To those of you in the States, happy 4th! I got you chapter summaries for a really shitty book! Last time, Melerer (as Matt so eloquently renamed our heroes) were taken by Uncle Jeb to a whole bunch of humans who have avoided being taken over by souls. They clearly do not trust Melerer.
Chapter 15
Melerer wakes up, and Jared is there to give them (it?) water and food. He is clearly not a fan of them, and neither am I, so I suppose now Jared and I have something in common. That’s a start!
I ripped into the bread. It was very dense, studded with whole-grain kernels that caught in my teeth. The texture was gritty, but the flavor was wonderfully rich. I couldn’t remember anything tasting more delicious to me, not even my mushed-up Twinkies.
That is some Anastasia Steele shit right there. Although, to be fair, orange juice does sound way more divine than mushed-up Twinkies.
Somehow in the midst of all Wanderer’s pondering about humanity (the same questions we’ve talked about in all the past chapters about whether the souls are better than humans) Melanie confronts Wanderer about being in love with Jared.
You’re in love with him, too, separately from me. It feels different from the way I feel. Other. I didn’t see that until he was there with us, until you saw him for the first time. How did that happen? How does a three-inch-long worm fall in love with a human being?
Melanie is just salty because she thought she’d been so strong to convince Wanderer to come, not that Wanderer was also in love. Also probably because a three-inch-long worm is all up in her head and on her man. I would not be pleased with that either.
Melerer isn’t sure what exactly is going on or why it’s Jared that’s guarding them or what it means, but then the guy with the machete from last weeks post shows up, and he and some other guy start bitching at Jared about his intentions. But what are his intentions you ask? I also ask. Melerer seems to think it’s because he’s holding them prisoner…for some reason (omg is it love?!?!).
They tell Jared that they don’t want to hurt him but that they will if he won’t get out of their way.
A heavy footfall— a lunge— and the sound of something heavy hitting something solid. A gasp, a choking gurgle—
“No!” I cried, and launched myself through the round hole.
Throughout this chapter, Melerer tried to describe her prison, but I never really understood its layout, but apparently it has some sort of hole that she can launch herself through? That seems like a poor choice for a prison, but I guess in this cave situation beggars can’t be choosers.
Chapter 16
Melerer uselessly launches herself between Jared and Kyle (machete guy) and gets shoved around a bit until Jared yells at her to back to her hole. Or whatever the hell it is.
Chaos basically ensues instead with Melerer and Jared trying to fight off the other men until Jeb shows up and breaks up the whole thing. Gee, thanks, Jeb. I thought we’d finally get to be done with these idiots. The men demand answers about how long Jeb plans to keep Melerer as his pet/guest/prisoner. He says it’s not up to him but Jared, which confuses everyone involved. You know there’s something wrong when literally everyone involved in this book and outside the book are confused about what’s happening. It’s sort of worse that the only person that might know what’s going on is Crazy Uncle Jeb. I bet Meyer didn’t even know what was going on when she wrote this drivel.
Jared is upset that he is supposed to make this decision and basically storms off. Jeb tells Melerer to get some sleep, and the next day takes her for a walk. No, seriously, that’s what’s happening in this book and it’s taking multiple pages to tell.
A slightly more interesting problem starts to arise – Melerer really fucking has to pee, but she doesn’t want Jeb to take her to the bathroom because she’ll have to walk through an angry mob of people. I have enough anxiety peeing with other people around in a public bathroom let alone in a public bathroom where everyone wants to murder you. But then it’s all fine and everyone just stares at her a lot when she walks past them.
For like another forty useless minutes, Jeb explains how he found the cave back in the day and explored the whole thing. Look at all the fucks I give.
I’m really fucking confused by the end of the chapter, though. Jeb takes her to a new room.
I stiffened when I heard a babble of voices again, this time from ahead. Jeb patted my hand kindly.
“You’ll like this part— it’s always everyone’s favorite,” he promised.
A wide, open arch shimmered with moving light. It was the same color as the light in the big room, pure and white, but it flickered at a strange dancing pace. Like everything else that I couldn’t understand in this cavern, the light frightened me.
“Here we are,” Jeb said enthusiastically, pulling me through the archway. “What do you think?”
You guys, this is clearly not a bathroom, right? But Melerer had to go so badly. How does this book not even get just going to the bathroom right?!?!
I can’t help but wonder how many drafts this book was done in. It seems to me that there’s a lot of content in it which should really have been nixed by the editor (or the author, for that matter).
Seriously, are we STILL debating whether or not the mind-controlling aliens who massacred the humans and drove the ones they didn’t massacre into hiding are better than the human race?
No, seriously, how can we be expected to take this debate seriously?