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

Chapter 45

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

Chapter 46

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reading Insurgent is basically 500 pages of people doing this.

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

Four suddenly reappears and takes Caleb with him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

…drink?

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 47

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

Tori and Harrison-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aw snap! That sucks! Thanks, Tris!

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

Mhm. Indeed! Thanks, Tris!

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

Thanks. Tris.

THANKS, TRIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Basically how this book wants us to see Tobias.

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

…DESPERATELY wants us to see Tobias

Okay, ready for number two?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“From our technology.”

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

“From our societal structure.”

So they came up with the faction system???

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

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

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

Oh my goodness, you have to be kidding.

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

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

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

DRINK

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

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

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

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

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

Me, reading every word of this chapter.

Seriously. Of all the things to suspend dis-

Prior.

THANKS. TRIS.

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

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

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

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

And that this is more than a little ironic?

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

Question of the day! What the fuck?

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

~hello, darkness, my old friend~

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

Chapter 3: Tris

My first chapter starts out agreeably enough.

“I think you’re all idiots.”

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

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

Apparently I have an episodic memory of Lizzie McGuire still

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

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

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

She knows that whoever holds the guns holds the power.

Who doesn’t know that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evelyn raises a pretty ok counterpoint.

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

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

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

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

But first, delightfully clunky symbolism.

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 4: Tobias

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

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

Ugh, mommmm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

YAY NO SIMULATIONS

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

STILL WAY BETTER THAN READING MORE SIMULATIONS

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

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

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

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

No, we’re still not done yet.

Chapter 7: Tris

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck, you guys.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Train jumping.

That is all.

Chapter 9: Tris

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

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

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

Also, this fucking train jumping scene.

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

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

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

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

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

We then meet the leaders of the Allegiant:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Allegiant Chapter 11: Tris

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

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

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

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

Tris also describes her intense anger with Caleb:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Weirdest” is a word.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Allegiant Chapter 12: Tobias

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow, that contradicted itself fast.

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

OF COURSE IT’S A SERUM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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?

[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?

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.

Today we’re halfway through the book! Remember that group of characters who called themselves Allegiants and served as this book’s namesake? I don’t.

Chapter 24: Tris

In the series’ spirit of uncovering THE TRUTH, today’s first chapter kicks off with finally tackling a question no one cares about:

I turn to Christina. […] “What’s going on with you and Uriah?”

To be fair, I don’t care about any of the questions currently unresolved in this book, so, sure. I’ll bite. What’s up with Christina and Uriah? I mean, they’re totally together, like, all the time now. Just ignore how that’s mostly because this series has killed off all their other friends by this point.

Christina doesn’t clearly answer whether they’re hooking up or nothing’s going on or what, but she does make it clear that she’s not interested in a relationship with Uriah because “he can’t have a serious conversation to save his life”. This is apparently a character trait of Uriah’s. Now I know.

Christina then asks the much more important question of whether Tris and Four have banged each other yet. And if you thought the sentence I just wrote to describe this was cringe-worthy, wait until you see what’s actually written in the book:

“Where have you been lately? […] With Four? Doing a little . . . addition? Multiplication?”

These are less “euphemisms for sex” and more “things children learn to do with numbers”.

Their conversation shifts over to that whole “genetic damage” business, as everything always does in this book. Christina says that it makes her angry, because there’s nothing she can do about it. Tris makes a surprisingly good point about how this book doesn’t make a lick of sense.

“I’m just saying that doesn’t mean one set is damaged and one set isn’t. The genes for blue eyes and brown eyes are different too, but are blue eyes ‘damaged’? It’s like they just arbitrarily decided that one kind of DNA was bad and the other was good.”

Why, yes, it is like Veronica Roth the Bureau arbitrarily made this decision and now we all have to live with it.

“I guess I don’t see a reason to believe in genetic damage.”

You and me both, Tris. You and me both.

“Isn’t looking at the result of a belief a good way of evaluating if it’s true?”
“Sounds like a Stiff way of thinking.” She pauses. “I guess my way is very Candor, though. God, we really can’t escape factions no matter where we go, can we?”

Trust me, if this book ever once stopped trying to explain absolutely everything in terms of factions, I would have noticed.

Fourbias shows up and Christina leaves so they can have sexy sexy makeout times, but, lo, they do not have sexy sexy makeout times. Fourbias instead tells Tris about his late night adventure with Nita to the fringe, but Tris is much more concerned about a very different late night adventure with Nita to the fringe.

If you follow my drift.

“She promised to show me evidence. Tonight.” He takes my hand. “I’d like you to come.”
“And Nita will be okay with that?”
“I don’t really care.” His fingers slide between mine. “If she really needs my help, she’ll have to figure out how to be okay with it.”

This is a surprisingly sweet moment from Fourbias! So according to Newton’s third law of young adult fiction, Tris must have an equal and opposite reaction:

“I’ll go. But don’t for a second think that I actually believe she’s not interested in you for more than your genetic code.”

When did this book get so sexy?

Chapter 25: Tobias

That night, Tobias brings Tris to meet Nita. Nita is initially annoyed, but – much like the discerning reader – almost immediately becomes completely indifferent to Tris and Tobias and their petty squabbles. Go Nita.

Tris laughs, harshly. “That’s what you told him, that he would be protecting me? That’s a pretty skillful manipulation. Well done.” […]
Nita doesn’t look angry anymore, just tired […] “You could be arrested just for knowing what you know and not reporting it. I thought it would be better to avoid that. […] I would rather have both of you than neither of you, and I’m sure that’s the implied ultimatum,” Nita says, rolling her eyes.

Nita takes them to meet new character Reggie, who is also “genetically damaged”, to show them what they’re there to see. Naturally, he pulls it up on a tablet, because all centuries-old documents that the government is hiding from public access are available electronically.

It takes me only a few seconds to realize that they are photographs of suffering: narrow, pinched children with huge eyes, ditches full of bodies, huge mounds of burning papers. The photographs move so fast, like book pages fluttering in the breeze, that I get only impressions of horrors.

Why are the photographs moving too fast to see? Isn’t it assumed that Reggie put them on the tablet himself?

Reggie brings up a photograph with a man in uniform holding a gun and points. “That kind of gun is incredibly old. The guns used in the Purity War were much more advanced. Even the Bureau would agree with that. It’s gotta be from a really old conflict. Which must have been waged by genetically pure people.”

Holy shit, you guys. You know what this means? There’s another conspiracy at the heart of Divergent!

BWAAAAAAA

Despite everything since the climax of the first book being 100% about Tris’s struggles with governments trying to kill her and other people, Tris suddenly doesn’t get that the government is trying to kill people.

“Okay.” Tris’s head bobs, and she’s talking too fast, nervous. “So they’re lying about your— our history. That doesn’t mean they’re the enemy, it just means they’re a group of grossly misinformed people trying to… better the world. In an ill-advised way.”
Nita and Reggie glance at each other.
“That’s the thing,” Nita says. “They’re hurting people.”

Yeah, come on, Tris. You should know this. There’s all the social conditioning making people discriminate and kill each other both in and out of the experiments, which were allowed to go on even when the test subjects starting mass murdering other test subjects…

“Jeanine wanted to stifle [Abnegation] . . . the Bureau was all too happy to provide her with an incredibly advanced simulation serum”

…or there’s another goddamn conspiracy.

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Nita explains that the Bureau supplied Jeanine with the serum the Erudite used to make their brainwashed armies. For… some reason. And now it’s time for a couple pages of what is both my favorite and least favorite part of Divergent: seeing what mental gymnastics the book goes through to try to make this sound like it makes sense.

That’s the attack simulation serum.
“Now why would the Bureau have this unless they had developed it?”

…I suppose “because you just told me so” is the actual explanation, then, since the book has specifically said that the Chicago experiment further developed this very serum. Except when it didn’t, when it’s relevant for the plot.

“Why?” […]
“You’ve seen what’s happened now that the city knows the truth: […] Many people will die. Telling the truth risks the safety of the experiment, no question.”

Yet somehow supplying the experiment with guns and mind-control drugs doesn’t.

WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING IN THIS BOOK ANYMORE

“the Bureau probably thought, better that the Abnegation should suffer a great loss— even at the expense of several Divergent— than the whole city suffer a great loss.”

This is the most short-sighted solution I’ve heard to a problem since I went to a bottomless brunch to deal with a hangover.

I’m not a doctor.

Four provides a handy summary of what Divergent‘s conspiracy within a conspiracy about a conspiracy is now:

Most of [the Abnegation] are dead. Murdered, at the hands of the Dauntless, at the urging of Jeanine, with the power of the Bureau to back her.

The most predictable line that could possibly follow this follows this:

“And now, things could get even worse.”

What? Oh no! Even worse?

How can the civilization that intentionally divided itself into jingoistic factions against itself before one conspired to massacre the others before another faction that’s not a faction but all those factions are jingoistic against conspired to massacre the other others before we learned it was all a conspiracy by an outside government that was actually part of a bigger conspiracy against the other other others outside the experiment but also conspired a conspiracy for the conspiracy within the conspiracy to keep up the other conspiracy get worse?

“The government has been threatening to shut down the experiments for almost a year now,” Nita says.

Wait, this sounds like the only thing that could possibly improve the current situation. What am I missing?

MAYBE A CONSPIRACY?

“The experiments keep falling apart because the communities can’t live in peace, and David keeps finding ways to restore peace just in the nick of time. And if anything else goes wrong in Chicago, he can do it again. He can reset all the experiments at any time.”

Hey, this just reminded me that we’re on page 269, exactly halfway through the book, and we still don’t have a primary antagonist yet.

Nita says tersely, “Their entire lives erased, against their will, for the sake of solving a genetic damage ‘problem’ that doesn’t actually exist.”

I get that this would be a bad thing to have happen, but they’re already living a lie for the sake of this very same problem. This is like watching The Matrix and siding against Trinity and Morpheus because sometimes they have to let people die during their fight to save all of humanity from enslavement.

I mean, ugh, cut it out.

Suddenly I don’t care what Nita’s plan is, as long as it means striking the Bureau as hard as we can.

Just like this book is desperately hoping its readers don’t and do care about, respectively.

Nita describes her plan to break into the Weapons Lab and steal the memory serum from the Bureau. I guess it’s presumed that they only have whatever serum is there, it is located nowhere else, and no one knows how to make it.

Tris also thinks this is a dumb plan, and furthermore tells Nita that she doesn’t believe her.

“Whatever you intend to do, I think it’s far worse than stealing some serum.”

For some reason, literally no one reacts to this seemingly severe accusation.

“I never said this was all I was ever going to do. It’s not always wise to strike as hard as you can at the first opportunity.”

Four agrees to help them out, unsure why Tris doesn’t “feel the same desperation inside her”. When they leave, Tris continues to insist that Nita has some nefarious purpose.

“She’s lying. Why can’t you see that?”
“Because it’s not there […] I think your judgment might be clouded by something else. Something like jealousy.”

“Remember what happened last time you didn’t trust my ‘snap judgments’?” Tris says coldly. “You found out that I was right.”

BREAKING: Tris now just knows shit. We are in fucking House of Night territory here.

“now you’re going along with this because you’re desperate not to be damaged—”
The word shivers through me.
“I am not damaged,” I say quietly.

Oh shiiiii-

I start toward the door, and as my hand closes around the handle, she says, “Just leaving so that you can have the last word, that’s really mature!”
“So is being suspicious of someone’s motives just because she’s pretty,” I say. “I guess we’re even.”

Am I an awful person if this was hands-down my favorite two paragraphs of the entire Divergent trilogy so far?

Question of the Day: Who do you think the primary antagonist in this book is, whenever they eventually show up? David? Nita? Evelyn again? The concept of conspiracies themselves?

Ugh, you guys, I got into a conversation that started as a totally innocuous “my kids are really into Divergent and it’s so dumb” conversation, and then rapidly went downhill into a “in a world full of men, a girl saves the world?” conversation, which was totally not what I signed up for, and all I wanted in the first place was coffee.

Anyway, today we go into actual reasons why Divergent is terrible. You will recognize most of them are very familiar, because this story certainly could have ended a half thousand words ago.

Chapter 27: Tris

Currently, Nita and a bunch of nondescript minor characters have blown some shit up. Nita and nondescript minor character #7 has David (the leader of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, in case you have no idea who just came in through the Divergent revolving door of important characters) at gunpoint, demanding that he open the door.

“I don’t believe you’ll shoot me,” he says. “Because I’m the only one in this building who knows this information, and you want that serum.” […]
The man and Nita exchange a look. Then the man shifts the gun down, to David’s feet, and fires.

The stakes certainly do feel real, at the exact middle of a book, where antagonists we met a few chapters ago are trying to take a thing we learned about roughly two chapters ago.

This is why we never find out what’s in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. Because it doesn’t really matter.

Tris can tell some shit’s about to go down, and tells Matthew (still not me) to go get help. When he leaves, Nita moves on to phase 2 of her plan and prepares to inject David with a combination of truth serum and fear serum. Nondescript minor character #7 helpfully reminds us how many times this has been retconned.

“Thought you said that stuff doesn’t work on him,” the man with the gun says.
“I said he could resist it, not that it didn’t work at all,” she says.

Remember when these books were all about how the Divergent were immune to serums? Except when the plot got too complicated and now they’re not? But sort of? Maybe later we’ll find out it’s more potent if you take it in edible form.

David offers an argument that could be generously described as “not compelling”:

“I know this is just the fault of your genes, Nita,”

And Nita suddenly goes full-on evil:

Nita smiles a twisted smile. With relish, she sticks the needle in his neck and presses the plunger.

David starts flipping out and Nita promises to make whatever hallucination he’s experiencing stop if he opens the door for them. We also just sort of ignore how if he’s totally not lucid while he’s making such a promise, it might be hard to later reinforce. Rather than take the story into this obvious cycle of something pointless happening, then it not mattering, then something else pointless happening, and so on (aside from the story as a whole, mind you), Tris just starts shooting up the place.

“Her,” David says, pointing at the space in front of him.
Pointing at me. I stretch my arms around the corner of the wall and fire twice.
The first bullet hits the wall. The second hits the man in the arm, so the huge weapon topples to the floor.

So… who’s she shooting at, exactly? The government guy that she hates? The underclass anarchists that she hates? The group of people with guns and explosives who are sort of ok with her and are not currently shooting at her?

“Tris,” Nita says, “you don’t know what you’re doing—”
“You’re probably right,” I say, and I fire again.

Tris’s character motivation can be summed up with a single emoji. You know this to be true.

No, seriously, this doesn’t make any sense. Who the fuck is Tris shooting at? And why?

I hit Nita’s side, right above her hip.

Ok, she’s shooting at the anarchists!

David surges toward me with a grimace of pain […] Then I press one of my guns to the back of his head.

And at David! That… wait… ok, I’m going to humbly propose that if it isn’t readily apparent why your main character has a gun pointed at someone, maybe that character’s motivation could use a little work.

Use it at your next creative writing workshop!

To be fair, this does make a little more sense after Tris starts explaining things, but isn’t that sort of worse? Would a Clint Eastwood movies or Star Wars or something seem ok if after a firefight, everything stopped and someone went, “Here’s why I shot those people, by the way.”

“Fire, and I’ll shoot him in the head,” I say.
“You wouldn’t kill your own leader,” the red-haired woman says.
“He’s not my leader. I don’t care if he lives or dies,” I say. “But if you think I’m going to let you gain control of that death serum, you’re insane.”

Tris tries to back away and leave with David, but nondescript minor character #3 shoots at her and grazes her. Then Matthew comes back with more people, who shoot at Nita and company. Everyone’s just shooting people. You’re all caught up now.

I can’t believe I did it.

Not even Tris knows why she’s fucking shooting at people.

Chapter 28: Tris

Everyone goes to the hospital (on account of all the everyone shooting at everyone) and Tris gets medical attention on her bullet graze. We learn that David will live and that Nita will live. So in a way, the story is back where it was before a firefight, which is a really weird thing to have not really alter your status quo. (Sure, they’re probably not super happy with Nita right now, but do you really think that will change whether these characters eventually pull guns on each other again?)

I feel strangely separate from her pain.

How funny. That makes two of us.

Christina shows up because she hasn’t been doing anything in this book aside from communicating information to Tris, and we learn that we don’t know if Uriah is ok and that genetics-racism exists. I mean, yeah, we already knew that, probably, but we just can’t know for sure unless Tris spells it out for us!

“They won’t tell anyone anything. They won’t let us see him. It’s like they think they own him and everything that happens to him!”
“They work differently here. I’m sure they’ll tell you when they know something concrete.”
“Well, they would tell you,” she says, scowling. “But I’m not convinced they would give me a second look.”
A few days ago I might have disagreed with her, unsure how influential their belief in genetic damage was on their behavior. I’m not sure what to do— not sure how to talk to her now that I have these advantages and she does not

We also learn that Tobias was arrested for his involvement with the anarchists.

In today’s chapters, the old story back in the Chicago experiment very slightly progresses, and the new story in the Bureau also very slightly progresses. We also notice that something kinda interesting almost happens: since Tris and Tobias are spending more time apart, they’re on completely different sides of this divide.

Ok, hopefully I got you pumped up enough to read about another two chapters of Allegiant, because they’re still two chapters of Allegiant.

Chapter 31: Tobias

Tobias feels guilty about his role in the attempted coup against the Bureau, but wanders into the HQ to watch the monitors of the Chicago experiment. He does this right as Marcus and Johanna begin a secret meeting to progress the plot, which is remarkably fortunate timing.

“I knew you stayed in the city,” she says. “They’re looking all over for you.”

It’s like no matter where anyone goes in this story, nothing happens anyway.

Marcus explains his incredibly vague plan to reclaim the city from Evelyn and the factionless.

“Evelyn controls the city because she controls the weapons. If we take those weapons away, she won’t have nearly as much power”

Holy shit, Marcus, you just solved every problem in the world! How do we resolve tension in the middle east? Take away all the weapons in the middle east! How do we alleviate worries that terrorists might acquire nuclear weapons? Take away all the nuclear weapons! And why stop there? Marcus’s “take away the problem and the problem is gone” plan can do anything! Let’s take away racism! Then racism isn’t a problem anymore! GUYS, THIS IS SUCH A GREAT PLAN! I don’t see how Johanna could possibly say no to a plan so detailed and totally real as this one!

Marcus says. “I contacted you because I thought you were a friend.”
“I thought you contacted me because you know I’m still the leader of the Allegiant, and you want an ally,” Johanna says […] “They told me what your boy said when he was under truth serum. That nasty rumor Jeanine Matthews spread about you and your son . . . it was true, wasn’t it?”

Don’t get too excited. She still immediately agrees to Marcus’s completely substance-less plan anyway.

“Let me join you in leading the Allegiant,” he says. “I was an Abnegation leader. I was practically the leader of this entire city. People will rally behind me.”
“People have rallied already,” Johanna points out. “And not behind a person, but behind the desire to reinstate the factions. Who says I needyou?”
“Not to diminish your accomplishments, but the Allegiant are still too insignificant to be any more than a small uprising,” Marcus says. “There are more factionless than any of us knew. You do need me. You know it.” […]
Carefully, Johanna says to him, “Can you promise me that you will, wherever possible, try to limit the destruction we will cause?”

How the rest of this book will go, contained in one gif

Why does this happen? Johanna has just learned that Marcus is a monster who lied about abusing his child and spouse for years, and this is the plan that forces her to side with him anyway? Ugh, fuck the old story. Let’s go see what Tris is up to with the new story.

Chapter 32: Tris

Over in the new story that’s completely replaced the dumb, ol’ Chicago experiment story anyway (Remember when this story was what the entire first two books were about? Fuck that noise! That was sooo one book ago!), David summons Tris to his office. Tris is worried this will be awkward, since their last encounter ended with Tris using him as a human shield of sorts, but it’s ok, because she’s also worried about boys.

Uriah is still in a coma. I still can’t look at Tobias […] I’m not sure when, or if, anything will ever get better, not sure if these wounds are the kind that can heal.

Tris once again rediscovers the theme that people are complicated and don’t fit into evil/not evil categories.

David sits in a wheelchair […] Though I know that he had something to do with the attack simulation, and with all those deaths, I find it difficult to pair those actions with the man I see in front of me.

Unless they’re Erudite, of course.

David thanks Tris for her role in saving his life and the Bureau, and tells her that – while they still don’t know what to actually do with all her friends that escaped the Chicago experiment – he would like her to begin training to be on the group of councilors that runs the Bureau.

And so Divergent flips the coin of character motivation…

The councilors are probably the same people who authorized the attack simulation and ensured that it was passed on to Jeanine at the right time. And he wants me to sit among them, learn to become them.
“I’m sorry,” I say slowly. “I don’t think this is something I’m ready for at this time.”
“I see,” David says. I take note of the disappointment on his face. I hope I bought myself some time.

So I guess that’s her decision about that! Except it’s totally not. I made that dialogue up. Here’s what she really says:

“Of course,” I say, and smile. “I would be honored.”
If someone offers you an opportunity to get closer to your enemy, you always take it. I know that without having learned it from anyone.

But did you believe me the first time? Does it necessarily make more sense, based on how we know Tris thinks and what (if anything) is motivating her right now, that she would say yes instead of no? We even have a “I just knew” in here! We’re literally making up her motivation on the spot here, so this is another case where the characters’ decisions are a bit more like…

Tris uses her new connection with David to ask about his relationship with her mother. For some reason. Because as you might imagine, this immediately gets weird.

“You were . . . close with my mother, while she was here?” I say. […]
Yes, we were close, your mother and I.” His voice softens when he talks about her— he is no longer the toughened leader of this compound, but an old man, reflecting on some fonder past.

If it’s after 2007 and your character’s thing is that he had unrequited love for the main character’s dead mom, we all 100% know where you got that idea from.

The book elaborates on this point with Veronica Roth’s usual talent for subtlety:

The past that happened before he got her killed.

“Subtlety”

David also reveals that he remembers that Tris threatened to shoot him in the Weapons Lab, but explains that he sees this as a good thing, because it shows that Tris is willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. Tris takes the opportunity to ask what would have happened if Nita and co simply blew up the door into the Weapons Lab.

The answer is, of course, another serum.

“A serum would have been released into the air… one that masks could not have protected against, because it is absorbed into the skin,” says David. “One that even the genetically pure cannot fight off. I don’t know how Nita knows about it, since it’s not supposed to be public knowledge, but I suppose we’ll find out some other time.”

Who wants to place a bet that Nita learned this through yet another serum too?

Chapter 34: Tris

As part of the beginning of her training to join the Bureau of Genetic Welfare council, Tris goes on a visit to the impoverished wasteland known as the fringe. As is obviously the most necessary thing 2/3 of the way into this last book of a trilogy, it’s time to meet MORE NEW CHARACTERS.

First, we meet members of the Bureau’s security team! Which for some reason we did not meet during the attack on the Bureau a few chapters ago, but shhhhhhh

• Amar – who isn’t technically new, but he’s Tobias’s old mentor (whose existence we didn’t know until he showed up and said, “Hi, I’m Tobias’s old mentor”). I can’t remember if we’ve seen him once or twice previously, which isn’t a great sign for a new character we’re now maybe wrapping up this series with to have never been memorable.
• George – Tori’s brother, who is not technically new either, but given how previously his entire role in the narrative was to be not-Tori, he might as well be
• Jack – some guy!
• Violet – some lady!
• Ann – yet another lady! But I bet you know just as much about her as you do about Amar and George!

The six of them get into a truck and drive out to the fringe on a mission to set up “more extensive surveillance” after the most recent attack. Tris and Amar also have a philosophical debate about whether genetic damage is real, which by this point in the story is as enjoyable and meaningful as asking random people on Twitter whether misogyny is real.

“So you believe it all? All the stuff about genetic damage being the cause of . . . this?” […]
“You don’t?” Amar says. “The way I see it, the earth has been around for a long, long time. Longer than we can imagine. And before the Purity War, no one had ever done this, right?” He waves his hand to indicate the world outside.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I find it hard to believe that they didn’t.”
“Such a grim view of human nature you have,” he says.

Just in case we weren’t sure about this point about how people buy into the social constructs they’re given – which has been, you know, the major theme of the entire Divergent series for the past two and two-thirds of a book – Tris explains what this means again:

Evelyn tried to control people by controlling weapons, but Jeanine was more ambitious— she knew that when you control information, or manipulate it, you don’t need force to keep people under your thumb. They stay there willingly.

And again:

That is what the Bureau— and the entire government, probably— is doing: conditioning people to be happy under its thumb.

Even if you like these books (maybe especially if you like these books), I’m pretty unsure how you could get to page 345 of the third book and not already get this concept. For a book that’s so weirdly (if unintentionally) anti-intellectual (see Erudite), it’s really weird how much of it is the book trying really, really, really, really hard to sound smart. Case in point:

How many different kinds of ruin do you have to see before you resign yourself to calling it all “ruin”?

Tris and the gang of five minor characters reach a populated part of the fringe, which sends the locals running away and screaming in terror. After walking around a bit, they hear gunshots and George screaming for help. Tris gets separated from the group in the commotion, but is taken in by… a small old woman?

A hand closes around my arm and drags me backward, into one of the aluminum lean-tos. […] standing in front of me is a small, thin woman with a grubby face.
“You don’t want to be out there,” she says. “They’ll lash out at anyone, no matter how young she is.”
“They?” I say.
“Lots of angry people here in the fringe,”

The random woman continues to help Tris for no clear reason. They too begin to discuss the relevant sociopolitical issues of their time. As you do.

“[Y]ou must be Genetic Welfare types, right?”
“No,” I say. “I mean, they are, but I’m from the city. I mean, Chicago.”
Amy’s eyebrows pop up high. “Damn. Has it been disbanded?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate?” I frown at her. “That’s my home you’re talking about, you know.”

Because even though the book has been painstakingly spelling out how bad the genetic modification experiments are for two and two-thirds of a book, usually by Tris’s own narration, Tris still doesn’t get that the Chicago experiment was bad.

“Well your home is perpetuating the belief that genetically damaged people need to be fixed— that they’re damaged, period, which they— we— are not.” […]
I hadn’t thought about it that way.

This is so 1300 pages ago, Tris

Amy arbitrarily decides it’s safe for Tris to leave now, having fulfilled whatever her role in the plot was supposed to be. Tris immediately runs into George, who is held at gunpoint by some young people living on the fringe, demanding to know where “you’ve been taking our people!” Before this can get interesting, Amar also appears and the outnumbered fringe youths scatter. Tris continues to provide incredibly useless insights into the events of the world around her.

I wonder who taught these people to be so terrified of soldiers. I wonder what made a young boy desperate enough to aim a gun at one of them.

The book half-asses its explanation for why Tris and co are even out there in the first place:

“Luckily, that’s the last set of coordinates,” Violet says. “Let’s get going.”

Why are we out here? COORDINATES. Why are you still asking questions? We have shit to coordinate with these coordinates!

Then we also learn that Amar is gay and used to have an unrequited crush on Four, because I guess this is as logical a time for him to reveal personal information to a relative stranger as anything as that happens in this book. To be fair, the book finally does some interesting world-building into this genetics-obsessed society. For, like, a paragraph, but check it:

“You have to understand,” Amar says. “The Bureau is obsessed with procreation— with passing on genes. And George and I are both GPs, so any entanglement that can’t produce a stronger genetic code . . . It’s not encouraged, that’s all.”

Amar also tells Tris that Four seems to be a more stable person with Tris:

Four without you is a much different person. He’s . . . obsessive, explosive, insecure . . .”
“Obsessive?”
“What else do you call someone who repeatedly goes through his own fear landscape?”

The fact that he was doing that while he was with Tris notwithstanding, of course.

Question of the Day: I genuinely liked this last bit here about Divergent-world’s spin on homophobia and how this character struggles with it. It’s a short, but sweet glimpse at how a facet of society has been influenced by the sci fi world it exists in. It also retrospectively sheds an interesting light on the deathbed coming out of the last character we learned was LGBTQ, and why there might have been more to them hiding that part of their identity then we thought. Of course, none of this might have been intentional, but that doesn’t matter (intentional fallacy, blah blah blah), if there’s something interesting to engage with in there.

What other stuff would you be genuinely interested to know about the genetic purity-obsessed world of Divergent that the book will probably never answer because it’s still not sure if we get that genetic purity is a bad thing to be obsessed about?

So. You’ve probably heard about this.

Holy crap.

Yep. It’s real. It’s really happening. It is out in two weeks, on June 18th. Because that’s Christian Grey’s birthday. To reiterate, it’s real. [Ariel says: But like IS the title meant to be written all in caps? Are we meant to sound eternally excited when we discuss this wondrous text?] [Matthew says: I know I’M excited to spend the next couple months constantly styling it as GREY.]

To answer a question almost as obvious as whether or not E L James was going to write this book from Christian’s perspective, yes, of course we are reading it. It’ll be our next Monday/Tuesday book, but since the book’s not out for another two weeks, we have a little bit of time to kill. And what better way to kill time than with books about a time-traveling tree house?

Yes, I am very proud to have put the two books covers that I did into this post. Very proud.

Next week we’ll be picking up whichever one sounds the most ridiculous to you guys. Vote early, vote often!

And now back to our regularly scheduled dystopian YA.

Allegiant Chapter 37: Tris

Tris shows up at David’s office for her first council meeting, thus providing the one missing thing that promised to make this book more boring: local politics. It’s so boring, Tris is already getting stoned.

I still feel a little weight in my limbs from the truth serum Cara, Caleb, and Matthew tested on me earlier, as part of our plan. They’re trying to develop a powerful truth serum, one that even GPs as serum-resistant as I am are not immune to.

Somehow a Tris-immune serum sounds like the Divergent-version of dividing by zero. I’m more nervous about the implications of a drug that not even the most special of the specials is immune to than I am about the goddamned coup happening over in the Chicago experiment. Speaking of which:

“Last night I received a frantic call from the people in our control room,” David says. “Evidently Chicago is about to erupt into violence again. Faction loyalists calling themselves the Allegiant have rebelled against factionless control, attacking weapons safe houses. What they don’t know is that Evelyn Johnson has discovered a new weapon— stores of death serum kept hidden in Erudite headquarters.”

For what feels like the 9874th time, who the hell designed this experiment? Why is this entirely procreation-focused experiment littered with instruments of death?

“The experiments are already in danger of being shut down if we cannot prove to our superiors that we are capable of controlling them.”

Maybe they doubt your ability to control the experiments because YOU PUT GUNS AND DEATH DRUGS IN THEM.

This is something like how I imagine the elevator pitch for the Chicago experiment must have gone down

David declares that this cannot happen, Tris helpfully explains that she doesn’t think David will let this happen (just in case you’re, I don’t know, reading every other sentence?), [Ariel says: It’s like Roth knows my eyes frequently glaze over] and David decides it’s time to use the memory serum virus for a mass reset against Chicago and the other three active experiments. Tris is stunned, but we then learn this isn’t exactly uncommon.

“[T]he last one in Chicago was done a few generations before yours.” He gives me an odd smile. “Why did you think there was so much physical devastation in the factionless sector?”

David decides to implement this in the next 48 hours, which conveniently sounds like just enough time for Tris and all of her friends to come up with a plan to stop it.

Everyone nods as if this is sensible.
I remember what he said to me in his office. […] I should have known, then, that he would gladly trade thousands of GD memories— lives— for control of the experiments. That he would trade them without even thinking of alternatives— without feeling like he needed to bother to save them.

Chapter 38: Tobias

Tobias and Cara are casually chatting about their top secret project to make their Tris-resistant truth serum – which hasn’t been successful thus far, which is super surprising – when Tris comes back to fill them in on the last chapter.

Cara says to Tris, “What do you intend to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” Tris says. “I feel like I don’t know what’s right anymore. […]

Really? Uhhhh didn’t the last chapter end with Tris literally saying, “I should have known that he would gladly trade thousands of lives without even thinking of alternatives?” Did I copy/paste that from a different book that didn’t have that printed four pages ago? [Ariel says: Hey, unless Tris explicitly tells us exactly what she’s thinking, we can never be sure! You’re doing too much “critical thinking”, Matthew, which isn’t what this series is all about.]

I pause. “All I can think is that this would be so much easier if we were dealing with a completely different set of people who could actually see reason.” […]
Tris’s face twists, and she touches a hand to her forehead, as if rubbing out some brief and inconvenient pain. “No,” she says. “We don’t even need to do that.”

Tris begins to form a plan to use the virus form of the memory serum “that could spread through an entire population” against the Bureau. Cara points out that erasing their memories would render them all useless. Nobody points out that this would also affect them. But whatever. One plot hole at a time.

Cara raises her eyebrows. “Wouldn’t erasing their memories also erase all of their knowledge? Thus rendering them useless?”
“I don’t know. I think there’s a way to target memories”

Why the hell not? I bet Tris knows more about these drugs than the group’s scientist does. Although she probably does, since the drug’s rules change so often. [Ariel says: What the even fuck? HOW? HOW WOULD THEY TARGET SPECIFIC MEMORIES? If you want to write a book about magic, write a book about magic. But fucking don’t be like, “Actually the magic is really science.” Because no it’s not. This is basically just as scientific as Changnesia.]

Tobias points out that Tris is maybe crossing a line here.

“Tris,” I say. “Wait. You really want to erase the memories of a whole population against their will? That’s the same thing they’re planning to do to our friends and family.” […]
“These people have no regard for human life,” she says. “They’re about to wipe the memories of all our friends and neighbors. They’re responsible for the deaths of a large majority of our old faction.” She sidesteps me and marches toward the door. “I think they’re lucky I’m not going to kill them.”

Soooo is this still “Tris is always right” Tris or is this an evolution into bad girl Tris?

Which is basically how I picture this incredibly nuanced tale being able to pull that off.

Tune in next week to find out that Tris is totally right about how memory serums work somehow!

Don’t worry. Only 130 pages left. Here are a list of things that are almost as long as how many pages are left of Allegiant, but the entire remainder of Allegiant is actually still longer:

• The Old Man And The Sea
• The Time Machine
• A Christmas Carol
• Of Mice And Men

Not that this necessarily correlates to quality or scope of the story being told, but just think how you could read one of those, start to finish, and you still wouldn’t be done with Allegiant. Anyway!

Chapter 40: Tobias

Tobias explains that they’ve drafted Amar to help them get into the city “without requiring much explanation, eager for an adventure”. You might remember that Amar is 100% into the genetically pure/damaged social construct, and might wonder why on earth it would make sense for these characters to be on the same side. You might wonder. You just might.

Meanwhile, in characters who are just sort of here now, Tobias needs life advice from Cara, who is so desperate for characterization that we get sentences like this:

She is so careful in her movements, so precise— it reminds me of the Amity musicians plucking at banjo strings.

Tobias asks Cara how she was able to forgive Tris for killing her brother, Will, since he’s going to have to say something to Uriah’s family about what happened to him. Cara explains that she isn’t sure if she has forgiven her, but “that’s like asking how you continue on with your life after someone dies. You just do it, and the next day you do it again”. It’s a nice sentiment, although you do have to ignore the fact that someone did die, so that exact scenario is also a real thing that she is going through. She also tells Tobias that what helped the most was that Tris confessed.

“There is a difference between admitting and confessing. Admitting involves softening, making excuses for things that cannot be excused; confessing just names the crime at its full severity.”

I guess we all mourn differently, but I really hope that all future dictionary definitions aren’t written in overdetermined metaphors.

Cara also points out that Tobias didn’t even kill Uriah.

Let’s be real. “You didn’t even kill him!” is the “She doesn’t even go here!” of Divergent-land.

“You didn’t make the plan that led to that explosion.”
“But I did participate in the plan.”
“Oh, shut up, would you?”

Technically the book goes on to describe that Cara says this gently, but fuck that. I wanna savor this moment where someone told Tobias to shut up.

Later, the gang meets up to describe their top secret plan to sneak out to the city, and immunize themselves against the memory serum in case they don’t get out before/the others can’t stop the Bureau’s memory serum virus deployment. A mildly interesting character moment happens.

I notice, however, that Peter only pretends to inject himself […]
I wonder what it feels like to volunteer to forget everything.

Like this book?

Christina points out – which is remarkably easy to do if you stop for like two seconds – how many holes are in their plan:

“You know, the city is still on the verge of revolution,” she says […] “The Bureau’s whole reason for resetting our friends and families is to stop them from killing each other. If we stop the reset, the Allegiant will attack Evelyn, Evelyn will turn the death serum loose, and a lot of people will die.”

Incredibly unsurprisingly, Tobias makes this entirely about himself:

“I don’t think you want that many people in the city to die. Your parents in particular.”
I sigh. “Honestly? I don’t really care about them.”

OH MY GOD. TOBIAS. WE GET IT. You have feelings about your parents. Totally makes sense. A city might die, but, yeah, let’s make this about you.

“It’s basically one of your parents against the other one,” Christina says. “Isn’t there something you can say to them that will stop them from trying to kill each other?”

CHRISTINA, STOP ENCOURAGING HIM.

“Something I can say to them?” I say. “Are you kidding? They don’t listen to anyone.” […] Unfortunately, I do not have different parents.
But I could. I could if I wanted them.

Yes, this is going exactly where you think it’s going.

Just a slip of the memory serum in their morning coffee or their evening water, and they would be new people, clean slates, unblemished by history.

I feel like this is either super troublesome, or was already a Disney Channel original movie.

Christina and Tobias formulate a secret plan to allow Tobias to get away from Amar in the city without raising suspicion so he can go brainwash at least one of his parents.

“So you’re really going to erase one of your parents’ memories?”
“What do you do when your parents are evil?” I say. “Get a new parent.”

No, seriously, I swear I saw this on the Disney Channel like five times.

So did everyone already read Gray? Is everyone terrified for us to start reading it next week?

Chapter 43: Tris

Tris kicks off the chapter off honestly, at least.

The emergency council meeting is more of the same

I wonder what that would be like.

After the council meeting reconfirming that the plan is still on to drop the memory viruses over the city tonight (so… why did this meeting have to…), Tobias and Tris meet up and make out for a while. Lest we forget this is YA.

He closes his eyes. “I can’t wait until tomorrow, when I’m back and you’ve done what you set out to do and we can decide what comes next.”
“I can tell you it will involve a lot of this,” I say, and I press my lips to his.

Also, this is a Tobias/Tris scene, so…

“I don’t like that I can’t be with you tonight,” he says. “It doesn’t feel right to leave you alone with something this huge.”
“What, you don’t think I can handle it?” I say, a little defensive.

You all assume this is a misunderstand because these two characters aren’t great at communicating with each other and gets resolved without consequence aside from repeated occurrences of similar arguments, right? Yeah? Ok, cool.

The entire chapter is them making out.

Much like this gif, it is also more ominous than it makes sense to be.

Chapter 44: Tobias

Tobias checks the surveillance screens one more time before departing on his mission to Chicago, taking note of Evelyn and Marcus’s locations and hoping they won’t move much by the time he gets to the city. Tobias meets up with Amar, his friend who they’ve asked to help on their mission to rid the world of genetically damaged/pure propaganda who believes in said propaganda, and they meet up with George, their security guard confidant they’ve enlisted in their mission to rid the world of genetically damaged/pure propaganda who believes in said- wait, fucking really? Whose plan is this?

I grab George and hold him back. He gives me a strange look.
“Don’t ask me any questions about this, because I won’t answer them,” I say. “But inoculate yourself against the memory serum, okay? As soon as possible.”

Whose plan is this? How did this not raise every red flag?

I see Peter’s eyes on us as I get in the passenger’s seat. I’m still not sure why he was so eager to come with us, but I know I need to be wary of him.

WHOSE PLAN IS- I fucking give up. I’m calling it right now – this plan enlisting the help of someone who does not believe in the ideals of the mission, which relies on the assistance of someone else who does not believe in the ideals of the mission but was given a super obvious warning that something strange is up with it, that the guy who explicitly said he does not think he owes you any allegiance wanted to accompany you on anyway? This is not a plan that makes sense.

I used this gif a month ago, but this is still what reading this book feels like

Tobias, Christina, Amar (for some reason), and Peter (for some reason) drive to the city. And, like 65% of this book, it devolves into the narrator just thinking about the greater meanings of the goings on around him and their implications in society as a whole. Incidentally, I recently started reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, her 1994 book about the writing process. It contained this part, which immediately made me think of Divergent. See if you can guess why.

Good dialogue is such a pleasure to come across while reading, a complete change of pace from description and exposition and all that writing. Suddenly people are talking, and we find ourselves clipping along. And we have all the pleasures of voyeurism because the characters don’t know we are listening. We get to feel privy to their inner workings without having to spend too much time listening to them think. I don’t want them to think all the time on paper.

And with that in mind, let’s consider…

The distance the Bureau has kept from the rest of the world is an evil separate from the war they intend to wage against our memories— more subtle, but, in its way, just as sinister. They had the capacity to help us, languishing in our factions, but instead they let us fall apart. Let us die. Let us kill one another.

Which would be mostly fine – obviously the entire tale can’t be told in dialogue – if the whole book weren’t like this.

I still don’t know whose memory I’m going to take: Marcus’s, or Evelyn’s?
Usually I would try to decide what the most selfless choice would be, but in this case either choice feels selfish. Resetting Marcus would mean erasing the man I hate and fear from the world. It would mean my freedom from his influence.
Resetting Evelyn would mean making her into a new mother— one who wouldn’t abandon me, or make decisions out of a desire for revenge, or control everyone in an effort not to have to trust them.
Either way, with either parent gone, I am better off. But what would help the city most?
I no longer know.

Yes, I am just copy/pasting entire paragraphs uncut from this book because this is fucking grueling, you guys. Think how much more interesting – nay, actually interesting – this dilemma could have been if we saw Tobias struggling to explain it to someone else. Like Tris, the character he supposedly loves and values so much. Or even Amar, his former mentor he felt compelled to bring on this mission despite their ideological differences that as of yet make no fucking sense because of said ideological differences. Shit, we could have gotten two birds with one stone if all of that thinking were instead a tense, guarded conversation between Tobias and Amar.

We reach the place where the outside world ends and the experiment begins, as abrupt a shift as if someone had drawn a line in the ground.
Amar drives over that line like it isn’t there. For him, I suppose, it has faded with time

Ok. You get that this is mad boring. Which you already knew, but I felt like it was important to remind you of what a slog this is. Because we still have 90 pages left.

They get further into the city (which apparently no longer has factionless guards patrolling all the cars in the road anymore) and Christina enacts her valiant “pretend to pee so I can slash the tires so Tobias can get away to wipe Marcus or Evelyn’s memory” plan. Which, of course, Tobias waxes poetic about.

Sometimes, all it takes to save people from a terrible fate is one person willing to do something about it. Even if that “something” is a fake bathroom break.

Good thing Tobias explained how Christina pretending to go to the bathroom actually played a role in events of much greater magnitude. I might never have otherwise understood how Christina pretending to go to the bathroom actually played a role in events of much greater magnitude if Tobias didn’t explain how Christina pretending to go to the bathroom actually played a role in events of much greater magnitude.

Amar goes through the five stages of grief in two lines of dialogue:

“Shit!” Amar smacks the steering wheel. “We don’t have time for this. We have to make sure Zeke and his mother and Christina’s family are all inoculated before the memory serum is released, or they’ll be useless.”
“Calm down,” I say. “I know where we can find another vehicle. Why don’t you guys keep going on foot and I’ll go find something to drive?”
Amar’s expression brightens. “Good idea.”

Amar tells them that they have hour until the scheduled reset of the city. Tobias begins to leave to pretend to find a truck, when Peter reminds us he’s in this book too.

“I’m coming with you,” he says.
“What? Why?” I glare at him.
“You might need help finding a truck,” he says. “It’s a big city.”
I look at Amar, who shrugs. “Man’s got a point.”

It’s almost as if bringing someone who was not sympathetic to your cause was a bad idea. It’s also almost as if it doesn’t even make sense why Peter would do this, since his motivations are so insanely ill-defined that not one of his actions in this book have made sense so it’s impossible to know where he’s going with this, aside from that it will inevitably turn into some kind of unforeseen betrayal, but we’re in too deep to worry about things like “why are characters in this book doing the things they’re doing” by now.

Tobias tells Peter that he’s not really looking for a truck, and will shoot him if he doesn’t help. Now, sure, it makes sense that Tobias won’t tell Peter everything (arguably it makes a lot of sense not to tell Peter things), but just in case the point didn’t stick, here’s this scene without The Thinking:

“I’m not going to look for a truck,” I say. “You might as well know that now. Are you going to help me with what I’m doing, or do I have to shoot you?”
“Depends what you’re doing.” […]
“I’m going to stop a revolution,” I say.

And here it is with The Thinking.

I stand facing the Hancock building. To my right are the factionless, Evelyn, and her collection of death serum. To my left are the Allegiant, Marcus, and the insurrection plan.
Where do I have the greatest influence? Where can I make the biggest difference? Those are the questions I should be asking myself. Instead I am asking myself whose destruction I am more desperate for. […]
I turn right, and Peter follows me.

Tobias’s epiphany comes completely from nowhere. So is Peter even needed in this scene?

Come back to our comedy reading of Allegiant next week, where I ask funny questions like, “Why are any of us here?” and “Why?”

I know, I know, it’s not Grey. We could all use a break from that. Already.

Chapter 47: Tris

Over on Tris’s side of the climax, her plan to sneakily take Caleb on his suicide mission to the weapons lab without anyone picking up on what’s going on hits a snag when someone picks up on what’s going on. Or rather, Matthew and Tris note that there’s a noticeable lack of something going on, and determine that something must have happened to Cara’s plan to shut off the lights. So they create their own mass chaos.

“You have a gun, don’t you?” I say. “Fire into the air.”
He hesitates.
“Do it,” I say through gritted teeth.
Matthew takes his gun out. I grab Caleb’s elbow and steer him down the hallway. Over my shoulder I watch Matthew lift the gun over his head and fire straight up, at one of the glass panels above him.

In the ensuing mayhem, Tris and Caleb run to the weapons lab, but get stopped by security officers, because it turns out it’s harder to break into a secure area when you’ve just fired a gun in a public location, amazingly enough.

I promise I’ll stop using this gif every week, but HONEST TO GOD, TRIS

As Tris and Caleb are stopped in the corridor, Tris realizes her plan to sacrifice her brother’s life might not work out so well. But for a couple different reasons, which we saw coming from like a whole dang book ago:

When I look at him, I don’t see the cowardly young man who sold me out to Jeanine Matthews, and I don’t hear the excuses he gave afterward.
When I look at him […] I see the brother who told me to make my own choices, the night before the Choosing Ceremony.
I don’t belong to Abnegation, or Dauntless, or even the Divergent. I don’t belong to the Bureau or the experiment or the fringe. I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me […]all I can hear in my mind, are the words I said to him a few days ago: I would never deliver you to your own execution.
“Caleb,” I say. “Give me the backpack.”

Tris and Caleb then proceed to have an entire goddamn conversation about this while the guards have their guns drawn on them, somehow.

the guard screams at the end of the hallway. “Put down your weapon or we will fire!”
“I might survive the death serum,” I say. “I’m good at fighting off serums. There’s a chance I’ll survive.”

Tris tricks the guards into thinking that Caleb is her hostage so he can get away.

“Caleb,” I say, “I love you.”
His eyes gleam with tears as he says, “I love you, too, Beatrice.”
“If I don’t survive,” I say, “tell Tobias I didn’t want to leave him.”
I back up, aiming over Caleb’s shoulder at one of the security guards. I inhale and steady my hand. I exhale and fire. I hear a pained yell, and sprint in the other direction with the sound of gunfire in my ears.

The saddest part of this is she definitely just deafened Caleb by firing the gun in his ear, so “Tell my boyfriend I didn’t want to leave him” is 100% the last thing Caleb will ever hear.

Tristhen runs off to blow up the door to the weapons lab (which she somehow has time to set up, run a safe distance from, and then run back to it while being chased by these two guards, who clearly don’t want to be here right now), as well as her heavily-foreshadowed death.

At the end of the hallway, the guards have caught up with me. They fire, and a bullet hits me in the fleshy part of my arm. […] Through the windows in those doors I see the Weapons Lab […] I hear a spraying sound and know that the death serum is floating through the air, but the guards are behind me, and I don’t have time to put on the suit that will delay its effects.
I also know, I just know, that I can survive this.

Chapter 48: Tobias

Meanwhile, on Tobias’s side of the climax, Tobias and Peter have successfully reached their destination by not firing a gun in a crowd of people.

“So what are we going to do, break a window? Look for a back door?”
“I’m just going to walk in,” I say. “I’m her son.”
“You also betrayed her and left the city when she forbade anyone from doing that,” he says, “and she sent people after you to stop you. People with guns.”
“You can stay here if you want,” I say.
“Where the serum goes, I go,” he says. “But if you get shot at, I’m going to grab it and run.”
“I don’t expect anything more.”
He is a strange sort of person.

Sure, Tobias. Nobody else in this book does things with vague motivations that don’t hold up under scrutiny. Only Peter is the weird one.

They enter and are immediately greeted with guns, but once they realize it’s Tobias, they go get Evelyn. Evelyn makes Peter wait outside, which he’s cool with since he doesn’t have any particular reason to be anywhere in this plot anyway.

Tobias fills in his mom on the Bureau’s plan to wipe of the memories of everyone in the city later in the night. Veronica Roth Evelyn has totally given up on any villainy, so she just accepts it immediately. Then things get weird.

I sit down across from her at the table and put the vial of memory serum between us.
“I came to make you drink this,” I say.

This… well, this is a plan. Maybe he’s thought of an insanely convincing reason in the last… not even an hour. Let’s hear him out.

“I thought it was the only way to prevent total destruction,” I say. “I know that Marcus and Johanna and their people are going to attack, and I know that you will dowhatever it takes to stop them, including using that death serum you possess to its best advantage.” I tilt my head. “Am I wrong?”

Ok, sure, but… we’re still going to get to the part where this will somehow also 1) stop Marcus from attacking, and 2) stop the Bureau from wiping everyone’s memory, right?

…right?

“The reason the factions were evil is because there was no way out of them,” I say. “They gave us the illusion of choice without actually giving us a choice.”

Oh, fuck, we’re talking about the meaning of the factions again.

To be fair, the conversation does mainly just cover Tobia’s and Evelyn’s fraught mother-son relationship, and the emotion in here is more real than anything we’ve read in actual hundreds of pages.

“If you thought that, why didn’t you tell me?” she says, her voice louder and her eyes avoiding mine, avoiding me. “Tell me, instead of betraying me?”
“Because I’m afraid of you!” […] “You . . . you remind me of him!”
“Don’t you dare.” She clenches her hands into fists and almost spits at me, “Don’t you dare.”

Of course, none of their conversation has anything to do with why it actually makes any sense for Evelyn to willingly wipe her memory forever, but you weren’t expecting reasons by this point, were you?

Anyway, Tobias has like nineteenth epiphany about the meaning of using this one memory wipe, so hopefully you weren’t too caught up on whatever the greater reason was for doing it last time.

But she is more than my mother. She is a person in her own right, and she does not belong to me.
I do not get to choose what she becomes just because I can’t deal with who she is.
“No,” I say. “No, I came to give you a choice.”

But hopefully you didn’t think this one would make sense either.

“I thought about going to see Marcus tonight, but I didn’t.” I swallow hard. “I came to see you instead because . . . because I think there’s a hope of reconciliation between us. Not now, not soon, but someday.”

As in after she’s permanently wiped her memory. So Tobias’s pitch her is that she can do something that won’t stop her husband’s violent coup against her rule, nor will prevent the Bureau from wiping everyone’s memory, but will offer the chance of reconciliation with her, after she has permanently forgotten who he is.

she reaches across the table and pulls me fiercely into her arms, which form a wire cage around me, surprisingly strong.
“Let them have the city and everything in it,”

Of course she does.

So last weekend I went to the Young Adult Literature Weekend in London, which was awesome. During the panel on feminism, the discussion turned to the issue of likeable female characters, which I know is something Matt has touched on a lot in the past, and it’s sparked a few discussions between us. One of the panelists pointed out that real people make mistakes, so we should stop being so hard on female characters that make mistakes, and I agree 100%. However, I still stand behind the fact that I think Zoey is terrible. There are plenty of female characters I love who, yeah, make mistakes I think are stupid, but I still love the characters.

I’ll try not to get too far into this, but Grey’s Anatomy does female characters really well. For instance, Meredith Grey is one of the loves of my fictional life, but she is definitely not always likeable. She’s made stupid decisions in the past. She can be so fucking prickly and pushes people away and can be really cold and abrasive and rude to people. But just like, sometimes when she smiles! Or when she’s with her best friends! BUT I FUCKING LOVE HER.

I may do a longer post on this in the future because I have a lot of thoughts, but in summary, it’s okay to not like all female characters. Also, if I’m going to invest a lot of time and energy into following a character around on their journey, I kind of do want to like them. I’m not saying they have to fit a cookie-cutter mould of what a character should be and always make the right decisions, but there should be something about them that is likeable. I feel no such connection to Zoey.

Chosen Chapter 24

After appearing from behind a tree, Erik confronts Zoey about that time she cheated on him with Loren in a public venue and Erik walked in on them. Both parties come away looking absolutely terrible in this situation. Even though it was certainly to be expected that Zoey would look bad, I hadn’t prepared myself for just how ridiculous her justifications are for doing this to Erik.

“I’m so sorry Erik!” I managed to blurt. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t want you to find out like that.”

“Yeah,” he said coldly. “Finding out my girlfriend, who has been playing oh-so-innocent with me, is really a slut would have been no problem if you’d, I don’t know, advertised it in the school paper. Yeah, that would have been way better.”

I get that Erik is hurting, but I didn’t realize he had this kind of poison inside him. We got hints of his meanness in earlier chapters, sure, but I don’t think genuinely nice people, even in moments of extreme duress, would say weird and creepy things about advertising slutty behaviour in a school newspaper.

Can you imagine if Zoey had done something so strange? He certainly wouldn’t have been like, “Sure, this is bad, but at least I didn’t walk in on you having sex with a professor.”

I flinched at his hateful tone. “I’m not a slut.”

“Looked like you were doing a good imitation of one. And I knew it!” he yelled. “I knew there was something going on between you two! But I was so damn stupid I believed you when you said it wasn’t true.” His laugh was completely humorless. “God, I’m an idiot.”

“Erik, we didn’t mean for this to happen, but Loren and I are in love. We tried to stay away from each other, but we just couldn’t.”

Zoey, no, don’t say these things! Do you honestly think that will make this situation better for anyone involved? “OH well, if your love is true, than you aren’t a slut.” Erik never in a million years said. Sure, I guess she is trying to make sense of this crazy, mixed up world for both of them, but she could have broken up with Erik before doing anything with Loren. AND in the next breath, she and Erik both talk about how they’d been falling in love with each other. I get the feeling that if Erik hadn’t walked in on Zoey and Loren, she would have just kept finding reasons to justify staying with both of them.

“You have got to be kidding! You actually believe that asshole loves you?”

“He does love me.”

Erik shook his head and laughed humorlessly again. “If you believe that, then you’re stupider than Iam. He’s using you, Zoey. There’s only one thing a guy like him wants from a girl like you, and he got it. When he’s had enough of it, he’ll dump you and move on.”

I may not like Erik or agree with his methods, but he has a point here about Loren’s intentions. I don’t think he’s right about everything, like Loren’s motivations, but I think he’s spot on that Loren doesn’t love Zoey. I say that like I’m not like two books ahead at this point, but I had that same thought when I read this the first time, so it’s acceptable I keep it in here.

I know I should be focussed on more of the joke making and less of the concern over the way Erik has handled himself, but it’s really riled me up.

My stomach twisted. I felt like his words were stabbing me in the heart. “I thought I was falling in love with you, too,” I said softly, blinking my eyes hard to keep from crying.

“Bullshit!” he yelled. He sounded mean even though I could see tears filling his eyes. “Stop playing games with me. And you think Aphrodite is a hateful bitch? You make her look like a fucking angel!“

He started to back away from me. “Erik, wait. I don’t want it to end like this between us,” I said,feeling tears spill over and fall down my cheeks.

“Stop crying! This is what you wanted. This is what you and Blake planned.”

Think, Erik, think. Why would ZOEY have planned on you to walk in on this? It seems like something Loren might have planned given he’s the worst.

Erik runs away into the night where he belongs. I’VE CHANGED!!!!!!

Distraught, Zoey goes to talk to Loren. She knows he can make things right:

As I approached it I could see that the door was cracked and I heard Loren’s voice trickle out from inside. He was laughing. The sound brushed against my skin, washing through the pain and sadness the scene with Erik had caused. I’d been right to come to him. I could already almost feel his arms aroundme. Loren would hold me and call me “love” and “baby” and tell me that everything would be all right.

It’s funny how to one person (me) those could be the most repulsive things Loren could say, but to someone else (Zoey) they could be a great comfort. You know, one man’s trash.

But there is no “love” or “baby” to be said here.

Then she laughed, low and musical and seductive, and my world stopped.

It was Neferet.

NEFERET!

Neferet re-iterates her whole master plan with Loren, which is a totally natural thing to do during foreplay/with the door open (so obviously she knows Zoey is there, right, and this is all for her benefit?)

“You’ve done well, my darling. Now I know what she knows, and everything is coming togetherperfectly. It will be a simple thing to continue to isolate her. I just hope the part you have to play isn’ttoo unpleasant for you.” Neferet’s voice was teasing, but there was an edge of hardness to it.“

She’s easy to lead around. A shiny present here, a pretty compliment there, and you have true loveand a popped cherry sacrificed to the god of deception and hormones.” Loren laughed again. “Young girls are so ridiculous—so predictably easy.”

He’s not wrong, Zoey did not ask any of the right questions about this situation.

Neferet continues to talk to Loren about keeping Zoey busy and making sure she stays away from her friends. She also calls Loren out for imprinting on Zoey, which was apparently off-script. Wrong move, Loren.

“I guess I underestimated my acting abilities. I’m just relieved that there’s nothing real between us—saves me from the messy emotions and bond that would go with a true Imprinting.” He laughed. “Like the one she had with that human boy. He must have experienced some nasty pain when that was broken. Weird that she was able to Imprint so fully with him before she’s Changed.”

Thank for conveniently explaining all that in such natural dialogue, Loren. So now we know that when Zoey inevitably breaks this disastrously gross imprint, it won’t be totally horrible for both of them. Also, always a good time to slip in yet another, “ZOEY’S NOT LIKE OTHER FLEDGLINGS” comment.

“More proof of her power!” Neferet snapped. “Even though she has been ridiculously easy to leadastray for a Chosen One. And don’t pretend to complain that she Imprinted with you. You and I both know it just made the sex more pleasurable for you.”

Damn, the truth comes out. You have to wonder, why is Neferet with this guy? She’s evil, but she could definitely do better.

“Well, I can tell you that it was damned inconvenient that you sent the gallant Erik to find his little girlfriend so soon. Couldn’t you have given me a few more minutes to finish up?”

Damn, more truths come out. Maybe Erik realized it was pretty weird that he stumbled on Loren and Zoey, and that’s why he accused it of being their plan? If so, kudos to him for getting halfway there. Again, though, it seems pretty weird he’d think Zoey would have been part of that planning process.

The pillow talk continues to be terrible:

Neferet easily pulled away from him, but the gesture was more teasing than mad. “I’m not angry. I’m pleased. Your Imprint breaking the bond with the human boy has left Zoey even more alone. And it’s not like your Imprint with the chit is permanent. It’ll dissolve when she Changes, or dies,” she finished with a mean little laugh. “But would you rather it didn’t dissolve? Perhaps you’ve decided you prefer youth and naïveté to me?”

“Never, love! I’ll never want anyone like I want you,” Loren said. “Let me show you, baby. Let me show you.” He moved quickly to the end of the bed and took her into his arms. I watched his hands roam down her body, a lot like he’d touched me not long before.

I’ve learned so much about Imprinting from Neferet and Loren’s sexual encounter. Eternal gratitude.

Neferet faces the door, while she and Loren start to get it on, and she sees Zoey. Zoey’s got to get the hell out of there, so she flees into the night. Zoey is crying and falling apart, but luckily Aphrodite shows up to be amazing. She is literally wandering around with Corona and mangos. I love her.

Of course, Zoey tries to push Aphrodite away, so she leaves (but you just know she’s not actually abandoning Zoey, so don’t judge her). Then Darius, one of the Sons of Erebus shows up. I only mention this because he becomes important later, and he is wonderful. REMEMBER DARIUS AND HIS AWESOMENESS FOREVER.

He doesn’t say anything too significant here, he’s really kind to Zoey, and explains some stuff about places of power:

Darius nodded slowly. “It is a place of power. I am not surprised you were drawn here.”

“Here?”

I blinked and looked around. And then—ohmygod— realized exactly where I was. “This is the east wall near the trapdoor.”

“Yes, Priestess, it is. Even the barbaric humans sensed its power enough so that they left Professor Nolan’s body here.” He motioned over his shoulder just outside the wall to the place Aphrodite and I had found Professor Nolan. It was also where I’d found Nala (or rather, where she’d found me), where I’d cast my first circle, had my first glimpse of what would turn out to be the undead dead kids, and where I’d called on the elements and Nyx to break through the memory block Neferet had placed on my mind.

Zoey asks for some privacy to pray, and Darius kindly warns her that if she leaves the perimeter, Sons of Erebus will basically swarm the area thanks to the spell Neferet cast on the place. After Darius leaves, Zoey’s cat shows up because I guess everyone is just hanging out in this one area tonight.

If Erik really was meant to be a good guy through and through, I think he should have been written very angrily, yes, but with more of a focus on the lies and Zoey being careless with his feelings. It seems like he was just really mad she wouldn’t have sex with him. What did all of you think about this? Am I being too hard on Erik given the circumstances?

More importantly, what did you think of the Neferet/Loren plot? I do like that for once the simple answer wasn’t just, “Zoey gets all the boys!” I also like that it wasn’t until Zoey slept with Loren that I started going, “This guy is being too creepy, something is up, I think he’s working with Neferet.”

Armada Chapter 23: Zack’s dad video chats him, seeming happy as a clam. It takes a minute, but Zack realizes his father is video chatting from his mother’s room. That was when I finally noticed that the wallpaper in my mother’s bedroom was visible behind him, and I suddenly understood— and immediately wished I could […]

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