side.”

You’d think that Roth would have quickly realized that this is just not working and moved on, but no:

On our side of that sentence is empty land, grass and stretches of road. On the other side are two concrete walls with half a dozen sets of train tracks between them. Up ahead, there is a concrete bridge built across the walls, and framing the tracks are buildings, wood and brick and glass, their windows dark, trees growing around them, so wild their branches have grown together.”

Really what the fuck kind of sentence is she referring to?

They decide to follow the aforementioned train tracks because they have nothing better to do at this point except maybe go back to that first half of the sentence. [Matthew says: If the first half of the sentence was the setting of the first two Divergent books, then ]

Johanna and Robert (who?) say their goodbyes and head back to the city. Tris is like, “Oh, I guess they have rebels to organize. Bai!” Instead, she’s more interesting in the god damn train tracks:

The tracks are not like the ones in the city. They are polished and sleek, and instead of boards running perpendicular to their path, there are sheets of textured metal. Up ahead I see one of the trains that runs along them, abandoned near the wall. It is metal-plated on the top and front, like a mirror, with tinted windows all along the side. When we draw closer, I see rows of benches inside it with maroon cushions on them. People must not jump on and off these trains.

This would be like if you regularly pooped on the roof of your car, and then later on you saw a convertible with its top down and you were like, “Wow! People must not shit on top of these cars.”

Tris and her pals take in the wonders around them like billboards. To drive this point home, Tris tells us, “I don’t understand, “vodka” and “Coca-Cola” and “energy drink.” The colors and shapes and words and pictures are so garish, so abundant, that they are mesmerizing.”

I can completely understand why she’d be confused by Coca-Cola and even vodka, but energy drink is pretty self-explanatory and there are pictures accompanying the words. So she could probably deduce that Coca-Cola and vodka are beverages. Presumably if there was a billboard for Oreos, she’d see the fucking oreos and be like, “Oh they’re cookies.” This is not mystifying stuff, people. [Matthew says: Maybe except for the vodka one. Vodka ads are fucking weird.]

Matthew says: And from that day forth, Tris wondered if she would ever find a pair of thigh-high vodkas.

People abruptly show up, and things get weird:

“Hello,” she says, and smiles nervously. “My name is Zoe. This is Amar.”

She jerks her head to the side to indicate the driver, who has gotten out of the truck too.

“Amar is dead,” Tobias says.

“No, I’m not. Come on, Four,” Amar says.

Tobias’s face is tight with fear. I don’t blame him. It’s not every day you see someone you care about come back from the dead.

For like five minutes I just sat here trying to remember who Amar was, until I remembered Four only recently told us he’d been his Dauntless instructor who was killed for being divergent as fuck. Forgive me if I’m not floored a character who was only just briefly introduced from someone’s memory (with no interesting details included at all) is not actually dead.

[Matthew says: As bored as Ariel and I are by this book, can we consider how even the character coming back from the dead right now is bored as tits? “No, I’m not. Come on, Four.” Get this man some coffee. He’s got a long day of pretending to give a shit about his own existence ahead of him.]

After being addressed by Zoe, Tris wonders how Zoe knows her Dauntless nickname. Then Zoe shows her a picture that has Tris’ mother in it, and everyone is like OMG except for me.

Allegiant Chapter 14: Fourbias

Fourbias eloquently tells us about his feelings:

I want this new reality to be a simulation that I could manipulate if I could only make sense of it. But it’s not, and I can’t make sense of it.

I really want this book to become more interesting so I could enjoy it. But it’s not, and I’m not enjoying it.

Fourbias, still reeling over the revelation that a character we gave no shits about isn’t actually dead, thinks back to when Amar was training him to be Dauntless by repeatedly shouting, “Adapt!!!!” at him. Which sounds about as effective as a math teacher standing at the front of the room just screaming, “MULTIPLY!!!!!”

They drive by some big trees and a couple black birds, and Fourbias actually thinks, “This is a wild world.” And I laugh for like 20 minutes because they fucking must have had black birds in the city because Tris has a tattoo of one. But then a lion launches itself at the car and rips everyone to shreds, and I have to agree that it’s a wild world and a satisfying conclusion to the series.

Just checking to see if you were awake. Anyway, they wind up being taken to a place ominously called “The Bureau of Genetic Welfare” which is not tricking anybody by using the word “Welfare” in its name.

“Welcome to the compound,” says Zoe. “This building used to be O’Hare Airport, one of the busiest airports in the country. Now it’s the headquarters of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare—or just the Bureau, as we call it around here. It’s an agency of the United States government.”

I feel my face going slack. I know all the words she’s saying—except I’m not sure what an “airport” or “united states” is—but they don’t make sense to me all together. I’m not the only one who looks confused—Peter raises both eyebrows as if asking a question.

Tris an co soon learn about air travel, and I’m sure their first thoughts are about whether or not they can jump on and off planes like trains.

Zoe implores everyone to just take note of anything they don’t understand and ask her later, which I’m grateful for because it means we don’t have to sit through multiple chapters where Fourbias and Tris are like, “What’s a taco?”

They go through a security checkpoint, and then it’s time for another misused metaphor:

We walk for a long time, deeper into the compound, and then Zoe stops, facing us.

Behind her is a large circle of blank screens, like moths circling a flame.

Behind her is a large circle of blank screens, like white on rice. Because that makes just as much sense. [Matthew says: So I guess we can assume that post-apocalypse Chicago still has the same colloquialisms? And moths?]

They meet David, leader of the Bureau, and he’s like, “THIS IS THE MOMENT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR.”

Can you think of more stupid metaphors that don’t fit these situations at all? Please share.

I’m seriously losing track of how many “the truth is revealed!” chapters we’ve had in Divergent. Get ready for another infodump! [Ariel says: This time with even truthier truth!] 

Chapter 15: Tris

Tris kicks off the conversation by taking out her new plot device, the photograph (Hey, at least it’s not the “hard drive of simulation” data MacGuffin anymore), and recognizes David as a man next to her mother in the photo. For some reason, Tris thinks this:

All the hope growing inside me has withered. If my mother, or my father, or my friends were still alive, they would have been waiting by the doors for our arrival.

So, I guess Tris’s train of thought is 1) people I don’t know about but that other people thought were dead are not dead, 2) maybe the people I saw die in front of me are alive too! I seriously don’t know what else this is.

[Ariel says: I really thought for a second that Tris was going to think, “Is David my real dad?” Because this series is basically turning into a soap opera what with characters once thought dead not being dead. Next up, evil twins!]

Meanwhile, the infodump.

“My name is David. As Zoe probably told you already, I am the leader of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. I’m going to do my best to explain things,” David says.

We learn that the information in the Edith Prior video about how the outside world needs moral support in the battle against human nature is – incredibly – not exactly correct.

“The first thing you should know is that the information Edith Prior gave you is only partly true. […] She provided only as much information as you needed to meet the goals of our experiments”

We also learn that the United States still very much exists. And that Americans still assume everybody just knows everything about them.

“A long time ago, the United States government—”
“The united what?” Uriah asks.
“It’s a country,” says Amar.

They do elaborate a bit from there, but I feel like it’s really important to convey just how long this chapter drags on. David and Amar are pretty awful at explaining things, which in a better-written book probably could have been a pretty interesting show-don’t-tell moment about how ineptly the Chicago experiment was designed. Of course, this is not that book, so it’s more so a kajillion pages of Veronica Roth desperately trying to make her sci fi allegory make any kind of sense.

For instance:

“There had been studies that indicated that violent tendencies could be partially traced to a person’s genes — a gene called ‘the murder gene'”

I shit you not, we have reached the point in this series where it’s explaining that there’s a gene that makes you want to murder people. Go big or go home, I guess. [Ariel says: Actually there is a gene they have found is linked to violent crimes. But it’s only referred to as “the murder gene” by the media (of course). I highlighted the scientific name in the search below:

]

David explains how the US government became interested in “enforcing certain desirable behaviors in its citizens” by “correcting” such genes, including genes for murder, cowardice, dishonestly, and low intelligence. This, in America, which is well known for its politicians understanding science.

Jesus, this is going to be a long presidential election cycle.

I can’t imagine isolating a gene for murder, or cowardice, or dishonesty.

It’s not just you, Tris.

“Obviously there are quite a few factors that determine personality, including a person’s upbringing and experiences,” David continues

We’re on page 121 of the third Divergent book, and it finally got some science right.

“[D]espite the peace and prosperity that had reigned in this country for nearly a century, it seemed advantageous to our ancestors to reduce the risk of these undesirable qualities showing up in our population by correcting them. In other words, by editing humanity. That’s how the genetic manipulation experiment was born. It takes several generations for any kind of genetic manipulation to manifest, but people were selected from the general population in large numbers, according to their backgrounds or behavior, and they were given the option to give a gift to our future generations, a genetic alteration that would make their descendants just a little bit better.”

By this point, most of the characters are reacting with confusion or disgust. Meanwhile, I’ve never felt like I had more in common with Tobias.

Tobias is staring at his shoes.

David continues his explanation and we learn that – somehow - this experiment where they had a population breed with itself for several generations to decrease the expression of genes already appearing within that population didn’t work.

“But when the genetic manipulations began to take effect, the alterations had disastrous consequences. As it turns out, the attempt had resulted not in corrected genes, but in damaged ones,” David says.

Sure, such as compromised immune system function, higher infant and neonatal mortality, reduced fertility rates, stunted growth, mental retardation, increased occurrence of recessive diseases such as sickle cell anemia or hemophilia, and many other deleterious traits that arise in an inbred population…

“Take away someone’s fear, or low intelligence, or dishonesty… and you take away their compassion.”

…or that. [Ariel says: I was on board for the science of a gene that has actually had some real scientific backing, but what the fuck is this book talking about now? At this point, I’d rather they started talking about genes that caused people to enjoy ham sandwiches.]

I notice this gif gets used a lot whenever Divergent does an infodump chapter.

Allegiant continues to try incredibly hard to make any of this sound plausible.

“Take away someone’s aggression and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assert themselves. Take away their selfishness and you take away their sense of self-preservation. If you think about it, I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.”

Hm, so five traits total. I bet that’s a coinci-WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE.

He is talking about the factions.

Yep! Thanks, Tris! Now, since Tris succinctly-

And he’s right to say that every faction loses something when it gains a virtue: the Dauntless, brave but cruel; the Erudite, intelligent but vain; the Amity, peaceful but passive; the Candor, honest but inconsiderate; the Abnegation, selfless but stifling.

[Ariel says: What the fuck? Erudite has proven to be more cruel than Dauntless. Dauntless people can be cruel, but wasn’t it mostly the Erudites pretending to be Dauntless…there was plenty of kindness in the Dauntless faction…THINK OF THE CHOCOLATE CAKE. And there was plenty of nastiness in Abnegation (think Marcus).]

THANKS, TRIS.

“Humanity has never been perfect, but the genetic alterations made it worse than it had ever been before.”

Inbreeding will do that.

“This manifested itself in what we call the Purity War.”

Wait, a fucking what happened?

“A civil war, waged by those with damaged genes, against the government and everyone with pure genes”

If nothing else, I have to credit Divergent for really committing to its ridiculous premise. Book one: We will restore civilization… with our genes. Book Two: We will restore HUMANITY… with our genes. Book Three: HUMANITY WAS TORN APART… by our genes.

Except it’s genes.

America tried to figure out how to fix itself after the Purity War, which 1) resulted in “a level of destruction formerly unheard of on American soil” and 2) is really the real name we’re really going with, because “subtle” is not a word that is often written in the same sentence as Divergent…

“They would wait for the passage of time— for the generations to pass, for each one to produce more genetically healed humans. Or, as you currently know them… the Divergent.”

Case in point.

“That is why the Bureau of Genetic Welfare was formed. [Our] predecessors designed experiments to restore humanity to its genetically pure state.”

If you just heard a noise, that was the biology major half of me screaming.

“They called for genetically damaged individuals to come forward so that the Bureau could alter their genes.”

Wait, these would be the same individuals who started a war because the government experimented with their genes? The solution they accepted was to step forward for the government to experiment on their genes? Once more? With feeling?

I just feel like something is off

It’s not just you, Tris.

“Your city is one of those experiments for genetic healing, and by far the most successful one”

Wait, there were others that did worse than the one where the test subjects started committing mass genocide against each other? [Ariel says: My number 1 questions is, are these other cities as obsessed with serums as Chicago? Or is this like the deep dish pizzas of the Divergent world?]

“because of the behavioral modification portion.”

Hm. This is confusing and vaguely science-sounding. I wonder if it’s actually about-

“The factions, that is.”

IT IS ALWAYS THE GODDAMN FACTIONS.

Except weirdly enough – and I’m sure this is a sign of the apocalypse or something – for once I actually think the Faction system… makes sense!

“The factions were our predecessors’ attempt to incorporate a ‘nurture’ element to the experiment— they discovered that mere genetic correction was not enough to change the way people behaved.”

Guys, this means that for once this story understands that its conflation of genes and personality (eg, faction is both genetic and a personal choice except when it’s not) is total bullshit. AND that this entire “everything is genes” premise is bullshit! Even though earlier in this chapter we produced a goddamn “murder gene”, but ignore that for now. IT GOT IT PRETTY RIGHT FOR ONCE! And it only took until its third 500-page book.

David continues to explain what a wonderful social/scientific/inbreeding experiment Chicago has been.

“We have gone to great lengths to protect you”

“Except for the part where we put all of you in there with guns.”

“We wanted to make sure that the leaders of your city valued [the Divergent]. We didn’t expect the leader of Erudite to start hunting them down”

“Not that this seemed like a good reason to shut down or alter the experiment. Our test subjects dying and reducing the gene pool was totes awesome for our experiment to introduce change to the human genome! Hahaha… we’re such great scientists. We don’t even have a control group.”

“We don’t, after all, truly need your help. We just need your healed genes to remain intact and to be passed on to future generations.”

“So now if you’ll kindly keep inbreeding or fuck some randos so we can get a lot more of you, that’d be swell.”

Which is how we always knew this book would end.

Eventually, some of the people learning that the outside world literally considers them to be worthless, genetically damaged people get kind of upset.

“So what you’re saying is that if we’re not Divergent, we’re damaged,” Caleb says. His voice is shaking. […] “Because my ancestors were altered to be smart, I, their descendant, can’t be fully compassionate.” […]
“Well,” says David, lifting a shoulder. “Think about it.”

So can we weigh in on whether David is “genetically damaged”, or…

With the infodump over, David leads the group to temporary sleeping quarters. Tris wonders if the reason for Caleb’s betrayal is because of his damaged genes, as though genes aren’t always the answer to everything in Divergent. She also ruminates on how her entire life has been observed by people running an experiment, which gets impressively dark, for a story that just threw “murder genes” at us.

Watching, when Peter attacked me. When my faction was put under a simulation and turned into an army. When my parents died.
What else have they seen?

Tris decides she needs some answers about how these people at the Bureau knew her mother. David continues to explain world-shattering things in the same way an elementary school teacher would teach times tables, which I get is his shtick, but it’s a stupid shtick and it doesn’t make me hate this character in a “good” way.

“She took a trip back to us once,” he says. “Before she settled into motherhood. That’s when we took this.”
“Back to you?” I say. “Was she one of you?”
“Yes,” David says simply, like it’s not a word that changes my entire world. “She came from this place. We sent her into the city when she was young to resolve a problem in the experiment.”
“So she knew,” I say, and my voice shakes, but I don’t know why. “She knew about this place, and what was outside the fence.”
David looks puzzled, his bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Well, of course.”

Tris is kind of awesome for a moment here:

“She knew you were watching us at every moment . . . watching as she died and my father died and everyone started killing each other! And did you send in someone to help her, to help me? No! No, all you did was take notes.”
“Tris . . .” He tries to reach for me, and I push his hand away.
“Don’t call me that. You shouldn’t know that name. You shouldn’t know anything about us.”

Tris has a few conversations with the others to see how they’re coping. So if you’ve wanted to read a handful of teenagers contemplate their existential crises…

This is your chapter.

Cara shakes her head. “It’s the only thing I am. Erudite. And now they’ve told me that’s the result of some kind of flaw in my genetics . . . and that the factions themselves are just a mental prison to keep us under control. Just like Evelyn Johnson and the factionless said.” She pauses. “So why form the Allegiant? Why bother to come out here?”

[Ariel says: Wait, though, Cara has proven to be brave and compassionate. So wouldn’t that go against this whole ‘but I’m just Erudite and vain’ bullshit?]

If there’s anything funny to be found here, it’s that I had those last two questions since this book started. It gets Tris thinking, though.

Now I’m wondering if I need it anymore, if we ever really need these words, “Dauntless,” “Erudite,” “Divergent,” “Allegiant,”

God, Divergent is the longest after school special ever.

Because this chapter won’t end already, Tris goes to talk with Tobias.

“Right now I’m just thinking about how meaningless it all was. The faction system, I mean.”

It’s not just you, Tobias.

Tris makes a weirdly good point about how the factions being set up by the Bureua isn’t all that different from how they grew up thinking that the factions were set up by… some people.

Now, I know that I shit on Divergent a lot for fable-esque social constructs that are somehow both oversimplified and overdetermind, but the chapters ends on a surprisingly relatable note about a social construct that, in comparison, actually makes sense.

I take his hand, slipping my fingers between his. He touches his forehead to mine. I catch myself thinking, Thank God for this, out of habit, and then I understand what he’s so concerned about. What if my parents’ God, their whole belief system, is just something concocted by a bunch of scientists to keep us under control? [Does it] have to change because we know how our world was made?
I don’t know.

It also ends on a cute note where Tris and Tobias push their cots close together and fall asleep holding hands and looking into each others’ eyes. You know, if you’re reading Allegiant for that part, and not the “what wacky pseudoscience bullshit is this entire story dependent on today?” part.

So, wait, maybe this is plausible…

Question of the Day: So how do you feel about the Faction system now? I’ve seen a surprising number of comments on the blog from actual Divergent fans explaining the whole series to me (for some reason), explaining how it totally all makes sense once you read the whole thing. And I do, seriously, like how the book finally expressed awareness that it was conflating genetics and personal choices with this whole nature + nurture explanation of the Faction system. It almost seems like it turned a serious weakness into a strength, in the end!

Except then you have literally everything else we learned this chapter, which include murder genes, purity wars, and the government creating a program to increase the genetic likelihood of compassion. Not to mention how every time we learn more about the Chicago experiment, it becomes a stupider and stupider designed scientific experiment. Having a population breed within itself for generations to reduce the expression of traits currently within said population? My inner bio major is crying right now.

So what are your thoughts?

Captivated by You Chapter 5: Gideon

The chapter opens with Gideon meeting with Sam Yimara who was the man responsible for filming the Brett/Eva sex tape. They’re at the one and only place that inspired sixth-ninths indisputably amazing name – Pete’s 69th Street Bar!

Pete’s 69th Street Bar wasn’t located on Sixty-ninth Street, so I had no idea where the name originated.

It’s so reassuring to know a meaningless name produced another meaningless name, like the circle of life for idiots.

I also understood that the restrooms in the back had provided a place for Brett Kline to screw my wife.

So of course the place must burn! No, seriously, Gideon really does plan on demolishing it. I somehow feel like the “plot” of this book is going to be Gideon finding out every place Eva’s ever had sex with another man and making sure said place is subsequently burned to the ground. Although, to be fair, Gideon’s reasons for wanting to demolish Pete’s 69th Street Bar are complex:

I wanted to lay my fists into him for that. She deserved palaces and private islands, not seedy bar bathroom stalls.

Oh, I see, so Gideon is only going to destroy the places Eva’s had sex that he doesn’t approve of. Not really considering that Eva, who is a bit of an exhibitionist, probably was all for having sex in the bar’s bathroom, and quite frankly that’s her prerogative.

Gideon tells Yimara that either he can accept Gideon’s buy-out or be destroyed. It’s exactly what you’d expect to happen, but Yimara throws one wrench into the whole thing in that he’s given Brett a copy of the sex tape and now he’s given the other to Gideon. I feel so sorry for Eva that one of her most private moments is in the hands of these two scum bags now.

Eva didn’t want me to view the footage; she’d made me promise I wouldn’t.

But she was feeling something for Kline. He remained a very real threat. Seeing them together, intimately, might give me the information I needed to fight him off.

What kind of information Gideon thinks he’ll find is unclear, “Maybe, just maybe, if I could observe Brett’s thrusts, the shape of his ass, and find out the size of his penis, I would know exactly how to keep him out of Eva’s life forever.”

Had she been as sexually raw with him as she was with me? Had she been as desperate and greedy for him? Could he make her come like I could?

Still not seeing how this is going to help Gideon gain an upper hand which he already has, but thanks for sharing, Gideon.

Later, Gideon and Eva text a bit and it’s every bit as dumb as you’d expect, but still better than the texting in House of Night and Beautiful/Walking Disaster/Oblivion. 

Is it silly that I’m nearly as excited to be your “friend” as I am to be your wife?

I laughed inwardly as I read Eva’s text and replied. I’m as excited to be your lover as I am to be your husband.

OMG … fiend.

That had me laughing aloud.

We were thisclose to seeing Gideon use the phrase “LOL.” Also, he has an awful sense of humor.

Eva and Gideon update their relationship status to “engaged”. I bet it got two likes (from Eva and Gideon).

Gideon goes to meet with Brett (backstage at one of his shows) because he can’t stand the thought of Brett watching his and Eva’s sex tape again. I guess Gideon just assumes Brett sits around with the video on loop and has nothing better to do than watch it over and over again.

I weaved through the pandemonium, searching for a distinctive head of frosted spikes.

An achingly familiar blonde stumbled out of an open doorway several feet away, her hair falling around her shoulders and drawing attention to the lush curves of a great ass.

What follows is an incredibly bizarre sequence of events. First, Gideon starts to have a rage blackout as he observes this “achingly familiar blonde” hook up with Brett.

No one who saw them together could mistake that they were lovers.

Rage fired my blood. A sick darkness radiated through me.

Pain. Searing and soul deep. It took my breath and every ounce of control.

Immediately following this previous line, Gideon is accosted by two women who have no sense of personal boundaries.

A woman’s arm draped over my shoulder. Her hand slid beneath the neck of my T-shirt to touch my chest, while her other wrapped around my hip to stroke my dick. Cloying perfume assaulted my nose, spurring me to shrug her off violently even as a model-thin brunette with heavily made-up blue eyes tried to sandwich me from the front.

Where the fuck did these two women come from? Is their MO to just sandwich random men into submission? I get that Gideon is supposed to be super hot, but surely that doesn’t cause women to lose their sense of basic manners.

“Back off!” I growled, glaring at both in a way that had them stumbling back and calling me an asshole.

In another time, I would’ve fucked them both, turning the feel of being hunted into one of complete control.

I’d learned how to handle sexual predators after Hugh. How to put them in their place.

This seems like the most inopportune time to explore Gideon’s past traumas and how it used to affect his sex life. But let’s focus on the matter at hand, ARE BRETT AND EVA HOOKING UP? Or can Gideon not just tell his wife apart from another woman?

Kline bent over her, speaking close to her ear. My hands clenched. She threw her head back and laughed, and I stumbled to a halt. Startled and confused. Despite the volume of noise, the sound struck me as wrong.

It wasn’t Eva’s laugh.

It was too high. My wife’s laugh was low and throaty. Sexy. As unique as the woman it belonged to.”

[…]

My mind caught up with reality. The girl was the one from the “Golden” music video. The Eva stand-in.

The real Eva shows up soon after (at least, Gideon claims it’s the real Eva, but he’s lost all credibility at this point.)

I sensed her before I saw her, felt the frisson of recognition. Turning my head, I found her easily. Unlike her imitator, who wore a small tight dress, Eva was dressed in jeans that hugged every curve and a simple gray tank top. She wore heeled sandals and hoop earrings, casual and relaxed.

Hunger hit me with brutal force. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen and easily the sexiest woman alive.

Except he couldn’t tell the sexiest woman alive apart from another woman with blonde hair thirty seconds ago. Gideon doesn’t stick around to see what Eva says to Brett, but he does see her “extending her left hand to him. My ring on her finger sparkled brilliantly, impossible to miss.”

Abruptly, the scene cuts away to Gideon on his “eightieth pushup”, which is a crucial detail. He’s feeling pent up because he didn’t handle the situations with Yimara and Brett with violence.

He starts thinking about Eva out clubbing with her California friends, and he immediately gets hard. This is Gideon after all, so no surprises there.

I knew how primed she got when out drinking and dancing. I loved nailing her when her body was damp and steamy with perspiration, her cunt slick and greedy.

Jesus. My dick throbbed and hardened further. My arms trembled as I neared the point of muscle fatigue. Veins stood out in harsh relief along my forearms and hands. I needed a cold shower, but I wouldn’t get myself off. I always saved it for Eva. Every thick, creamy drop.

Again, I’m not surprised. Just disappointed. I also think this definitively proves Gideon is a complete psycho, because there is not a bone in my body that believes any sane man would think those words.

Gideon gets a message from Eva asking what hotel room he’s in – so the jig is up! Eva knows Gideon’s in California. He quickly orders some room service, which makes this next scene really awkward:

I went to the door and opened it, finding both Eva and room service waiting. Dressed as I’d seen her earlier, Eva looked like a bad girl, renewing my hard-on in an instant.

[…]

If the server hadn’t been standing behind her, I would’ve had her on her back on the foyer tile before she knew what hit her.

“Holy fuck,” she breathed, eyeing me from head to toe.

I glanced down. I was still overheated, my skin shiny with sweat. The waistband of my sweats was wet with it, drawing attention to the erection I didn’t even try to will away. “Sorry, you caught me midworkout.”

I feel terrible for whoever was working room service that night at the hotel. They’re the unsung hero of this series, really.

Room service leaves (in the most relieved fashion, I’m sure), and things get heated.

“Angel.” I cupped her ass. “Tell me you want it exactly the way I want to give it to you.”

She looked up at me with heavy-lidded eyes. “And how would that be?”

“Here. On the floor. Your jeans caught around one ankle, your shirt pushed up, your underwear shoved to the side. I want my cock inside you, my cum filling you.”

Why is Gideon so obsessed with his own cum? I get the feeling Day has never actually encountered jizz, because the way Gideon and Eva talk about Gideon’s cum is akin to the way I describe a Ferrero Rocher. And there is just no way the two are comparable.

This post wouldn’t be complete without one hideously misogynistic comment about Eva and Gideon’s marriage.

She was my wife. My most valuable possession; I treasured her. But I loved her slutty and dirty, too. A sexual object for my pleasure.

The important thing to note here is that no matter how Gideon is thinking about Eva, she’s always an object. This isn’t even open for interpretation here, I’m not making any assumptions based on Gideon’s behaviour. He is fucking saying these words exactly. 

“Take me,” I hissed through clenched teeth, fighting the need to come before she took all of my cock. “Let me in.”

Her cunt rippled, sucking at me.

I’m so nauseated but also desperately trying to understand what this means. How does a cunt ripple? Is Eva’s vagina a gentler, more benevolent version of the vagina from Teeth? 

In the bathtub later, after Eva’s greedy, suckling cunt has apparently been satisfied, Eva starts talking to Gideon about how Brett is sleeping with the girl who played her in the Golden music video.

“Brett’s sleeping with that girl from the ‘Golden’ video. The one who looks like me.”

“No one looks like you.”

Except for how you fucking mistook her for Eva a few hours ago.

“She may have your curves,” I conceded, “but she doesn’t sound like you. She doesn’t have your sense of humor, your wit. She doesn’t have your heart.”

This poor woman. I bet she volunteers with abandoned (plot) puppies or something equally wonderful.

Eva tells Gideon that her dad really wants to pay for their wedding because pride. Eva jokes that her mother “can blow through fifty thousand dollars in just flowers and invitations” so she’s going to be disappointed that the wedding isn’t going to be worth millions. How fucking disgusting. No flowers and invitations have any business costing that much unless a unicorn pooped out the material.

Arash shows up the next day to meet and ogle Eva. Really, that’s all there is to his scene and the end of the chapter.

My question is, what the fuck is going on with Eva’s vagina.

Hopefully you remember who Megumi is.

Captivated By You: Chapter 6

At lunch with her father, husband, and best friend (aw!), Eva talks about wedding plans.

“I’m going to ask Ireland to be a bridesmaid.”
“She’ll like that.”
“What do we do about Christopher?”
“Nothing. With luck, he won’t come.”
My dad frowned. “Who are we talking about?”

Eva’s dad, suddenly the most relatable character in this story. These characters even have the benefit of coming in before the storm of minor characters, and I still barely remember why they’re important.

There’s a weird power struggle as Eva and Gideon try to explain why they don’t much care for Christopher, which is always a good sign at the start of a marriage to someone you’ve known for a few months.

I explained, not wanting my dad to hold anythingagainst my husband.
“Christopher’s not a nice guy.” Gideon’s head turned toward me. He didn’t say it aloud, but I got the message: He didn’t want me speaking for him.

I could just slap this picture in between excerpts of dialogue, and it’d probably make my point as effectively as any post I actually write.

While Eva’s dad is paying for the wedding, Gideon asks if he can pay for transportation. Eva’s dad agrees that this is a reasonable request. Gideon then throws in a private jet to fly Eva’s dad across the country at a moment’s notice. Not making this up, this actually escalated just like that. Yes, it is about as weird as you might think.

“It’s a bit extravagant, and I don’t want to be a burden.”
Gideon pulled his shades off, baring his eyes. “That’s what money’s for.”

Or for eating food. I know a lot of money who use money in order to eat food.

Although seriously, let’s really consider this scene. We have Eva’s dad, talking with his daughter’s fiance, who is a man in his twenties, pulling off his sunglasses to explain to him what money is for. This isn’t a charming rogue; this is an entitled little shit.

Although this is a bad example of an entitled little shit because OH MY GOD 80s JAMES SPADER

We skip ahead a day, and we get this gem I can’t even say anything about:

Whoever said Mondays sucked had obviously never woken up to a naked Gideon Cross.

Later that day (look, when you have a line like that last one, does it even matter what’s in the rest of the scene), Eva gets back to work and – surprise – Megumi is back! If you’re like Eva’s dad and you’re struggling to remember who all the characters are in this book, Megumi mysteriously disappeared around the end of the last book, and she’s been “out sick” all this book so far. Here is Captivated By You selling a character who has been in mysterious, maybe sickly straits:

She was pale and had dark circles under her eyes. Her usually sassy asymmetrical haircut looked limp and overlong, and she was wearing a long-sleeved blouse and dark slacks that were out of place with the August mugginess.

She’s not dressed appropriately for the season? YUP. SOMETHING SUPER SKETCHY MUST BE UP.

THIS CAN ONLY MEAN SOMETHING LIFE-CHANGING

As though Sylvia Day gave just as many shits about this subplot as we do, the book only bothers having Megumi affirm that she was sick and didn’t feel like talking to anyone before she suddenly bursts into tears and leaves the scene.

She started crying. Horrified, I stood frozen for a minute.
“Megumi. What’s wrong?”
She pulled off her headset and stood, tears spilling down her face. She shook her head violently.
“I can’t talk about it now.”
“When is your break?”
But she was already hurrying to the bathroom

Eva briefly does her job for a page (her boss brings her a new project: they’re running the ad campaign for LanCorp’s new PhazeOne gaming system. OMG that’s the people Gideon was shitting on during his videoconference! AND NOW THEY’RE WITH HIS CORPORATE RIVALS. OMG. GUYS DO YOU THINK GIDEON IS GOING TO LOSE EVERYTHING? I REALLY BET HE REALLY IS REALLY OMG) before she tries to ask Gideon for a favor so she can help Megumi.

Which reminds me that her last favor she asked Gideon for was to try to get in touch with the missing Megumi, and Megumi just popped up again of her own accord, so why did we bother with that whole thing with meeting Gideon’s private investigator?

This new favor actually does come to fruition, but not before Eva and Gideon’s contractually-obligated one of 2-7 fights per chapter. Eva calls Gideon’s assistant asking to be connected whenever Gideon has a free moment, but she gets connected to him in the middle of a meeting! She apologizes and hangs up, but then Gideon… Gideons:

the secondary line flashed with an incoming call. I switched over. “Mark Garrity’s office—”
“Don’t ever hang up on me,” Gideon snapped.
I bristled at his tone. “Are you in a meeting or not?”
“I was. Now I’m dealing with you.”
Hell if anyone was going to “deal” with me. I could be as pissy as him any day of the week.
“You know, I asked Scott to give you a message when you had time for it and he patched me through. He shouldn’t have done that, if you were busy with—”
“He has standing orders to always connect your calls”

Meanwhile, Scott is presumably off to the side, all, “I just work here…”

“Well, excuse me for not knowing the etiquette for getting in touch with you!”
“Never mind that now. Say what you need.”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
He exhaled roughly. “Don’t play games with me, angel.”

It’s the sex one. Obviously. That poll could have been “What color is a banana?” and you would have been more likely to answer it wrong.

When the fighting finally stops because the conversation turned to sex (and the sun rises in the east…), Gideon arranges to have Eva use his office to have a quiet, private lunch and talk with Megumi about what’s wrong.

On their way to his office, something insignificant happens with such a weird level of detail that I can only assume it’s 1) insanely subtle foreshadowing of… something, or 2) Sylvia Day really struggling to meet the page count.

The redhead I was used to seeing at the reception desk must have been out to lunch, because a guy with dark hair let us in. He stood when we approached.
“Good afternoon, Miss Tramell. Scott said you should just go right in.”
“Has Mr. Cross left?”
“I’m not sure. I just took over here.”

How would his having just started this job affect whether he knows this or not? This would be like telling someone you don’t know where the nearest subway station is because you only just woke up about an hour ago.

Megumi meets Gideon for the first time, and he leaves the two of them alone. And then we have… the greatest/worst transition of all time:

[Megumi] took in the sprawling space with its panoramic views and monochromatic color scheme […] There were so many sides to the man I’d married. His office reflected only one. The classically European style of his penthouse reflected another.
“Have you ever experimented with BDSM?” Megumi asked

This is a good gif, I don’t care if I used it last week.

“Did you like it? Did it turn you on?”
“No.” I walked over to the nearest couch and sat. “But I wasn’t with the right person.”
“Were you scared?”
“Terrified. […] Why are you asking me these questions, Megumi?”
She answered by rolling up her sleeve, exposing a wrist so bruised it was nearly black.

In the last chapter Crossfire finally became a parody of itself (Seriously, “I wouldn’t get myself off. I always saved it for Eva. Every thick, creamy drop.” is a real thing that was written in this real book. There is no way that was written with a straight face, like Day typed it up, sat back to look it over, and nodded, thinking, “Yup, I have captured some true love here.”). But now it’s a parody of a parody of itself.

Really, though. Crossfire has finally brought up BDSM, the calling card of the Fifty Shades series it’s so fervently imitating it’s peeking over to see what answers its writing down on the quiz in their history class, but in a serious and negative kind of way. This is like a non-Euclidean rabbit hole of imitation and reference.

Obviously I don’t have a gif for “non-Euclidean rabbit hole of imitation and reference”, so here’s a dog playing in a waterpark.

Question of the Day! What do you think happened to Megumi? What do you think is even happening in this book?

Allegiant Chapter 16: Fourbias

Fourbias wakes up in the middle of the night, and wanders into the Atrium. There, he runs into old not-dead mentor Amar.

“You’re not nearly as vigilant as you used to be,” Amar says from behind me. “Followed you all the way here from the hotel lobby.”

“What do you want?” I tap the tank with my knuckles, sending ripples through the water.

“I thought you might like an explanation for why I’m not dead,” he says.

“I thought about it,” I say. “They never let us see your body. It wouldn’t be that hard to fake a death if you never show the body.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.” Amar claps his hands together. “Well, I’ll just go, then, if you’re not curious. . . .”

For a minute there, I really did think we were going to get away with that basically being the end of it. “You faked your death. Cool story, bro.” [Matthew says: Me too! Ariel and I are so desperate for this story to end already, we’re willing to take Teeanger Sarcasm at face value. Either that or we’ve gotten way older than we want to admit.]

Amar runs a hand over his black hair, tying it back with a rubber band. “They faked my death because I was Divergent, and Jeanine had started killing the Divergent. They tried to save as many as they could before she got to them, but it was tricky, you know, because she was always a step ahead.

First you go and put your hair in a man-tail, then you waste my time by giving me some basic ass information that any moron could have guessed. I do not like you, Amar.

Fourbias reasonably asks if maybe some other people we actually think are dead really aren’t, like Tris’ mom.

Amar shakes his head. “No, Natalie Prior is actually dead, unfortunately. [Matthew says: Why is this supposed to be so startling to everyone? We SAW her get shot.] She was the one who helped me get out. She also helped this other guy too . . . George Wu. Know him? He’s on a patrol right now, or he would have come with me to get you. His sister is still inside the city.”

Fourbias realizes that George is Tori’s brother, the one she told Tris had been murdered all the way back in the first book. But Tori is dead. I can’t muster up any energy to feel bad about this given I had no emotional attachment whatsoever to Tori. Like, I can appreciate this is a sad fact and their reunion would have been nice for them and all without the book spelling it out for me. [Matthew says: Naturally, this is Divergent‘s cue to spell it out for us.]

I can’t imagine it. There were just a few hours between Tori’s death and our arrival. On a normal day, a few hours can contain long stretches of watch-checking, of empty time. But yesterday, just a few hours placed an impenetrable barrier between Tori and her brother.

[…]

Both of us are quiet for a while. George will never get to reunite with his sister, and she died thinking he had been murdered by Jeanine. There isn’t anything to say- at least, not anything that’s worth saying. [That just about sums up the entire series, really]

This feels a lot like when I try to get my fiance excited that new episodes of Scandal are on by just repeatedly emphasising how excited I am no matter how long he just stares at me blankly.

Amar explains that the woman who told everyone she’d found his dead body had her memory altered by, you guessed it, a serum! Basically fuck science, magic instead.

Fourbias reminds me of something I probably should have made fun of on my own – this is the second time he’s been tricked into grieving someone’s death when they were actually still alive, and he’s pretty fucking annoyed about it. This is a pretty reasonable thing to get fed up with. If one person you love faked their death and then surprised you by being alive, yay, but by the second time it’s like, “Can we all just fucking knock this shit off?”

But as I look at him, my anger ebbs away, like the changing of the tide. And standing in the place of my anger is my initiation instructor and friend, alive again.

I grin.

“So you’re alive,” I say.

“More importantly,” he says, pointing at me, “you are no longer upset about it.”

With that resolved, it’s time to talk about more serious matters like whether or not Fourbias will stay at the airport with Amar and friends.

“There’s nowhere better out there,” he says. [Matthew says: CHICAGO JOKE: This is the only time in history someone has said this about O’Hare.] “All the other cities—that’s where most of the country lives, in these big metropolitan areas, like our city—are dirty and dangerous, unless you know the right people. Here at least there’s clean water and food and safety.”

Amar also tells Fourbias that Evelyn is putting Marcus tomorrow, and they’ll be able to watch it from their monitors. I actually think Fourbias’ feelings are handled pretty well here:

“I knew it was coming—I knew Evelyn would save him for last, would savor every moment she spent watching him squirm under truth serum like he was her last meal. I just didn’t realize that I would be able to see it, if I wanted to. I thought I was finally free of them, all of them, forever.

“Oh,” is all I can say.

I still feel numb and confused when I walk back to the dormitory later and crawl back into bed. I don’t know what I’ll do.

One more thing before I leave you, am I the only one who finds the phrasing that she “would savor every moment she spent watching him squirm under truth serum like he was her last meal.” Shouldn’t it be, “Like it was her last meal” as in she’s savoring the moment of tormenting Marcus the same way she’d enjoy a meal…not that Marcus is the meal?

Allegiant Chapter 17: Tris

After Tobias’s nighttime adventures in the last chapter, Tris wakes up as some of the Bureau employees are finishing their night shift, and has an adventure of her own to, like most things in Divergent, a metaphor that only sort of makes any sense.

[The sculpture] is a huge slab of dark stone, square and rough, like the rocks at the bottom of the chasm. A large crack runs through the middle of it, and there are streaks of lighter rock near the edges. Suspended above the slab is a glass tank of the same dimensions, full of water. […] another drop falls, then a third, and a fourth, at the same interval. A few drops collect, and then disappear down a narrow channel in the stone. They must be intentional.

So there’s a not-quite-mainstream (English major mainstream, anyway – it’s where the cool kids hang out) concept known as an “overdetermined signifier”, where something isn’t quite able to convey everything it’s intended to, whether it’s trying to represent multiple unrelated concepts simultaneously, or trying to be symbolism while also explaining the meaning that symbol is supposed to be symbolic for. In other words, it’s basically English Major for “trying too hard”.

Why am I bringing all of this up? Well…

“It’s the symbol of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare,” [Zoe] says. “The slab of stone is the problem we’re facing. The tank of water is our potential for changing that problem. And the drop of water is what we’re actually able to do, at any given time.”

Do keep in mind that “the problem we’re facing” is evolution, and “what we’re actually able to do” is eugenics. That is the point in Divergent we have hit. Humanity has fucked itself over with mass-scale eugenics, and is trying to fix the problem with more eugenics.

Tris’s reaction to this is, as always, precious. Or at least it would be, if the reader weren’t supposed to be taking her seriously.

I can’t help it— I laugh. “Not very encouraging, is it? […] Wouldn’t it be more effective to unleash the whole tank at once?”

The whole tank of… metaphorical genetic change over time???

Zoe explains why Tris’s vague suggestion doesn’t make sense (because that is not how genetics work), but this is Divergent, where METAPHOR IS KING:

“genetic damage isn’t the kind of problem that can be solved with one big charge.”
“I understand that,” I say. “I’m just wondering if it’s a good thing to resign yourself quite this much to small steps when you could take some big ones.”
“Like what?”
I shrug. “I guess I don’t really know.”

Like not knowing a concept has ever stopped this book from trying to be a big metaphor/statement about that concept.

It’s right there on the cover! Of the first book! YOU DON’T CHOOSE YOUR GENES.

Sigh. The book quickly stops trying to be deep about itself to move along. Zoe has Tris’s mom’s teenage-ish journals and wants to give them to her, and also has a favor to ask of her. Zoe takes Tris to a research lab she works in, and Tris continues to experience a not-stupid society for the first time:

“Do the colors of the uniforms mean anything?” I ask Zoe.
“Yes, actually. Dark blue means scientist or researcher, and green means support staff— they do maintenance, upkeep, things like that.”
“So they’re like the factionless.”
“No,” she says. “No, the dynamic is different here— everyone does what they can to support the mission. Everyone is valued and important.”

Until Tris learns about capitalism and then learns that they’re not.

Because Divergent just won’t quit while it’s ahead (or at least “way way behind but seriously please just stop“), Zoe explains more about the science behind the genetic manipulation city experiments.

Astute readers might remember I’ve been critical of this aspect of the series.

“After a few generations, when your city didn’t tear itself apart and the others did, the Bureau implemented the faction components in the newer cities— Saint Louis, Detroit, and Minneapolis— using the relatively new Indianapolis experiment as a control group.”

Oh, hey, wait! That was actually something I criticized as a throwaway joke last week! I guess they do have an actual control group (in other words, biology major for “the one we do literally nothing to so we have a point of reference for the test subjects we are doing stuff to”) for this experiment! Guess I should rescind that criticism n-

“So in Indianapolis you just… corrected their genes and shoved them in a city somewhere?” […]
“Yes, that’s essentially what happened.”

HAHA NEVERMIND THAT’S NOT EVEN REMOTELY WHAT A CONTROL GROUP IS.

The one thing you had to do was NOT do something to it. How do you fuck that up.

 “Genetically damaged people who have been conditioned by suffering and are not taught to live differently, as the factions would have taught them to, are very destructive.”

Hey, you know what probably isn’t helping them with that whole conditioned to be destructive thing? Calling them fucking “genetically damaged” all the time.

They finally get to the lab so they can stop trying to talk about science (ironically!), but this gets immediately ruined anyway.

“Sit. I’ll give you a [tablet] with all Natalie’s files on it so that you and your brother can read them yourselves, but while they’re loading I might as well tell you the story.”

Aren’t these basically text files? Your phone today can download a Word doc in like twenty seconds. How does this process take longer in Divergent‘s future of disposable brain-interfacing microcomputers injected into the bloodstream?

Zoe’s lab partner – who is named Matthew, because that’s just karma for you – explains that Zoe’s mother was “a fantastic discovery” from “inside the damaged world” whose “genes were nearly perfect”, because literally nothing that has happened in this story’s narrative has any meaning.

Not pictured: Meh, The People We Found Sitting Around Outside

Matthew (not me) explains that Tris’s mother was brought to the Bureau, then volunteered to go into the Chicago experiment to resolve a crisis (ok, I guess I did just explain all that…)

“What crisis?”
“The Erudite representative had just begun to kill the Divergent, of course,”

I don’t even have a snarky joke. That’s exactly the level of laziness I’ve come to expect from this series.

Ever since then, Tris’s mom stayed in the experiment to extract the Divergent from the experiment before the other test subjects murdered them. After story time, Matthew (still not me) also asks Tris if she and Tobias would mind having their genes tested.

“Why?”
“Curiosity.” He shrugs. “We haven’t gotten to test the genes of someone in such a late generation of the experiment before, and you and Tobias seem to be somewhat . . . odd, in your manifestations of certain things.”

Even among the specials, Tris is still special. What a fun message.

“You, for example, have displayed extraordinary serum resistance— most of the Divergent aren’t as capable of resisting serums as you are,” Matthew says. “And Tobias can resist simulations, but he doesn’t display some of the characteristics we’ve come to expect of the Divergent.”

Question of the Day: What do you think this will mean for Tobias/Four, and will he have to change his name again?

I don’t often post about my personal life on here because this isn’t about me, it’s about the bad books, but I’m really excited to announce I’m getting married on April 27th! Matt and I haven’t ironed out the details yet, but this means I’ll probably be taking some time off that week to chill with my husband-to-be and my family who are flying in for the ceremony.

The part I’m most excited about, though, is that my fiance and I are on the same page when it comes to what’s most important to us. Hiring a lawyer and paying for my upcoming visa fees were super high priority (and an awesome honeymoon), which made all the other stuff seem pretty insignificant in comparison. Now, I can totally understand why this stuff is important and awesome to a lot of people, so please don’t take offence that I personally would never want to spend a pretty penny on an engagement ring/wedding/dress/wedding rings/invitations/decorations.

Engagement ring: £10 from Accessorise (I was promised an onion ring 3 years ago, and we did eat some the other night, so I guess that counts?)

Wedding dress: £7.99

Ceremony: ~£200 (I can’t remember exactly, but it’s around that.)

Wedding rings: ~£35-70

That’s my version of a dream wedding.

Captivated by You Chapter 7: Gideon

Gideon heads over to Eva and Cary’s apartment and finds a distraught Eva. She tells Gideon about Megumi’s situation, and Giedeon somehow makes it about himself.

The mention of bondage put me on alert. I ran my hand down her back and tucked her tighter against me. I was nothing if not patient in aligning my desires with her fears. Setbacks were expected and accommodated, but I didn’t want someone else’s misadventures to create new hurdles for Eva and me to face.

What in fuck’s name is he on about? Why on Earth would Megumi’s completely unrelated situation create new hurdles for Eva and Gideon? I know that these two are always on the lookout for new hurdles to overcome no matter how un-hurdley they are, but this is a huge reach. Gideon and Eva have played around with BDSM a couple times, but I can’t remember Gideon’s desires not aligning with Eva’s. [Matthew says: BDSM-wise, anyway. Most of these guys’ desires do not align, when you think about it.]

Eva explains Megumi’s situation to Gideon, and he proceeds to both completely miss the point and be a misogynistic piece of shit the way only Gideon can.

“That’s the thing.” She pulled away and faced me. “I went over it with Megumi. She said no—a lot—until he gagged her. He got off on her pain, Gideon. And now he’s terrorizing her with texts and photos he took of her that night. She’s asked him to stop, but he won’t. He’s sick. Something’s wrong with him.”

I weighed how best to respond. I went with blunt. “Eva. She broke it off, and then took him back. He might not realize she’s serious this time.”

Let me try to follow Gideon’s seriously flawed logic. Megumi stops seeing a guy, gives him another chance, decides to try BDSM with him, is pushed to limits she’s uncomfortable with and clearly tells the guy no until she physically can’t anymore, but it’s her fault because maybe mixed signals?? “Megumi, you said no once and changed your mind, so I can only assume every ‘no’ out of your mouth is unclear at best.” [Matthew says: I hate to say this, but I see what Gideon’s point is about why this guy might be still causing trouble. I don’t see how it’s relevant at this exact moment in time, since that’s not really what this conversation is about, but a broken male ego clock is right twice a day. Just not right now, because why the fuck would you say that NOW? And what is HE angry at EVA about?]

“Don’t make excuses for him! She’s bruised everywhere. It’s been a week and the bruises are still dark. She couldn’t sit down for days!”

“I’m not excusing him.” I stood with her. “I would never justify an abuser—you know that. I don’t have the whole story, but I know your story. Her situation isn’t like yours. Nathan was an aberration.”

What does this have to do with Nathan or Eva’s situation? This is a situation where it’s very clear that something bad and traumatic has happened to a friend of Eva’s. If Gideon is tying to imply that Eva can’t make that distinction because of her own traumatic past, he’s way out of line. I don’t think Eva is more prone to misjudge a situation as being harmful, rather she’s in a situation where she can probably recognize it better than anyone else, and quite frankly I’m surprised Gideon is acting this way.

Eva and Gideon then get into an argument because Gideon wants Eva to stay out of it, and when Eva tells him she’s asked Clancy (who works for her mother and stepfather) to look into the situation, Gideon gets pissed that she didn’t ask his guy Raul.

He also presents a somewhat convoluted argument that by asking someone who works for her stepfather to help her out, she’s just asking her mother to invade her privacy more. And also this:

“You sent a trained professional to ‘talk’ to this guy. But you didn’t fully assess the possibility of blowback. If you’d tapped Raúl to help you, he would’ve known to be extra vigilant.” My jaw clenched. “Damn it, Eva. Don’t make it hard for me to keep you safe!”

WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS GARBLED NONSENSE MEAN?

Gideon goes on for awhile about how he’s obsessed with Eva and protecting her, but he’s still not as important to her as he wants to be.

“You come home to another guy. You make your living by working for someone else. I’m not as necessary to you as I’d like to be.”

I can excuse the fact that he wishes Eva came home only to him, sure, but the working thing? It’s not uncommon for people to earn a living by working for someone that is not their husband. In fact, some would venture so far as to say that’s normal! [Matthew says: Some would venture so far as to say that that’s more or less how the entire modern consumerism-driven economy has worked for the last few centuries?]

Following this is two very brief scenes – the first has Eva comforting Gideon after a nightmare he can’t remember, and the second is them having “animalistic” sex before work. This leads to a really weird conversation on the way to work:

“Paparazzi,” she said grimly.

I followed her gaze and spotted the photographer aiming a camera out of the open passenger window of his car. Gripping her by the elbow, I led her into the building.

“If I have to start actually styling my hair every day,” she muttered, “you’re dealing with morning wood on your own.”

“Angel,” I tugged her into my side and whispered, “I’d hire a full-time hairdresser for you before I gave up your cunt every morning.”

Words you never thought you’d hear out of anyone’s mouth. And hiring the hairdresser wouldn’t exactly solve the issue of the time to style Eva’s hair…unless the hairdresser is meant to be doing Eva’s hair during the fucking.

She elbowed me in the ribs. “God, you’re crude, you know that? Some women take offense to that word.”

We are only just addressing Gideon’s pathologic use of the word ‘cunt’ now? Too little, too late, book. [Matthew says: How did it take FOUR ENTIRE BOOKS to address this?]

As Gideon approaches his office, this gross out moment happens:

“My stride slowed when I saw the willowy brunette waiting by Scott’s desk.
I steeled myself to deal with my mother again.

Then her head turned and I saw it was Corinne.”

Is Gideon unable to tell who literally anyone is from behind? Also, this is way more disgusting than when he thought that Eva’s doppleganger was her – he’s mistaking his fucking ex-fiance for his mother. DAT NASTY.

It only gets grosser as he sits down to talk with Corinne.

She looked at me. Her eyes weren’t the same shade of blue as my mother’s, but they were close, and their sense of style was similar. Corinne’s elegant blouse and trousers were notably like something I’d once seen my mother wear.

BRB puking guts out.

Anyway, Gideon and Corinne have exactly the conversation you expect them to have where she wants him back, bad-mouths Eva, and Gideon keeps turning her down.

However, Corinne does make one really great point:

“What would you do if Eva said these things to you?” she challenged. “Would you just give up and walk away?”

“It’s not the same.” I raked a hand through my hair, struggling to find the words.

“You don’t understand what I have with Eva. She needs me as much as I need her. For both our sakes, I wouldn’t ever give up trying.”

“I need you, Gideon.”

Gideon has told us and Eva numerous times that if she ever tried to leave him, he’d never stop trying to win her back. Corinne is just doing the same! Why is her obsession less necessary than yours, huh, Gideon? [Matthew says: ‘Cause dicks.]

I do hate Corinne, though, because she keeps basically threatening to attempt suicide again because she has nothing to live for without Gideon. Fuck off, Corinne.

Anyway, Gideon calls Eva after Corinne leaves. He doesn’t tell her about his conversation with Corinne, which is obviously going to lead to an argument later. Ug, Gideon, whyyyy?

Then, because for some reason everyone thinks it’s cool to interrupt a high-powered business man whenever they feel like it, Gideon’s brother Christopher shows up to yell at him for getting engaged to Eva and ruining every chance Six-Ninths has to be successful. If Six-Ninths is relying so heavily on Brett and Eva’s relationship to skyrocket them to success, they are clearly a talentless bunch of numbskulls with no business playing music.

“Do you even comprehend the damage you’ve done? Behind the Music has delayed their special because Sam Yimara no longer owns the rights to the footage he compiled of the band’s early years. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives can’t include Pete’s 69th Street Bar in their San Diego episode, because it’s being demolished before they can film their segment. And Rolling Stone isn’t interested in pursuing their proposed piece on ‘Golden’ since your engagement was announced. The song loses its interest without the happy ending.”

Then it is not a good song to begin with! Why would people give any shits about this happy ending? Aw, she used to give him blowjobs and now she is giving him blowjobs again, a happy ending in all the ways! [Matthew says: Guys. I just realized something. All this time I thought this band’s shitty cock rock song was like Nickelback, but it’s actually “Hey There, Delilah”. Which makes sense here, because do you remember who even played that song once we found out it was written for a girl who didn’t even remember briefly chatting with the guy at a party? MUSIC BIZ FACTS.]

Christopher insults Gideon and Eva a bit and dares to mock their relationship, so they get into a fistfight. Mercifully, before Christopher leaves Gideon points out the obvious to him:

“For Christ’s sake, Christopher, they’re talented. They don’t need a gimmick to be successful. If you weren’t so damned eager to make me pay for something you’ve imagined I’ve done, you’d be concentrating on better angles than making them into a one-hit wonder.”

It’s really hard for me to be on the same side as Gideon for once, but I think in this one case we can put our differences aside.

The chapter ends with Gideon in therapy talking about how hard it is to be in therapy when he wants to be fucking Eva. Classic Gideon!

Chapter 8

This week’s Eva chapter begins with Shawna, a character I have no recollection of, calling Eva to plan a karaoke night.

In my head, I pictured the vibrant redhead who was quickly becoming a friend. In a lot of ways, she was like her brother Steven, who happened to be engaged to my boss.

Wow, it took a lot of modifying clauses before we got to why we’re supposed to know this character. Reading this book is like constantly playing the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game.

Friday was our bringing-the-drew-together night. I tried to imagine Arnoldo or Arash singing karaoke and just the thought made me smile.

See?

Speaking of minor characters with dubiously important subplots, Eva gets her minimum once-per-chapter text from Brett, this time saying, “We need to talk. Call me.” Presumably next chapter the text will be, “We super need to talk,” because this entire subplot is just Brett’s increasing intervals of mild desperation.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t conflicted about him still reaching out

Really? I had no idea, since this has only been brought up once a chapter despite this plot having seemingly been resolved over a book ago.

I used to think facing issues that made me uncomfortable showed strength and responsibility. Now, I realized that sometimes resolution wasn’t the purpose. Sometimes, you just had to take the opportunity to examine yourself better.

Then why are we still spending time on this? Is this series so desperate to keep going that we’re going to retread the same character development over and over again with increasingly nonsensical lessons? Can anyone explain what “resolution wasn’t the purpose” has to do with either of those other two sentences?

Meanwhile, up next on the merry-go-round of underdeveloped stock characters (it is a metaphorical merry-go-round): Tatiana, the mother of Cary’s unborn child!

I wanted to like the woman who said she was carrying my best friend’s baby, but the leggy model didn’t make it easy for me.

It’s weird how many characters this description would apply to if it weren’t for that one part.

Cary tells Eva about how he saw Trey, his… ex? (I don’t even know anymore), for lunch:

“Did you say anything to him about the baby?”
He shook his head. “I thought about it, but I couldn’t do it. I’m such a dick.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself. It’s a rough spot you’re in.”

To be honest, this is kind of actually the only subplot in this book that makes me feel anything close to the emotions it’s trying to. Because this is a complicated situation, and there’s some very human emotions that-

Cary’s eyes closed […] “I was thinking the other day how much easier it’d be if Trey swung both ways. Then we could both be banging Tat and each other, and I could have it all.”

Never mind everything.

Next in the minor character cavalcade (metaphorical cavalcade): Eva’s boss Mark and his fiance Steven! Having an absurdly fancy midday lunch and talking about Eva’s upcoming wedding. Eva shows them her engagement ring.

“Whoa. Mark, darlin’, you have got to get me one of those.”

And we meet another minor character: Sylvia Day’s increasingly phoning-it-in writing.

 The picture in my head of the flame-haired, burly contractor wearing a ring like mine was comical.

It’s that time again!

• The way Hermione cast a spell from her wand was magical.
• Aslan the lion’s roar was lion-like.
• Dr. Jekyll’s transformation into Mr. Hyde was gothic and metaphorical.
• The way Gregor Samsa was transformed into a giant insect was existentially absurd.

Because this is the nature of the book we’re reading by now, the next stop on the minor character line train is… Clancy!

I have no idea and this is getting absurd.

Clancy is the security/private eye/”muscle”-type goon that Eva’s stepfather had on retainer for her. But since Eva’s switching over to Gideon’s security/private eye/”muscle”-type goons, she has no need of his services. It’s like this book’s version of switching from your parents’ AT&T account to Verizon.

Anyway, Eva decides to end that years-long relationship with this text message:

“Gideon wants to have his ppl with me moving forward, so you’re free from now on. :) TY for all your help.”

Here’s hoping that every single one of these minor characters eventually gets written out of the plot with a similarly detached text message. Meanwhile, you can’t turn a page in this novel without running into yet another minor character.

I straightened and faced NYPD detective Shelley Graves.

WHY NOT. BRING ON ALL THE MINOR CHARACTERS. This chapter we’ve got Eva’s boss, Eva’s boss’s fiance, Eva’s boss’s fiance’s sister, Cary’s baby momma, Eva’s stepdad’s security person, and a detective who has literally not had anything to do in this story since we somehow swept aside that time Gideon fucking murdered a dude. WHY NOT. ANYONE ELSE WE CAN BRING INTO THE MIX?

“You know, one of the feds I talked to about Yedemsky also has the last name Clancy.” Her gaze bored into me. “You think they’re any relation?”
The blood drained out of my head at the mention of the Russian mobster whose corpse had been sporting Nathan’s bracelet.

THE RUSSIAN MOB. WHY, OF COURSE! COME JOIN THE PARTY, RUSSIAN MOB.

COME ONE, COME ALL, COME RUSSIAN MOBS

Let’s find out why the Russian mob is also a component of this story! WHY THE FUCK NOT.

I stared at her for a beat, trying to pull my thoughts together. Clancy. Gideon. Nathan. What the hell did it mean? Where was she going with it?
Most of all, why did I feel as if she were helping me? Looking out for me. For Gideon.
What I ended up saying startled me. “I’m looking to support an organization that does good work for abuse survivors.”

Nice segue, Captivated By You.

Eva meets up with Gideon and talks about this whole Russian mob thing that, lest you forget, is actually part of the narrative. Eva has figured out that Clancy and his brother in the FBI planted Nathan’s bracelet on the mobster. Gideon already knew this. They fight. Which is strange, because even with an explanation spelled out for me, this is just like every other instance where I don’t understand what they’re fighting about.

After the fight (do I even need to summarize their fights anymore? Is this even important?), Sylvia Day makes kissing sound absolutely awful:

Gideon’s hand fisted in my ponytail, holding me in place as he took over the kiss, fucking my mouth

The next morning (I have no idea how much time has passed in this chapter. Is this even important either?) Cary and Eva and Gideon talk about their future as roommates. Cary feels like he should stand up, be responsible, and try to make things work out with Tatiana and move in together for the baby, and that Eva and Gideon probably shouldn’t feel forced to have to deal with that in their lives. This rare moment of maturity from Cary is immediately nullified by the very frequent moment of “Gideon has money”, when Gideon points out that they can just soundproof Cary and Tatiana’s part of the apartment.

The apartment that four grown-ass adults who are married and/or with kids are all sharing for some reason. Somehow this is the most plausible concept that’s been introduced this chapter.

Cary is still sad about the whole thing, though, and Gideon and Eva “didn’t speak or even look at each other, not wanting to create a unit that left Cary out”, which somehow segues into this:

It struck me then that I had to make some adjustments, compromise a little more on the issue of working with Gideon. I had to stop thinking of Team Cross as being his alone.

This is literally the thought process that just happened:

1. We are looking at Cary and not each other
2. Therefore I should abandon my goals of advancing my own career and just work for my husband

And yet it’s still not as ridiculous as the Russian mob thing.

Around the end of the workday, Eva decides to go up to Gideon’s office to talk with him about this.

The redheaded receptionist at Cross Industries buzzed me in.

Look, I’m not willing to let go that this is probably leading to the lamest, subtlest foreshadowing of something ever.

I watched Gideon [lead a meeting]. It never ceased to amaze me how self-assured he was for a man who was only twenty-eight.

All twenty-eight year old white men are more self-assured than they should be.

Because this chapter hasn’t used up all its minor characters yet, Eva has a talk with Gideon’s stepdad who happens to be there!

“Elizabeth [Gideon’s mother] is taking this very hard. I’m sure there are a lot of complicated emotions a mother must feel when her first child decides to get married, especially a son. My mother used to say that a son is a son until he gets married – then he’s a husband – but a daughter is a daughter for life.”

“Fuck you, women!”

“Let’s be honest,” I insisted quietly. “Your wife didn’t have this reaction when Gideon became engaged to Corinne. […] It’s very personal, Mr. Vidal. Elizabeth is feeling threatened because I’m not going to put up with this bullshit anymore. You both owe Gideon an apology and she needs to admit to the abuse.”

Gideon’s stepdad has no idea what Eva is talking about, which ultimately results into Eva telling him that Gideon was raped by the therapist he saw in his youth. It is unclear whether he really doesn’t know this or was in denial. And it remains unclear because the chapter ends with Gideon showing up, angry at Eva, and pulling her away.

Have fun writing next Monday’s chapter, Ariel!

I’m so sorry.

Question of the day: How many of the minor characters’ names can you remember? NO PEEKING. NO SCROLLING UP THROUGH THE POST. Just write down/guess as many characters’ names as you can remember. Go!

Allegiant Chapter 18: Fourbias

Fourbias is stressed about Marcus’ upcoming trial, but finds an out when Tris asks if some random dude can conduct some tests on Fourbias’ genes because basically he’s semi-Divergent.

“Well, this guy I met—Matthew is his name—works in one of the labs here, and he says they would be interested in looking at our genetic material for research,” she says. “And he asked about you, specifically, because you’re sort of an anomaly.”

“Anomaly?”

“Apparently you display some Divergent characteristics and you don’t display others,” she says. “I don’t know. He’s just curious about it. You don’t have to do it.”

So to summarise, Fourbias is not Divergent as fuck like Tris, but still Divergent enough to be of interest. In other words, he’s still just a regular dude like all of these fucking people (Divergent or not) appear to be.

Fourbias agrees to the testing simply because he wants an excuse to avoid watching Marcus’ trial. This would make sense if Tris had given one specific hour that Matthew was free to conduct these tests. What if he has a very important meeting at that time and isn’t free? How presumptuous, Fourbias.

Tori’s brother comes into the dining hall all excited to see Tori again, but finds out she’s actually dead. Try hard to care. I mean really fucking hard. I bet you can’t. Fourbias sure can’t.

I didn’t go back for her. I should have—of all the people in our party, I knew Tori best, knew how tightly her hands squeezed the tattoo needle and how her laugh sounded rough, like it had been scraped with sandpaper.

He supposedly knew her best, and his best were just random facts that anyone could have surmized who had gotten a tattoo from Tori or had heard her laugh. [Matthew says: Case in point: these are all bits of surface-level characterization that show up on first drafts on bar napkins] That is a terribly low standard of knowing someone. I mean, if that’s all it takes, I’m basically best friends with Tina Fey because I know she often wears glasses, but sometimes she doesn’t. Best friend knowledge!

Matthew shows up, and there’s a split second where it sounds like Fourbias is threatened because Tris didn’t warn him that Matthew wasn’t “a crusty old scientist.” Though I feel like that’s something that doesn’t need to be pre-explained at all. I would never be like, “You sure need to meet my friend Jack. Jack isn’t like a football player with brown hair, though, just to be clear.” [Matthew says: Wouldn’t it be weirder if she had? Like, “Hey, come meet my new friend from the labs! He’s a hunk!”]

Matthew sticks out his hand. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Matthew.”

“Tobias,” I say, because “Four” sounds strange here, where people would never identify themselves by how many fears they have. “You too.”

Strongly agree. But also why haven’t we met anyone else from Dauntless who identifies them by how many fears they have? Because it’s stupid in any society, that’s why.

They head off to go do some tests, which I find really odd given Tris has had all of zero moments to inform Matthew that Fourbias has even consented to the tests, but okay.

Veronica Roth has so little to say anymore, that she is providing details like this:

The compound is thick with people this morning, all dressed in green or dark blue uniforms that pool around the ankles or stop several inches above the shoe, depending on the height of the person.

BUT LIKE WHAT WAS THEIR SHOE SIZE? MORE DETAIL PLEEZE!!!!

Matthew then explains how gates used to work at airports in the olden days, but now they’ve ripped up all the chairs in the waiting areas and turned them into labs instead.

He also explains a little more about serums. He talks about how it helps the people in the experiments…control the experiments. I find this confusing, because who is supposed to know they’re in an experiment in order to control it…within the experiment? Matthew talks a bit more about Abnegation’s memory serum:

“And then the Erudite continued to work on them, to perfect them. Including your brother. To be honest, we got some of our serum developments from them, by observing them in the control room. Only they didn’t do much with the memory serum—the Abnegation serum. We did a lot more with that, since it’s our greatest weapon.”

“A weapon,” Tris repeats.

“Well, it arms the cities against their own rebellions, for one thing—erase people’s memories and there’s no need to kill them; they just forget what they were fighting about. And we can also use it against rebels from the fringe, which is about an hour from here. Sometimes fringe dwellers try to raid, and the memory serum stops them without killing them.”

Sure, book, please keep believing that the more you over-explain things to me, the more I believe this series isn’t completely idiotic. Who are these rebels from the fringe? Who are the fringe dwellers? [Matthew says: I was going to make a snarky joke about how this thing they described as “their greatest weapon” is TOTALLY NOT GOING TO SHOW UP AND CAUSE PROBLEMS LATER, except given the way the narrative’s been meandering aimlessly lately, I sort of wouldn’t be surprised if it actually didn’t, which is probably worse.]

There’s a ton more over-explanation about how they’re going to read Tris and Four’s genes and why the choosing ceremony happens. If you’re aware during the ceremony, it means you’re Divergent/genetically healed. Except when it doesn’t:

Matthew continues, “The only problem with the genetic tracker is that being aware during simulations and resisting serums doesn’t necessarily mean that a person is Divergent, it’s just a strong correlation. Sometimes people will be aware during simulations or be able to resist serums even if they still have damaged genes.” He shrugs.

Can’t anything in this fucking series just be exactly what it claims to be? Why does there always have to be a qualifer or a needless complication for every god damned thing? I swear, it’ll be like, “This memory test is 100% accurate. Except if you’ve eaten chocolate cake 20 minutes beforehand. Then we’re not sure at all!!!” I could be way off base, but that’s how I’m feeling about this series at the moment. Except if I’ve just consumed chocolate cake, and then it’s anyone’s guess.

Anyway, long story short, Matthew wants to know if Fourbias is actually Divergent or not. [Matthew says: Wow, it’s weird to see that in print, since it does not remotely apply to me.] I’m sure none of you care at all and I certainly don’t. Because who cares one way or the other? [Matthew says: It also doesn’t matter one way or the other, since things can be Divergent or not Divergent but SEEM Divergent now, but not in the way that things would not be Divergent but seem Divergent earlier on because the story was just shitty and confusing.]

Also, we’ve just met one of the lab technicians, Nita, who was part of another experiment. She ended up in O’Hare after her experiment ended eight years ago. I apologize for my part in introducing to you to yet another minor character.

“And your city, it didn’t have factions?” Tris says.

“No, it was the control group—it helped them to figure out that the factions were actually effective by comparison. It had a lot of rules, though—curfew, wake-up times, safety regulations. No weapons allowed. Stuff like that.”

[…]

“Well, a few of the people inside still knew how to make weapons. They made a bomb—you know, an explosive—and set it off in the government building,” she says. “Lots of people died. And after that, the Bureau decided our experiment was a failure. They erased the memories of the bombers and relocated the rest of us. I’m one of the only ones who wanted to come here”

Why did they only erase the memories of the bombers and not everyone involved? [Matthew says: How does the control group bombing itself merit a failure, but an experimental group committing systematic mass genocide not count as a failure?]

Nita also explains that they haven’t shut the Chicago experiment down because…it’s been sort of successful? [Matthew says: How many times am I gonna have to repeat this whole systematic mass genocide thing?] It basically just sounds like they don’t want to admit defeat, which is like when your boss gets you to start a project everyone knows is pointless and then refuses to give up on it and everyone who wants to kiss his ass tries to interpret the results in the most generous way possible to make everyone feel like maybe it wasn’t a total failure.

[Matthew says: Because this book can’t help itself, it explains some more science that it immediately gets wrong:

“when our predecessors at the Bureau inserted ‘corrected’ genes into your ancestors, they also included a genetic tracker [that] shows us that a person has achieved genetic healing. In this case, the genetic tracker is awareness during simulations— it’s something we can easily test for”

So far so good, but this is Divergent, so…

“The only problem with the genetic tracker is that being aware during simulations and resisting serums doesn’t necessarily mean that a person is Divergent, it’s just a strong correlation.”

THEN IT’S NOT A GENETIC TRACKER. This is Ariel’s chocolate cake point all over again, except for undergrad-level biology, which is sort of not how that works.]

They look at Tris’ healed genes, and remind us that she is Divergent as fuck. But Fourbias’ genes are not healed, and thus he is not Divergent as fuck. Fourbias feels really sad because he’s “damaged” still, and I wish I could gently remind him that this actually doesn’t seem to mean anything at all, so who cares? Even Tris is on my side here:

“So you’re telling me this affects nothing,” I say. “The truth affects nothing.”

“What truth?” she says. “These people tell you there’s something wrong with your genes, and you just believe it?”

Fourbias runs off to be alone, and Nita follows him and asks if they can meet later in secret.

“And . . . no offense to your girl or anything, but you might not want to bring her.”

“Why?” I say.

“She’s a GP—genetically pure. So she can’t understand that—well, it’s hard to explain. Just trust me, okay? She’s better off staying away for a little while.”

Tobias immediately agrees with no hesitation, which I find very off-putting. Shouldn’t he at least consider whether he should start keeping secrets from Tris five minutes after they super duper swore never to keep secrets again?

[Ariel says: The best part of my week was finding out that Matt had already written this chapter, which meant I only have to write about chapter 18 yesterday. I almost shed a tear!] 

Chapter 19: Tris

We’ve found out once and for all that Tris is the most special, and that Tobias is not.

When I found out I was Divergent, I thought of it as a secret power that no one else possessed, something that made me different, better, stronger. Now, after comparing my DNA to Tobias’s on a computer screen, I realize that “Divergent” doesn’t mean as much as I thought it did.

YOUR WORDS, BOOK. NOT MINE.

OKAY, THEY WERE MINE LIKE A LOT PREVIOUSLY BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

Now that we’ve gotten the dystopian YA trope of dwelling on how special you are out of the way, it’s time for the other, previously-neglected YA trope of TEENAGE LOVE TRIANGLES

I don’t know where I’m going, but it’s away from Nita, the pretty girl who talks to my boyfriend when I’m not there. Then again, it’s not like it was a long conversation.

I don’t even care that Tris was immediately fairly rational about it. MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION TEENAGE HEARTSTRING TUGGING, PLEASE. [Ariel said: I didn’t mention this yesterday because I didn’t think it would actually be A Thing, but I thought it was weird Nita was trying to get Fourbias alone and immediately suspected there might be sexual motivations.]

YOU CARED ABOUT THIS BASICALLY ONLY THIS PART OF ANY YOUNG ADULT STORY TOO DON’T LIE

Anyway, the next logical step is obviously “take the main characters on an airplane trip”, so we get that:

“I just told the others,” she says. “We’ve scheduled a plane ride in two hours for those who want to go. Are you up for it?” […]
The sky is clear and pale, the same color as my own eyes. There is a kind of inevitability in it, like it has always been waiting for me […] there is only one frontier left to explore, and it is above.

Maybe if this had ever been mentioned, I don’t know, once.

And thus we hit the weirdest low point of the Divergent trilogy yet: dystopian airport humor.

• “How can something that big stay in the sky?” Uriah says from behind me.
• “If the Dauntless knew about this, everyone would be getting in line to learn how to drive it,” [Uriah] says. “Including me.”
  “No, they would be strapping themselves to the wings.” [Christina] said.
• “My name is Karen, and I’ll be flying this plane today!” she announces. “It may seem frightening, but remember: The odds of us crashing are actually much lower than the odds of a car crash.”

…the fuck let this person be a flight attendant?

Zoe explains to Tris that they use the airplanes mostly for surveillance missions to keep an eye on what happens in “the fringe”, which is “a large, sort of chaotic place between Chicago and the nearest-government-regulated metropolitan area, Milwaukee”. For reference, this area today is where Mean Girls took place.

Which actually works pretty well.

They fly low and not too close to the city, so as to not draw attention. Zoe and Karen also flesh out a few more details about the outside world, pointing out areas of destruction “caused by the Purity War, before the rebels resorted to biological warfare” – which sounds terrifying – and where “some of the lake was drained so that we could be the fence, but we left as much of it intact as possible” – which sounds terrifying for completely different reasons.

The great lakes have 1/5 of the world’s fresh water. One. Fifth. THANKS, FUTURE DYSTOPIAN GOVERNMENT.

After the airplane interlude, Tris reads her mother’s journal, that she wrote when she was a teenager, so roughly Tris’s age. Strangely, it is actually better-written than most of the book. I have no idea what to make of that.

I grew up in a single-family home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. […] My mom was in law enforcement; she was explosive and impossible to please. My dad was a teacher; he was pliable and supportive and useless. One day they got into it in the living room and things got out of hand, and he grabbed her and she shot him. That night she was burying his body in the backyard while I assembled a good portion of my possessions and left through the front door.

Or maybe it’s basically the exact same voice as Tris’s, but it just seems different because she’s not talking about being Divergent and what being Divergent means every other paragraph. I can’t tell anymore.

Tris’s mom describes how “government types” would just make her go home to her mom if she went to another city (despite the murder part, so I guess at some point in the future we get rid of child protective services. And FUCKING LAKE MICHIGAN.), so she opted to set out on her own on the fringe, where people have lived in extreme poverty “for over a century after the war ripped us apart”. One day she accidentally kills a man who was attacking a kid, and then gets snatched up by Bureau of Genetic Purity people, who test her genes and find out her genes “were cleaner than other people’s”, because Divergent has long since given up on trying to make its genetics make sense.

Meanwhile, Uriah has been watching the monitors that watch the city, and we learn that the plot is going on its boring way without us.

“Just more of the same”

It’s funny how Uriah’s description of what they’re missing in book 3 is basically my description of book 2.

“Evelyn’s a jerk, so are all her lackeys, and so on”

Remember: a lot of Mean Girls quotes are now near-applicable for Divergent

I sigh. “I just keep thinking . . . that in some way I belong here. Like maybe this place can be home.” […]
“I don’t know,” Uriah says, and he sounds serious now. “I’m not sure anywhere will feel like home again. Not even if we went back.”

And boy, am I glad we still have two-thirds of the book for them to explore the answer to this question. Only three hundred and thirty pages to go!

Caleb walks into the room, and Tris blows him off. Caleb sadly asks if she’ll ever speak to him again. Because it’s not like he tried to get her killed about two weeks ago. Still, Tris muses on how sad their relationship has become:

The truth is, sometimes I want to just forget about everything that’s happened and return to the way we were before either of us chose a faction.

So we’re a third of the way into this book now. So we’re maybe near the end of the first act? Or… something? We have a lot of story left and absolutely no indication of where any of it might be going. Do you think these guys are going back to Chicago any time soon? For what arbitrary, probably genetics-involving reason?

Captivated by You Chapter 9: Gideon

As usual, this chapter is extremely long and broken into distinct enough chunks that it’s super hard to decide on a title for the post that truly encompasses what the chapter was about. However, I truly believe this one did it justice, because this is the mother fucking chapter of minor characters. I am not exaggerating, there were only a couple villainous minor characters, Eva’s family and Detective Shelly Graves who were MIA. Even fucking Angus has dialogue in this chapter (though you’ll really wish he didn’t.)

Anyway, in case you’d forgotten, when we last left off Gideon seemed really angry at Eva when he caught her talking about his traumatic past with his step father. Gideon quickly ushers Eva into their limo, while Angus looks concerned.

He should be concerned, but not for the reasons Angus (and Eva) are expecting.

I’d nearly stopped the elevator halfway down to fuck Eva against the wall like an animal. The only things that deterred me were the security cameras and watchful guard eyes monitoring the feed.

I wanted to leash her. Sink my teeth into her shoulder as I nailed her. Dominate her. She was a tigress, clawing and hissing at everyone she felt had done me wrong, and I needed to pin her down. Make her submit.

Gideon isn’t mad at Eva, he’s just aroused to the point of seeming furious? He’s so aroused that he needs to describe having Eva submit in a creepy way? But, hey, it can only get creepier, right? Of course, I’m right, this is a Gideon chapter!

She set her hand on my thigh. “Gideon …”

Grabbing that slender hand wearing my ring, I shoved it between my legs and thrust my aching dick into her palm. “Open your mouth again and that’s what I’m putting in it.”

Take note, men, this is one of the top ten ways to make a woman never want your penis anywhere near her mouth. Eva is the exception to the rule.

Angus drives them to their couple’s therapy, which Gideon had forgotten about. This is, of course, super awkward for his erection. [Matthew says: Ariel’s not even making a joke. This is an actual conflict that Gideon muses/angsts about over the course of a half-dozen pages.]

For some reason, this is the moment Sylvia Day decided that Angus needed his chance to shine and be Irish for thirty seconds.

Ducking down, Angus peered in at me. “Couples therapy means the both of you.”

I glared at him. “Stop enjoying this.”

The smile in his eyes curved his lips into a broad grin. “She loves you, lad, whether you like it or naw.”

I do naw like this one bit. [Matthew says: At least we’re not supposed to feel bwessed about it.]

“Of course I like it,” I muttered, glancing over my shoulder to check the traffic before opening my door and stepping out. I rounded the trunk. “That doesn’t mean she’s not a loose cannon.”

Angus shut the door. A rare summer breeze ruffled the graying red hair that peeked out from beneath his chauffeur’s hat.

So I guess this is all the evidence we needed that Angus is Irish? Was this ever mentioned before? [Matthew says: Maybe he’s a teenager from Newark. I hear that “or naw” is popular Newark slang these days.]

What’s even weirder, though, is that when he talks again at the end of this scene, all traces of his accent have suddenly disappeared:

“Why won’t she leave it the hell alone?” I stepped onto the sidewalk, tugging my vest into place and wishing I could straighten my thoughts as easily. “She can’t change the past.”

“It’s not the past she’s thinking of.” He set his hand briefly on my shoulder. “It’s the future.”

Farewell, Angus’ short-lived accent. Also, does this mean Angus knows about Gideon’s past but his step father didn’t? What the fuck? And why is he suddenly in charge of dolling out platitudes disguised as deep wisdom? [Matthew says: Platitudes… wisdom… OH MY GOD. Angus is this book’s Ana’s mom!]

In the therapy session, Gideon doesn’t want to talk about anything that just happened between Eva and Chris (Gideon’s step father), and later Eva confronts him about his evasiveness.

“That peace you’re looking for? You’re pretending you have it during the day and suffering without it at night. It’s tearing you up from the inside, and it’s shredding me watching it happen to you. I don’t want you to live like this forever. I don’t want us to live forever like this.”

I think Eva has a great point here, but I also think she needs to stop confronting people for Gideon before he’s ready. But her next point is so nonsensical, it undermines any good points she makes during this conversation:

“Listen.” She wrapped her legs around my hips. “I said I wasn’t going to push you and I meant it. If we were two years into our relationship, I’d put up a fuss, maybe. But it’s only been a few months, Gideon. The fact that you’re seeing someone and talking about your dad is enough for now.”

So basically what she’s saying is, “I’ll marry you after a few months, but damn it you don’t have to try to resolve any of your deep, emotional problems until like 2 years into the relationship!”

Even weirder, Eva then tries to make Gideon promise her that eventually he’ll talk about murdering Nathan with their therapist. I would really, highly encourage Gideon to keep that one to himself. This better not just be another opportunity for another character to come in and convince us that what Gideon did was Noble and Wonderful.

Gideon quickly moves the conversation back in the direction of sex, where he firmly believes it belongs. He tells Eva he’s brought a crimson, silk cord to tie her up with. To an untrained eye, this might just seem like Gideon’s way of avoiding the real issues, but Gideon thinks otherwise:

Sexual healing. What could be more perfect for two people who had the history Eva and I shared?

Um. Other things. Like maybe therapy or just not using sex to avoid or “solve” every problem you and your spouse have. [Matthew says: Not to mention that this question has been explicitly asked in every single book so far. Asking the question again and again doesn’t make it more relevant. It’s the same thing as “Are we there yet?”, but it’s, uh, “Isn’t sexual healing perfect for us?”]

Eva is still worried that Gideon is angry she spoke to Chris:

“You were furious when we left.”

“Furiously turned on.” I smiled wryly. “I can’t explain why, because I don’t understand it myself.”

“Try.”

I reached up and brushed the pad of my thumb over her lips. “I see you angry, passionate, ready to fight, and I want all that violence trapped beneath me. You make me want to hold you down, clawing and screaming, your cunt milking my cock as I pound it into you. Mine. All mine.”

That is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever read. It’s like a weird combination of a rape and farmer fantasy. I want this imagery out of my head immediately. 

So Gideon claims that over dinner one night, his mother most definitely told Chris what happened to Gideon (what the fuck kind of dinner conversation is that?) and that Chris was pretending not to know. But Eva still believes he doesn’t. BUT WHEN WILL WE KNOW THE TRUTH AND WHO THE FUCK CARES?

Later, Gideon has a horrible nightmare with a really graphic rape scene of what his abuser used to do to him. It makes me feel awful for him, but it also pulls a Fifty Shades and explains why Gideon usually dates brown haired women – because Hugh used to make him look at sexy brunettes while he molested him. In Fifty Shades I get that a lot of the story hinged on the fact that Christian always pursued women to be his submissives if they looked like his birth mother. Fine, fair. But what do we gain from knowing this detail about Gideon? Why did his preferences for brunettes before Eva have to be justified in this way?

In the nightmare, Gideon starts killing Hugh, Hugh morphs into Nathan, but then in the end it’s Eva that Gideon’s murdered! It was a really stupid end to the nightmare. After he wakes up, Eva runs in the room to comfort Gideon, and the next morning she makes him promise that they’re going to make today their best day ever! Like a shitty One Direction song!

During the day, Gideon is doing business with Arash who is suddenly in this book all the fucking time even though he was never ever mentioned before. Ireland calls and says that her parents were fighting all night and that she wants to come stay with Gideon and Eva. Gideon agrees she can stay with them Saturday night, which I’m sure will have like 20 some chapters dedicated to it for some reason. [Matthew says: At least this isn’t a Jamie McGuire book. She’d have her own spinoff novel where she meets her own Gideon Cross clone by now.]

The chapter ends with Eva and Gideon’s friends getting together for their kareoke night out, which is an excuse to throw fucking ALL THE MINOR CHARACTERS INTO ONE PLACE. To the point where it just feels like Day is playing the cruelest, increasingly confusing joke:

“Was this your idea?” Arash asked, when we met him outside the ground-floor entrance to the Starlight Lounge.

[…]

“Great reviews online,” Shawna said, “and some of my regulars were raving about it.”

Manuel checked out the eager crowd behind the ropes, while Megumi Kaba stood cautiously between Cary and Eva. Mark Garrity, Steven Ellison, and Arnoldo all stood back, keeping the way clear for those whose names were on the VIP List.

[…]

I followed her gaze, spotting a couple approaching us. My brows rose when I recognized Magdalene Perez. Her hand was linked with that of the man next to her and her dark eyes were brighter than I’d seen in a long time.

[…]

Maggie grinned. “Gideon. Eva. This is my boyfriend, Gage Flynn.”

[…]

Maggie had been through enough with Christopher. I didn’t want to see her hurt again.

And here’s Will and Natalie,” Eva said, as the last of our group arrived.

Even I have no idea.

This book is just a massive, throbbing clown car. Like why the fuck is Will here? Isn’t this meant to be all of their closest friends? Eva literally got pasta with him one time on their lunch break!

As they’re headed inside, Gideon reveals that he owns the place (OF COURSE), which ends up leading to Arash revealing that Gideon’s sold his fuck pad. This pleases Eva (and I’m sure her greedy cunt) greatly.

For your reference, here are all the minor characters that appeared or were mentioned in this chapter [Matthew says: For your reference, I indicated the ones that I honestly have no clue who they are]:

1. Angus
2. Gideon’s step father Chris
3. Gideon’s mother
4. Ireland
5. Nathan
6. Hugh [Matthew says: Who?]
7. Arash
8. Cary
9. Magdalene (Maggie)
10. Maggie’s boyfriend
11. Will [Matthew says: Who???]
12. Will’s girlfriend [Matthew says: A very similar “who?”]
13. Megumi
14. Manuel [Matthew says: WHO?]
15. Shawna [Matthew says: Just realized this person isn’t Magdalene, so I don’t know who this is either.]
16. Steven
17. Mark
18. Dr. Peterson
19. Brett
20. Arnoldo
21. Christopher

Tell me if you caught any characters I missed!

Chapter 10: Eva

Now in the karaoke club, Eva kicks off this chapter with a very important question:

I leaned into Gideon, who was semisprawled on the expensive leather upholstery. “How come all the guys you work with are hot?”

Indeed, this does seem like a good time to review to properties of Fifty Shades-era romantic leads. Pop quiz!

Just remember your answers as events unfold in this karaoke bar. Sure, it begins innocuously enough; Megumi’s cheered up and is enjoying her night out with friends, Cary’s sung some Billy Joel, and everyone’s trying to get the people who haven’t sung yet to hurry up and embarrass themselves already.

“No fair,” I complained. “You’re all ganging up on me! Gideon hasn’t sung yet, either.”
I glanced at my husband. He shrugged. “I’ll go up if you will.”
Astonishment widened my eyes. I’d never heard Gideon sing, had never even imagined it.

Just remember how you answered the pop quiz, although I’m sure even without that reminder that everyone reading this post is imagining exactly the same thing.

Because this is a serious book about serious matters, Eva’s song choice comes with some heavy-handed symbolism that gets emphatically explained to us, just in case we didn’t quite pick up on it.

I regretted threatening the fragile peace with my song choice. But not enough to change my mind. […] I’d chosen “Brave.” I had to be it to sing it— that, or crazy.
I stayed focused on my husband, who wasn’t laughing or smiling. He just stared intently at my face as I told him via Sara Bareilles’s lyrics that I wanted to see him speak up and be brave.

I was like 0% confused by this concept, but thanks, Captivated By You

Eva gets back to the table, happy she sang, but embarrassed that her singing voice is so awful. Before it’s Gideon’s turn to sing, the most predictable thing that could happen in a karaoke bar in the book happens.

And then some idiot started singing “Golden.”

Amazingly, Gideon does not launch into a destructive rage over this. In case you were curious where the bar for Gideon’s character growth after three and a half books is, it is here. [Ariel says: It’s funny because Eva completely expects him to go apeshit and like blow the entire bar up.]

Gideon goes up to sing and the other characters set the reader up for the only thing more predictable than someone singing “Golden” in a karaoke bar in this book.

I looked at Arash and Arnoldo. “Have either of you heard him sing?”
Arnoldo shook his head.
Arash laughed. “Hell, no. With any luck, he’ll sound like you. Like Cary says, he can’t be good at everything or we’d all have to hate him.”

If only this series actually worked like that, Arash.

“This one,” he said, “is for my wife.”

More obviously than the fact that this book will eventually run out of pages, Gideon turns out to be a great singer.

My attention was riveted on Gideon as he looked directly at me and sang, telling me in a lusciously raspy voice […] My God, he was killing me, baring his soul in the rough timbre of his voice.
“Holy fuck,” Cary said, his eyes on the stage. “The man can sing.”

How great a singer? THE BEST SINGER IN THE BAR.

Gideon dominated the attention of everyone in the bar. Of all the voices we’d heard that night, his was truly professional grade.

FUCK IT. BETTER THAN THE STORY’S ACTUAL PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS.

There was no comparison to Brett

Just in case you weren’t dying of laughter, this is a good time to mention that Gideon is singing Lifehouse’s “Hanging By A Moment”.

[Ariel says: I think I laughed for 20 minutes straight at everything possible in this scene. There is a moment where Eva fucking says, “OH MY GOD I *WAS* HANGING BY A MOMENT!!!!!!” And I never ever recover from my fit of laughter.] 

Gideon finishes singing and Eva fights her way through the manic, cheering crowd to him, because half the words in this book could be swapped out with “YAY GIDEON YAY WOOHOO” and it’d basically be the same book.

I practically climbed up Gideon, panting in his ear, “Now!”

Eva and Gideon quickly leave the karaoke bar and go fuck in his limo. Presumably making all their friends they went out with super uncomfortable, but for some reason the book doesn’t touch on this. Which isn’t the only thing this scene weirdly skims through.

“I’m wet. I’m wet,” I chanted

Which is probably the only time in history someone has had this reaction to Lifehouse.

All two of them.

The next morning, Gideon and Eva spend the night at Gideon’s… other other apartment? (I can’t keep track.) Cary stays in the attached single-bedroom apartment and Gideon offers that he live there, which Cary responds to with words that I’m not sure are being used correctly even for figurative language.

“Do you want to live there?” I persisted.
Cary gave me a lopsided smile. “Yeah, baby girl. It’s a dream. Thank you for the pity fuck, Gideon.”

The book has a weird moment of near-self-awareness.

Gideon snagged a piece of bacon and stuck it in his mouth. Leaning forward, I parted my lips. He bent toward me, letting me bite off the end.
“Come on,” Cary groaned. “I’m fighting nausea as it is.”

And then jumps right back into sexism/homophobia/I don’t even know what’s all going on in here:

“Mark and Steven have been together for years, too,” I argued. “They don’t fight or moon at each other.”
He shot me a look. “They’re gay, Eva. No estrogen in the mix to cause drama.”
“Oh my God. You sexist pig! You did not just say that.”
Cary glanced at Gideon. “You know I’m right.”
“And with that,” Gideon declared, grabbing three strips of bacon, “I’m out.”

It’s funny because it’s, like, so awkward to reduce people to stereotypes! That is why this funny moment is funny!

The chapter ends with Gideon suddenly announcing he was to leave for a work thing and won’t be back until later, which Eva finds weird.

What was important enough to drag him away from me on a weekend?

Show of hands if you seriously believe this is the first time a New York business mogul like Gideon has never worked a weekend during this relationship.

Allegiant Chapter 20: Fourbias

The chapter opens with Nita telling Fourbias she wasn’t sure if he’d come. Well, Nita, there is really nothing going on in the plot at this point, so you were kind of the only option. To further demonstrate her very important role as Nothing Better to Do, Nita shares some personal information about her tattoo

“Some people do,” she says. “The one on my back is of broken glass.” She pauses, the kind of pause you take when you’re deciding whether or not to share something personal. “I got it because it suggests damage. It’s . . . sort of a joke.”

That is actually the most boring tattoo idea anyone has ever had, unless there is someone out there who has a tattoo of an episode of CSI: CYBER. Seriously, wouldn’t a tattoo of broken glass just look like a jagged shape?

Nita wants to take Fourbias to meet the “Support Staff”:

 “Support staff is more than just a job. Almost all of us are GDs—genetically damaged, leftovers from the failed city experiments or the descendants of other leftovers or people pulled in from the outside, like Tris’s mother, except without her genetic advantage. And all of the scientists and leaders are GPs—genetically pure, descendants of people who resisted the genetic engineering movement in the first place. There are some exceptions, of course, but so few I could list them all for you if I wanted to.”

Fourbias then explains why this strict seperation exists (genetically pure people grew up around experiments, so they’re totally amazing at them, while the genetically damaged were IN the experiments, so they’re like, “WHAAAAA”) He also explains why this might not be the best thing for society, in case we couldn’t figure this out for ourselves.

“The division is based on knowledge, based on qualifications—but as I learned from the factionless, a system that relies on a group of uneducated people to do its dirty work without giving them a way to rise is hardly fair.”

So deep. So informative.

Nita then tells Fourbias she thinks Tris is right in that nothing is changed, but now he knows he has limits…like everyone else. HOW IS THIS A “BUT” KIND OF STATEMENT? Tobias is really angry about this whole situation, and I’m really not sure why. Because now he’s arguing that he doesn’t want people telling the genetically damaged people they have limits. Even though we all fucking have limits. Specifically, I’m not sure what these limits are meant to be, and neither is Fourbias:

“So there’s an upward limit to . . . what? My compassion? My conscience?” I say. “That’s the reassurance you have for me?”

Nita’s eyes study me, carefully, and she doesn’t respond.

“This is ridiculous,” I say. “Why do you, or they, or anyone get to determine my limits?”

“It’s just the way things are, Tobias,” Nita says. “It’s just genetic, nothing more.”

“That’s a lie,” I say. “It’s about more than genes, here, and you know it.”

BUT REALLY WHAT SPECIFICALLY DO YOU MEAN BY LIMITS?

Anyway, they’re distracted when some rando comes running by, shouting about how “the verdict is in.” It’s Marcus’ verdict of course. In case you weren’t able to see this twist coming from a thousand miles away, Marcus is being banished to outside the fence. The gang just cannot escape this guy.

The one really weird thing we learn, though, is that Abnegation only allows divorce if there was spousal abuse…which raises the question: if Abnegation folk abuse each other, does that make them Divergent as fuck?

Allegiant Chapter 21: Tris

Tris tells us an attack drill is going to be taking place soon. She tells us Fourbias is really mopey and that everyone slept in today.

When we left the city, we lost our factions, our sense of purpose. Here there is nothing to do but wait for something to happen, and far from making me feel relaxed, it makes me feel jittery and tense.

What was the sense of purpose the factions gave? It never really seemed like they had any higher purpose or goals except to live each day, much like Tris is doing now. Except now I’d think there was even more of a purpose because they’re meant to be making everyone ~genetically pure~ again. In Dauntless, all they did was go to Hot Topic and get tattoos.

Tris tries to tell Fourbias how awesome flying in the plane was, but he is less than enthused:

He nods. “I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it. Heights, and all.”

Deflated, Tris has the most obnoxious reaction ever:

I want him to say that he wishes he had been there with me, to experience it with me. Or at least to ask me what I mean when I say that it was amazing. But all he can say is that he wouldn’t have liked it?

You might think that somehow she missed what happened with Marcus, but no, she’s just being insensitive as hell.

I feel raw and frustrated. Of course I knew about Marcus. It was buzzing around the room when I woke up. But for some reason I didn’t think it would upset him to know his father wasn’t going to be executed. Apparently I was wrong.

You think?

The alarm goes off because of course we need another plot device to come along and prevent them from having a conversation to clear the air.

More interesting, though, is that Tris starts telling us about her mother’s diary. Here’s what we learn so far:

• Natalie is going to be put into Dauntless because she has tattoos.
• During her choosing ceremony she needs to pick Erudite “because that’s where the killer is.”
• “I don’t know what killer she’s referring to—Jeanine Matthews’s predecessor, maybe?—but more confusing even than that is that she didn’t join Erudite.”

Tris pauses this actually interesting moment to make out with Tobias. UG STOP. She returns to the diary and finds out that Andrew (Tris’ father) and Natalie decided to join Abnegation together instead of Erudite. We still don’t find out why exactly they make this switch, but for once I’m actually kind of interested in finding out what they’re talking about here.

Chapter 22: Tris

Tris finishes reading the entries in her mom’s file, which as we discovered yesterday, is actually fairly interesting so far. Quite possibly because it doesn’t have any of the series’ melodrama or-

Dear David,
I thought you were more my friend than my supervisor, but I guess I was wrong.
What did you think would happen when I came in here, that I would live single and alone forever? […] It sounds like you’re actually just jealous.

…well at least it still doesn’t have Tris and Four in it. That goes a seriously long way.

Tris’s mom writes on about how she hasn’t lost sight of her mission just because she’s trying to actually live her life while she’s undercover in the experiment, which would certainly prompt an especially interesting Results section of the scientific journal article this ends up in.

Tris finally catches on that maybe David had a thing for her mom.

I can only see their relationship from her eyes, and I’m not sure she’s the most accurate source of information about it.

Which would be a good point until you remember that the other person whose word Tris is considering about the matter is David “definitely not a bad guy” lastname.

The personal entries of the journals end abruptly as Tris’s mom mentions getting David’s letter and understanding “why you can’t be on the receiving end of these updates anymore”. The narrative then meanders aimlessly to reminding us that Evelyn is sort of still in this novel too sort of.

“This is the Evelyn cam. We track her 24/7.” […]
“What is that she’s touching?”
“Some kind of sculpture, I don’t know.” The woman shrugs. “She stares at it a lot, though.”

The sculpture is one that Evelyn gave Four when he was a child. You interested in hearing about a couple pages of a symbol  and its significance being explained to us even though it has only shown up in a grand total of two scenes across the roughly 1200 pages of books? Not at all? Whaaaaat?

Somehow I never realized that when Tobias charged out of the city with me, he wasn’t just a rebel defying his leader— he was a son abandoning his mother. And she is grieving over it. Is he?

This might seem like a weird thing to just sort of forget, but keep in mind the book itself has basically completely forgotten about the civil war that was the entire first two books.

Tris asks Zoe for more backstory, because we’re completely out of ways for this plot to move forward.

“Your father, though a very smart man, never quite got the knack of psychology, and the teacher— an Erudite, unsurprisingly— was very hard on him for it. So your mother offered to help him after school”

“The Choosing Ceremony was approaching, and your father was eager to leave Erudite because he saw something terrible—”
“What? What did he see?”
“Well, your father was a good friend of Jeanine Matthews,” says Zoe. “He saw her performing an experiment on a factionless man […] she was testing the fear-inducing serum”

Because if there’s one thing that remains to be established right now, it’s that the primary antagonist who was killed off in the last book is a total jerk.

Tris has another completely empty conversation with someone about this whole genes/divergence/whatever thing:

“It seems there’s no escaping the reach of genetic damage. Even the Abnegation leadership was poisoned by it.” [Zoe said]
I frown. “Are you talking about Marcus? Because he’s Divergent. Genetic damage had nothing to do with it.”
“A man surrounded by genetic damage cannot help but mimic it with his own behavior,”

Amazingly, this time it was supposed to not make sense. Amazingly.

Marcus was Divergent— genetically pure, just like me. But I don’t accept that he was a bad person because he was surrounded by genetically damaged people. So was I. So was Uriah. So was my mother. But none of us lashed out at our loved ones.
“Her argument has a few holes in it, doesn’t it,” says Matthew.

Do explain to me how this is significantly different from all the other discussions about genes/factions/divergence that had a few holes in them, uh, Matthew. Ok, can we talk about how the character calling the most bullshit on the premise of this book has the same name as me? This is super weird.

IS THIS CHARACTER IN THIS BOOK BASED ON ME? WE CAN’T PROVE HE ISN’T.

Matthew continues to explain – I shit you not – that some of the people at the Bureau want to blame genetic damage for everything, but that “they can’t know everything about people and why they act the way they do”. And then explains that Erudite was his favorite faction because “if everyone would just keep learning about the world around them, they would have far fewer problems”. He then gives Tris a biology textbook. GUYS, SERIOUSLY, WHAT AM I DOING IN THIS BOOK?

The scene ends (thankfully, before Matthew starts playing the ukulele and talking about Fifty Shades or the Mountain Goats or something – guys I’m a little freaked out over here) and Tris goes to Caleb, having decided that she can’t keep their mother’s journal from him anymore. Caleb reveals that he also has just found out some secret information that he wants to share with Tris, because nothing happens in this book that isn’t people finding out secret information and sharing it with people.

He takes Tris to the record room and shows Tris the original contract that Edith Prior signed when joining the Chicago experiment. Most of it is information that we already know, but as far as contracts go, it’s interesting how weird it is:

I agree to reproduce at least twice to give my corrected genes the best possible chance of survival. […] I also give my consent for my children and my children’s children, etc., to continue in this experiment.

Caleb is mostly interested in the legal precedent for giving consent on behalf of one’s descendants. Whereas Tris is mostly interested in – you guessed it! – divergence.

the world outside the city is badly broken, and the Divergent need to come out here and heal it. It’s not quite a lie […] But they didn’t need the Divergent to march out of our city like an army to fight injustice and save everyone

Eventually she also remembers she’s mad at Caleb for having helped try to have her killed a few weeks ago, which is also mostly about genetics and factions, because of course it is.

“So I suppose you’ve used this as an excuse in your twisted mind for what you did,” I say steadily. “For joining Erudite, for being loyal to them. I mean, if you were supposed to be one of them all along, then ‘faction before blood’ is an acceptable thing to believe, right?”

Tris angrily leaves Caleb and goes to make out with Fourbias.

Yes, I’m paraphrasing a little bit, but this is the clearest I can make any of this, because we’re 43% of the way through the book and I still have no idea what the narrative is actually supposed to be.

I know that four books in I shouldn’t be amazed by this anymore, but how Sylvia Day can write 60+ page chapters wherein almost nothing happens is incredible to me. I suppose E.L. James and Veronica Roth share this rare and horrifying talent, but my awe stands.

Captivated by You Chapter 11: Gideon

Brett Kline, still present in this story for completely inexplicable reasons, shows up at Gideon’s office demanding to see Eva.

My fingers twitched, the habit of extending my hand in greeting ruthlessly suppressed. The singer’s hands had touched my wife intimately in the past … and recently. I didn’t want to shake them. I wanted to break them.

Such restraint not shaking hands or breaking them.

Seriously, though, when did Brett’s hands “recently” touch Eva? Does Gideon mean just in the sense of giving her a hug or something?

Brett seems to be surprised that Eva isn’t there, why he’s surprised, I’m not sure. Gideon’ never explains if he lured Brett there with false promises of Eva also being around, or if Brett doesn’t understand that after work, Eva is probably at home.

“Kline smiled coldly. “You can’t keep me from her.”

“You did that all by yourself.” I noted the worn Pete’s T-shirt he was wearing with black jeans and leather boots. Without a doubt, his choice of attire wasn’t a coincidence. He wanted to remind Eva of their history together.

I mean, he didn’t actually do it all by himself, Gideon was definitely a contributor to this. Also, Eva did make the choice to stop seeing him.

Gideon has arranged this meeting with Brett not to murder him as you’re all probably expecting, but to try to acquire his copy of the sex tape.

“Sam told me you were going to try this. That tape is none of your business. It’s between me and Eva.”

“And the entire world if it leaks, and that would destroy her. Does that matter to you at all, how she feels about it?”

“It’s not going to leak, and of course I give a shit about how she feels. It’s one of the reasons we need to talk.”

I nodded. “You want to ask her what you can use. You think you can talk her into letting you exploit some of it.”

[…]

“It’s not all sex. There’s some good stuff of us hanging out. Her and I, we had something. She wasn’t just a lay to me.

Don’t worry, everyone, he only wants to use the PG versions of the sex tape – it would be like if Tommy Lee had said to Pamela Anderson, “Don’t worry, there are just some awesome scenes of us on the yacht I really want to show people.” IT’S STILL WEIRD! (Side note: I have no idea why I knew there was a boat involved in that tape, but I had to think of searches that would help me fact check this while also protecting me from ever seeing Tommy Lee’s penis. HARD PASS.)

Next, Brett tries to attack the legitimacy of Gideon and Eva’s marriage, but Gideon came prepared for just that question? And he actually pulls out a photo taken of the exact moment they’re pronounced man and wife, and also their wedding license. FOILED AGAIN, KLINE!

Gideon gets angrier and angrier with Brett as he refuses to sell the tape to Gideon. I’m with Gideon on this one, I can understand why the thought of Brett still watching the sex tape (which he very clearly does like 40 times a day at least) would be infuriating for a billion reasons.

They argue some more until Brett storms out, and Gideon places a call “via a secure line” BUM BUM BUM.

“Did I give you enough time?”

“Yes. We took care of the laptop and tablet in his luggage as soon as you took him upstairs. We’re handling his e-mail and backup provider servers as we speak, and the backups to those servers. We searched his residence over the weekend, but he hasn’t been there in weeks. We cleaned everything on both Yimara and Kline’s equipment, as well as the accounts and equipment of those who received teasers of the full-length footage. One of the execs at Vidal had a full copy on his hard drive, but we wiped it. We found no evidence that he forwarded it anywhere.”

Ice slid through my veins. “Which executive?”

“Your brother.”

Ug, Christopher is just the worst.

Gideon’s “private military security firm” think they’re cleared the threat but they’re still going to keep looking for any possible hard copies in existence.

We jump to later that night with Ireland (Gideon’s sister) hanging out with Gideon and Eva. There’s so little to write about here, that the filler is just filler for filler of Ireland not knowing how to use chopsticks properly and Gideon trying to learn how to be a big brother…with the power of banter.

“Ha! Look at that,” Ireland crowed, holding up a tiny bit of orange chicken, which she promptly ate. “Made it to my mouth.”

I swallowed the wine in my glass in a single gulp, wanting to say something. My mind raced with options, all of which sounded insincere and contrived. In the end what came out was, “The chopsticks have a large target. Ups your chances.”

There are still 48 pages left of this god damned chapter.

Because chopsticks and awkwardly forced brotherly banter aren’t exciting enough – Eva and Ireland start talking about Channing Tatum. Man, I sure hope they tell me their thoughts about One Direction next.

Gideon doesn’t want to risk sleeping that night in case he has a nightmare and Ireland overhears him freaking out. Ireland catches him up and they chat for awhile, with Ireland telling Gideon that her father is staying in a hotel and can Gideon please talk to his mother tomorrow to find out what’s going on. Then they watch a movie.

The next morning, Gideon and Eva have sex because there really was just not enough filler for this chapter, and for some reason it had to be more than 60 pages.

I feel like this might be incredibly annoying foreshadowing, though, so I’ll include it:

Eva and I had used condoms only twice. Before her, I’d never fucked a woman without one. Avoiding pregnancy was something I’d religiously adhered to.

Yet since those first two times with Eva, we’d gone bare, relying on her birth control to prevent conception.
It was a risk. I knew that. And considering how often I had her—at least two, sometimes three or four times a day—the risk was not inconsiderable.”

Let’s start placing bets on when Eva will get pregnant!

I thought of it sometimes. I questioned my control, my selfishness in putting my own pleasure above the consequences. But the reason for my recklessness wasn’t as simple as pleasure. If it were, I could deal. Be responsible.

No, it was much more complicated.

The need to come inside her was primitive. It was a conquest and surrender in one.

That is possibly the most uncomplicated reason I could have expected aside from, “No, it was much more complicated. I just didn’t feel like it.”

MORE FORESHADOWING:

“I wanted to come inside her. Wanted it enough to consider the risk—as terrifying as it was—acceptable.”

No, seriously, tell me your guess in the comments about when she’s gonna get pregnant. I actually haven’t read ahead in this book yet, so I feel like it could even happen at the end of this one!

Later that day, they drive Ireland home, and Gideon’s mother asks Gideon and even Eva to come inside the house.

“I’d like to apologize to both of you. I haven’t handled the news of your engagement well and I’m sorry about that. This should be a happy time for our family, and I’m afraid I’ve been too worried about losing my son to appreciate it.”

I don’t know, you guys, I don’t trust her.

To be fair, though, maybe she really is just trying to make peace, but man has she always come across as a majorly horrendous bitch. I know Eva isn’t 100% reliable, but I do get the feeling Gideon’s mom is one of those people who will change her behaviour in front of Gideon, but as soon as he leaves the room she’ll be an asshole to Eva again.

During the car ride back, Eva and Gideon fight because Eva and Gideon fight always. I really won’t bore you with too many details, but Eva is mad Gideon never got around to telling her about what his mother said to him about Eva. Then he turns it around because she never told him about Brett texting her. JESUS CHRIST, JUST TELL EACH OTHER EVERY SINGLE DETAIL OF YOUR DAY SO WE NEVER HAVE TO READ THESE KIND OF ARGUMENTS AGAIN, PLEASE.

Anyway, Eva threatens to withhold sex (please, do so) for a week, and Gideon’s response is barf-worthy as usual:

My arms crossed, too. “We’ve already talked about issuing ultimatums like that. You can bitch at me all you like, Eva, but I’ll have you when I want you. Period.

Anyway, they come to a resolution because Gideon points out that nothing his mother says about Eva really changes anything at all, and that he doesn’t want to hear if Cary and Eva’s father say anything bad about him. No one cares, but thanks for clearing that up, you two.

Anyway, mercifully this chapter is over, and now we can start discussing when Eva is going to have a baby.

Chapter 12: Eva

The chapter kicks off with these words, so at the very least it’s cutting to the chase:

I dared anyone to come up with a more awe-inspiring sight than Gideon Cross taking a shower.

Do recall that a mere six chapters ago, it was merely waking up to a naked Gideon Cross that did the trick for her. Is this a sign that their relationship is slowly falling to shambles?

Because the book hasn’t taken the time to explain this in, oh, roughly four pages, Eva explains how important sex is in their relationship.

I licked my lips when he casually stroked the heavy length of his cock. […] Since he’d met me, he didn’t pleasure himself anymore. Not because he couldn’t still satisfy me if he did, and not because I took care of him enough to make the effort redundant. For both of us, being ready for sex with each other was never a problem, because the hunger we felt was deeper than physical.

Just in case you skipped the first three books, and also the first 200 pages of this one.

“I’d hate to cut things short when they’re just getting interesting.”

Interesting? This happens seriously three or four times a chapter.

It’s been a while since I used this gif. It’s also been a while since anything happened in this book.

The book suddenly has a moment of incredible accidental self-awareness about how developed its characters are:

His face was impassive, a strikingly handsome mask that revealed nothing.

Your words, book.

On the way to work, the Brett subplot finally goes somewhere when Eva… picks up her phone!

“Damn it, I’ve been trying to reach you for a week!”
“I know. I’m sorry, I’ve been busy. How are you?”

We are currently on page 202. Just so we’re all on the same page here (…get it? Book humor!), it has taken 202 pages for this subplot to go from 1) Brett is trying to get in touch with Eva, to 2) Eva answers a call from Brett. You are now caught up on 202 pages of this subplot.

“I’ve been better. I need to see you.”
My brows rose. “When are you coming to town?”
He laughed harshly, a humorless sound that rubbed me the wrong way. “Incredible.”

If this entire subplot is “two people are exes and hurt each other a lot when they were together but now need to preserve the friendship for some reason”, maybe… maybe show why. Like at least once.

Eva and Brett arrange to get lunch, and Eva reassures Gideon that this doesn’t mean she’s leaving him. You might think that I’m exaggerating, or that after three and a half books Gideon would maybe have gotten just a little more secure about this sort of thing, but nope.

“There’s nothing for him,” I whispered, needing him to know that. “I’m too filled with you.”

In what is either the biggest relief or disappointment in this book, the next line is not, “…your dick!”

Eva gets into the office and makes note of how much happier Megumi looks. So it this the ending of the “Megumi has gone missing subplot!” that has been going on since the last book in the series? Megumi goes missing, but then comes back and explains why, and moves on in less time than she was missing? What did this add to the story? Eva has a new personal project looking into programs for abuse survivors, sure, but is Megumi’s character going to develop from this thing that happened to Megumi?

Sorry, all minor characters who aren’t Cary. EVA HAS TO LEARN FROM YOU. NOT YOU.

I have some thoughts about how this is just filler that just gives the main character another thing to react to and doesn’t even flesh out the minor character involved, but this isn’t particularly funny criticism, so here’s a madlib for making your own Megumi-style subplots!

Eva hasn’t seen (minor character) in some time! Eventually, (same minor character) returns, and says that they were (some sort of tragedy, usually pertaining to sex in some way) and that they feel (adjective) about it. Eva also feels (adjective) about it, and starts (verb)-ing because of it. Oh, and (same minor character) is okay too, btw

Feel free to leave your madlibs in the comments! I look forward to reading all your accounts about the time Cary was missing for a while because he went out to get a sandwich. Which I think would actually be more than he did in the third book.

At last at work, Eva and her boss, Mark, discuss their new project – the release of the PhazeOne video game console by Gideon’s rival company LanCorp. Eva is excited about the project, but given how Gideon’s Cross Industries GenTen console also has an upcoming release, she wonders if this might be a conflict of interest. Mark responds that LanCorp only cares about “our ability to deliver their vision”, which 1) brushes off one of the only interesting questions that has ever been asked in this book, and 2) displays a severe misunderstanding of how literally everything in this story revolves around Gideon and Eva’s sex life. There’s an “actually, it’s about ethics in-” joke to be made here, I’m sure, but ugh. I can’t.

Thankfully, the matter still bothers Eva, since I do think this is an actually interesting problem.

I wanted to feel relieved, but I didn’t. If we were awarded the PhazeOne campaign, I’d be helping one of Gideon’s competitors steal some of his market share. That really bothered me.

…although this seems like another straw on the camel’s back for Eva (quite reasonably) maintaining that she doesn’t have to work for her husband’s company and she can pursue her own professional goals, even though we all know she that at some point she totally will. I guess the best that can be said for this is that we didn’t expect video games to be a partial cause of it, so at least it’s that much goofier.

Eva gets her lunch with Brett, which naturally kicks off with an entire page of narration about how Brett and Gideon are different people. Again, in case you haven’t read the first three and a half books, I guess.

Brett [shifted] in that way men moved when their sexual interest was piqued. Other men, but not Gideon. […] Gideon had claimed me . . . and given himself to me in return. With a single look.

Also how he helped her back to her feet after she literally fell over when she saw how attractive he was, which was an actual thing that happened.

So. Eva and Brett’s just friends lunch.

“I couldn’t go back to you, Brett. Not after Gideon.”
“You say that now.”

Again, if all of their conversations continue to be “I WILL GET YOU BACK EVENTUALLY” and never anything else, why is the reader supposed to believe that it’s so important for Eva to maintain a speaking terms friendship with this guy? Every. Single. Conversation. Is just Brett trying to win Eva back. Never a “so what movies have you seen recently?” or “how’s the job going?” or “Is Cary still insane, by the way?” Just constant, exhausting pleas to leave her new partner for him. Just saying, more believable literary friendships have existed between not friends.

Feeling a little more love here, for instance.

When Brett’s latest attempt inevitably goes laughably awfully…

He pulled a folded photograph out and set it on the table in front of me.
“Look at that,” he said tightly, “and tell me we didn’t have something real.”

Thus confirming what we knew all along: that Six-Ninths is this book’s Nickelback

The conversation makes it way to the sex tape, which Brett readily admits the entire band has seen, because – I shit you not – they were watching sex tapes from all the band members to make their documentary about “the rise of the band”.

I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP.

“The whole point was to document the rise of the band, Eva. We had to sort through it all. […] The other guys had stuff, too.”

Haven’t Six-Ninths had, like, one hit song? In 2015? And suddenly the world wants to see every band member having sex? How the fuck does the music industry work in this book?

Eventually Eva storms off in anger (not before Brett goes “You need to see, Eva. Then you’ll understand.” …about a sex tape) and finds Gideon there, who has followed them to their lunch.

He’d known this meeting with Brett wouldn’t go well.

Yes, Eva. Let us look into our goddamn crystal ball and figure this one out.

As Eva’s work day winds down, she reflects on the events of the chapter with Sylvia Day’s usual quality of prose.

What an afternoon.

Yes it was, Eva. Yes it was.

This actually happened, for instance.

Allegiant Chapter 23

The chapter opens with Fourbias reading a note from Nita asking him to meet her. I’m really not sure what Nita’s game is (or her purpose in the story – is it to serve as a potential threat to Tris/Fourbias? It is to take the book to new, even more boring heights?)

“I look at Tris’s cot. She’s sprawled on her back, and there is a piece of hair covering her nose and mouth that shifts with each exhale. I don’t want to wake her, but I feel strange, going to meet a girl in the middle of the night without telling her about it. Especially now that we’re trying so hard to be honest with each other.

I check my watch. It’s ten to eleven.

Nita’s just a friend. You can tell Tris tomorrow. It might be urgent.”

With that very convincing thought, Fourbias heads off to meet Nita. Who is his friend that he’s talked to all of two times.

Nita takes Fourbias to see the “Chicago family trees”, which is just an excuse for Fourbias to list minor characters and their family members. I can honestly say that in a book where fucking nothing is happening, this is one of the most useless things that could have been included. Why not also include a detailed blueprint of Tris’ old house in the Abnegation sector? I need details like where Tris’ toilet was in order to experience the full richness of this universe.

Fourbias points out that this is cool and all (it isn’t), but why was this so very urgent? Turns out Nita really wants to talk about the fact that she doesn’t think that just because they’re “damaged” doesn’t mean they should have limits. Given we still have yet to see how Fourbias and Nita are actually any fucking different than Tris (other than the fact that they’re just different people to begin with), this feels a lot like arguing that chocolate ice cream should have chocolate in it. NO SHIT.

“There are a lot of secrets in this place,” she says. “One of them is that, to them, a GD is expendable. Another is that some of us are not just going to sit back and take it.”

“What do you mean, expendable?” I say.

“The crimes they have committed against people like us are serious,” Nita says. “And hidden. I can show you evidence, but that will have to come later. For now, what I can tell you is that we’re working against the Bureau, for good reasons, and we want you with us.”

Nita wants to show Fourbias what it’s like outside the compound, but he can’t tell Tris. But why can’t Tris know about all this, you ask? Let this convoluted and confusing explanation mesmerize you:

“I’m not saying she isn’t trustworthy. It’s just that she doesn’t have the skill set we need, and we don’t want to put anyone at risk that we don’t have to. See, the Bureau doesn’t want us to organize. If we believe we’re not ‘damaged,’ then we’re saying that everything they’re doing—the experiments, the genetic alterations, all of it—is a waste of time. And no one wants to hear that their life’s work is a sham.”

Oh my god, I feel like the book is acknowledging the fact THAT THIS WHOLE SERIES IS A WASTE OF TIME. Maybe? Too hopeful, I think. But seriously, it does seem like these experiments are incredibly pointless.

As they head out to meet Nita’s mystery friends, she tries really hard to emotionally connect/flirt with Fourbias by talking about his fear landscape and time in Dauntless. I really get the sense she’s been watching Fourbias all this time and become obsessed with him. Creepy! I’m sure it’s not actually meant to be, though.

Nita’s friends live on the outskirts of society, and it’s because even though everyone has the same rights “on paper” life is a lot shittier for the genetically damaged folks. I’ll spare you a quote of the very heavy-handed symbolism. Instead, I give you this:

“We’re here to see Rafi,” she says. “We’re from the compound.”

“You can go in, but your knives stay here,” the man says. His voice is higher, lighter than I expected. He could be a gentle man, maybe, if this were a different kind of place. As it is, I see that he isn’t gentle, doesn’t even know what that means.

Even though I myself have discarded any kind of softness as useless, I find myself thinking that something important is lost if this man has been forced to deny his own nature.”

How in fuck’s name has Fourbias determined all of this from not only one sentence BUT HIS VOICE ITSELF? SORCERY!

Plus, you could make this argument for literally anyone. Like I feel like I should have been born a billionaire because I feel like I’m denying my luxurious nature by not living in a mansion. Something important has definitely been lost because I’ve been forced to deny my nature. You could immediately glean this information about me if you just listened to the pitch of my voice for 10 seconds, I assure you.

Four is introduced to Mary and Rafi who are leading one group involved in the uprising.

Fatigue, a weight behind my eyes, creeps up on me suddenly. I have been a part of too many uprisings in my short life. The factionless, and now this GD one, apparently.

I have to sympathise with Fourbias here, it is kind of getting ridiculous. He needs to just be like, “I don’t care anymore, please lead me to the most delicious food you have here on the outside.”

Fourbias thinks that this place outside the compound is actually horrible – he sees a man beaten to death, and one of the guards is like, “That happens like every day here.” – but Nita insists it’s totally better than in a city because they’re sort of freer here.

“The Bureau talks about this golden age of humanity before the genetic manipulations in which everyone was genetically pure and everything was peaceful,” Nita says. “But Rafi showed me old photographs of war.”

I wait a beat. “So?”

“So?” Nita demands, incredulous. “If genetically pure people caused war and total devastation in the past at the same magnitude that genetically damaged people supposedly do now, then what’s the basis for thinking that we need to spend so many resources and so much time working to correct genetic damage? What’s the use of the experiments at all, except to convince the right people that the government is doing something to make all our lives better, even though it’s not?”

Yes, we get it book, people will always find reasons to separate themselves into groups, to marginalize people, to grant one group better treatment and power even when the differences are lies or completely imagined. Do you want a cookie?

Tris and Nita can’t figure out exactly what the point of everything is, why the government wastes so many resources on something completely pointless. So I end this chapter in exactly the same position I started in, giving absolutely no fucks.