Here’s the day of the week when everyone scampers away and waits till it’s time to read Divergent again. Happy monday!
Last week a lot of phone calls were made between characters, and the illusion of plot happening was poorly maintained. [Matthew says: I still have no idea what this book is pretending to be about.]
Chapter 11
Before work, Eva has a brief heart to heart with Cary in which Eva reveals nothing but insists Cary is still someone she trusts more than anything. Except clearly not. She can barely trust the guy to glean some information about someone via Google let alone let him know she’s actually still with Gideon.
“He’s not a mystery. I just can’t talk about him, and that has nothing to do with our friendship. I trust you and love you and rely on you like always.”
His green eyes challenged me over the rim of his mug. “Doesn’t seem like it.”
Correct.
“You’re my best friend. When I’m old and gray, you’ll still be my best friend. Not talking about the guy I’m seeing isn’t going to change that.”
Realistically incorrect.
“How am I not supposed to feel like you don’t trust me? What’s the big deal with this guy that you can’t even give me a name or anything?”
I sighed and told him a partial truth. “I don’t know his name.”
So by “partial lie” Eva actually meant to say “completely 100% a lie that doesn’t even make any sense whatsoever, and only a fucking moron would believe.”
Enter Cary.
Sure he’s skeptical for about two lines, but then he’s like, “Lol what name do you shout when you’re coming? I’m convinced this is truth.” [Matthew says: I like how this is apparently the detail that gets Cary to call bullshit.]
Cary’s love life is still stupid, just in case you were wondering.
At work, we find out about other minor characters’ love lives. Megumi is unhappy with hers, but Eva’s boss Mark is winning the competition for happiest relationship in this book. I know, the competition is as fierce as Christian Siriano and about as relevant as that joke.
I’d barely turned the corner at the end of the hall when Mark bounded out of his office with a huge grin.
“Oh my God.” I stopped midstep. “You look insanely happy. Let me guess. You’re engaged!”
“I am!”
“Yay!” I dropped my purse and bag on the floor and clapped. “I’m so excited for you! Congratulations.”
Yay!! A minor character we can barely remember is engaged!! I’ve never been so happy in my life. While out for lunch with Megumi, Eva gets a phone call from Gideon.
“My attorneys just notified me that the police might have a suspect.”
“What?” My heart stopped. My stomach began to revolt against lunch. “Oh my God.”
“It’s not me.”
Oh, good, as long as someone else is going to jail for Gideon’s crimes, we can all rest easy. The rest of the conversation isn’t even included in the book, Eva just thinks back on it during the next scene. [Matthew says: I get that nothing is more important than Gideon and Eva’s love, but do we have to be so transparent about it that we’re not even going to discuss who might be taking the fall for the murder he committed?]
Gideon had sounded calm and collected during our brief conversation. He’d told me not to get upset, that he just wanted to warn me that the police might come by with more questions. Or they might not.
Well, that is super unhelpful. It would be like if every day the weather man was like, “Good morning, Pennsylvania, today it’s either going to rain or not rain.”
What if the police did have a suspect who wasn’t Gideon? What would we do? We couldn’t let an innocent person go to prison. And yet there was a tiny voice in my head whispering that Gideon would be safe from prosecution if someone else were convicted of the crime.
“And yet there was a tiny voice in my head whispering that we didn’t give a fuck about this other person, because True Love.”
The moment the thought entered my mind, I felt sick over it.
At least she has the grace to feel bad for thinking that, but hi, still. I’m shocked Day didn’t just hit backspace over this whole sequence and simply stop at, “We couldn’t let an innocent person to to prison.” [Matthew says: My genuine favorite thing about this series by this point is how resolutely Sylvia Day keeps digging her grave ever since that “Gideon murdered a dude” thing.]
Eva’s boss gives her the afternoon off to go pick up her dad at the airport/sort everything out for him. She takes some of this time to visit Gideon and talk about All The Things. But especially the whole thing about maybe potentially letting an innocent man go to prison.
“Will I let someone else pay for my crime?” His jaw tightened. “Is that what you’re asking?”
“No.” I smoothed his brow with my fingertips. “I know you won’t let that happen. I’m just wondering how you’ll prevent it.”
His scowl deepened. “You’re asking me to predict the future, Eva. I can’t do that. You just have to trust me.” [Matthew says: Because this doesn’t completely contradict itself.]
“I do,” I promised fervently. “But I’m still scared. I can’t help being freaked out.”
“I know. I’m worried, too.” His thumb brushed over my bottom lip. “Detective Graves is a very intelligent woman.”
For those of you who don’t remember (aka all of you) Detective Graves popped up at the very end of Reflected in You to play the part of the psychologist at the end of Psycho who just reads aloud from the book Plotlines for Dummies. Detective Graves essentially says, “Hey I know Gideon murdered Nathan, but True Love, and I can’t *really* prove anything, so you should get back together with him because he loves you/True Love.”
So when they say “Detective Graves is a very intelligent woman,” you have to wonder if they’re getting “intelligent woman” confused with “fucking moron”.
His observation clicked with me. “You’re right. That makes me feel better.”
I didn’t know Shelley Graves, not really. But in the few interactions I’d had with her, she’d struck me as being intelligent and street-smart. I hadn’t factored her into the equation, and I should have. It was odd to be in a position where I both feared who she was and appreciated it.
I am not at all understanding how this is comforting to Eva. If Graves is so smart and has in fact figured out Gideon is the culprit, shouldn’t she be worried about her finding hard evidence against Gideon? I think maybe Eva’s saying she’s confident that Graves would find evidence to exonerate whatever suspect they have, but again, why isn’t she worried about Gideon getting caught as well?
The next scene jumps from these tender moments of comfort (you know, over whether or not they’re going to get caught for these murder shenanigans) to one of semi-phone sex as Eva drives one of Gideon’s cars to the airport. It’s really weird and unnerving given how anxious and sad Eva has been this whole chapter and how nervous she is to be going to pick up her father. There’s also this absurdly irritating line:
“Hey, I can’t turn left or right. I think I’m heading for the Midtown Tunnel. I could lose you.”
“You’ll never lose me, angel,” he vowed. “Wherever you go, however far, I’ll be right here with you.”
SHE IS JUST GOING INTO A FUCKING TUNNEL AND LOSING SIGNAL WHY ARE YOU MAKING IT A BIG THING? [Matthew says: “Gideon, I have to throw out the milk. It’s gone sour.” “OUR LOVE WILL NEVER SOUR.”]
Eva picks up her dad at the airport, and he agrees to go out for Tapas with Eva and Cary because nothing says coping with finding out your daughter had been horrifically sexually abused as a child like Tapas.
So who do you guys think this new suspect is? I bet it’s Megumi. Or ex-boyfriend-rockstar-Brett!
I wouldn’t put past Sylvia Day to write a spinoff detective series centered around the “intelligent” Shelly Graves. Picture it. It would be so bad.
i can see it now:
every single case, Detective Graves has a hunch as to who done it and she guesses at how it was done (correctly) but she can’t find a shred of evidence so she kinda gives up to work on a new case.
And using this method, became a best-selling author, now calling herself Sylvia Day.
I was imagining this post as an episode of Drunk History and it makes it even better.
I’m trying to remember who the suspect is but I don’t. And I hated this book so much I won’t even waste a fraction of my Kindle battery to look it up. So I will wait with baited breath until next week…. (Wait….is this a trick? Does Day never mention this again?)
I literally laughed out loud at the sour milk v love analogy. I hope if Day does read this blog (or at least her editors) that they write it down and put it in book 4. It is exactly the kind of cheese this series has (and no, I don’t mean grilled cheese.)
Can I skip the cheese and choose the knife instead???
I hope the new suspect is rockstar ex-boyfriend Brett, but I wouldn’t be even a little bit surprised if it was a previously unmentioned but allegedly important character. You know, Ronald, Eva’s best friend from fourth grade, whom she hasn’t spoken to in a decade, but who is still very dear to her heart. And then, of course, we find out that Ronald was only ever friends with Eva because he wanted to get on her, which results in the obligatory Attempted Rape of the Heroine Scene that comes up in every single romance novel these days. Gideon swoops in and saves the day, our intrepid heroes bang it out in a public place, and Ronald goes to jail for a murder he didn’t commit, but it’s cool, because he was a Very Bad Man anyway.
Bahahaha! I take it back, I hope Day and/or her editors read here because this could be book 5!
*DON’T read here. Oops
I’ve found out the reincarnation of Simenon. No, seriously, did they really printed this shit. Is true that there’s a crisis and everyone are depressed, so it’s better read something hilarious, but this really awful. But thanks, cause now I know what I’ll read on the toilet.
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I doubt the new suspect is someone we’ve already been introduced to. This is a prime opportunity for Day to add yet another character who will appear at random moments after we’ve forgotten them. Who knows, maybe this character will come after Gideon and Eva for getting him/her arrested.