This is our second-last week of Crossfire EVER, everyone! Last week we wrap up the whole thing! Place your bets now on just how many subplots will be left hanging. I’ll give you a hint: I HAVE COMPLETELY LOST COUNT.
One With You: Chapter 15, continued
So, when I made that joke in chapter 12 about a dream ghost showing up and… you know…
…I didn’t realize it was gonna become a whole thing.
The wind whips through my hair as I walk along the shore […]
“I can’t believe I’m going to miss the reception.”
I turn my head and discover my mother walking beside me. She’s wearing the same elegant formal gown I last saw her in. She’s so beautiful. Truly breathtaking. My eyes burn to look at her.
“We’re all going to miss it,” I tell her.
“I know. And I worked so hard on it.”
Seriously, the end of Crossfire is just full of Gideon and Eva’s dead parents showing up to give them closure in their dreams. As much as Crossfire ever understood concepts like “closure”, anyway.
“I did manage to work some touches of red in.”
“Did you?” […]
“It really is a garish color for a wedding, though. It was difficult.”
OK, BUT IF EVA DIDN’T KNOW THIS, HOW CAN SHE SUBCONSCIOUSLY KNOW THIS? Is this sloppy continuity? Is it just a dream? Are ghosts real? Did we somehow make it to the end of Crossfire suddenly having to wonder if ghosts are real?
Eva’s mom/subconscious/an actual fucking ghost tells her that she’ll “have to help your father find someone”. She also reflects on how Eva’s stepfather was a good man and wishes he’d be happy again too. Eva worries about these things. None of them really come up again, though. The message here is just to worry about everything forever unless you get shot by an arbitrary plot device in a disjointed narrative, I guess.
Thankfully, Lucky the puppy/devourer of dreams is there to wake her up.
I woke with a gasp, my body racked by a hard jerk. Lucky whimpered and pawed at me
Crossfire books 1-4: erotic romance, Crossfire book 5: UNDERSTATED SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENON???
Anyway, as you’re aware, we’re at the end of the very last Crossfire book, so eventually we’re going to have… the last sex scene. Or, if you will, the clima- YES I AM DISAPPOINTED WITH MYSELF TOO.
But seriously. Crossfire‘s one “thing” is that it’s not-Fifty Shades. (Much like how all anyone knows about Divergent is that it’s not-Hunger Games.) Which means that this is erotic romance, and gosh dang it, the sex is important to the story. Not that a moving story can’t primarily be about sex, obviously, but when we’ve had five books of pretty treacly writing and it now has to be the treacly writing to sum up all treacly writing…
“Eva.”
I heard the question in the way he said my name.
“Make me feel,” I whispered.
Yeah, we’re in for a rough one. An unintentionally hilarious one, of course! But a rough one.
“Does your pretty cunt ache, angel?” He nibbled at the corner of my lips. […] “What does it need? My tongue… my fingers… my cock?”
Five fucking books and Gideon’s still using the word “cunt”. I’m overwhelmed by all the character growth. Well, we’re here now. What do you say, Sylvia Day? One more “greedy cunt” for the road?
“What do you want me to put into your greedy little cunt? All of the above?”
Five fucking books and the sexy talk still manages to sound misogynistic, repetitive, and like a fucking middle school multiple choice exam all at the same time.
“How do you want it?” he asked darkly. “Slow and sweet? Fast and rough?”
lol jk they do both
It’s probably not worth pointing it out, but the heat-of-the-moment sex talk that also has to be a metaphor for their emotional connection as it has grown over the last five books because it is the last sex scene… is pretty seriously bad.
“Are you feeling this, angel?” he demanded, his voice gruff with desire.
“You’re all I feel,” I moaned
Seriously bad.
“Eva.” He growled my name. “Are. You. Good?”
Even I know that asking a sexual partner “hey, do you think this is good?” during sex isn’t really shooting for the stars.
I moaned […] his body fucking me with destructive expertise.
Ok, but wait, somehow that’s not the stupidest description of Gideon’s sexual prowess. On this page.
Gideon loomed over me in the moonlight, a darkly sexual fallen angel.
Gideon accidentally summarizes all five Crossfire books in five words.
“Your cunt loves my cock.”
Obviously I skipped over a lot of the details of this sex scene because 1) we’ve read it a billion times, 2) you know more or less how it works anyway, 3) you got the highlights (that’s… the whole blog!). But, as you know, this is the last sex scene. This is the last book, and therefore the end of the Eva and Gideon love story. So you might be wondering, how does this tie it all together?
With a title drop.
I let go of my grief in the shelter of his arms, knowing that whether in joy or pain, Gideon was one with me.
Ugh, and this chapter still isn’t anywhere fucking close to done.
Eva and Gideon have a mildly unspecified celebration at their beach house anyway, with their friends and family, including Eva’s previously pretty much entirely unseen dad’s side of the family. Which prompts some moments of… this…
My grandmother [would] whip up her famous posole. […] I knew firsthand that her rendition of the classic Mexican soupy stew was delicious.
So this is hardly the most important part of the finale, but… a few things:
- If it’s so famous, why is the first time we’re ever hearing about it (or her) in the penultimate chapter of the five-book series?
- “the classic Mexican soupy stew” – I get that not everyone reading this is going to have an innate understanding of what posole is, but prose this clinical-sounding kind of makes me question if the person writing the story doesn’t either
I hadn’t spent much time with my dad’s family
Yeah, we know, because this is the first time we’ve ever seen them. Good thing Eva’s mom got shot so everyone could realize life is too short to worry about their problems and that is actually how this series wrapped up all its subplots! How’s Cary’s love life going?
“Trey called me yesterday,” Cary tossed out casually. […] Something had shifted for Cary in the last few weeks. He hadn’t turned to his usual self-destructive coping mechanisms
Sweet! All of Cary’s problems are totally resolved! Thanks, guy who shot Eva’s mom!
Since this event was supposed to be their ceremonial wedding, Gideon gives Eva a ring.
[He showed] me the gorgeous wedding band in his palm. Large round diamonds in a channel setting circled the entire band
You might be thinking, “Wait, aren’t they already married? Doesn’t she already have a wedding ring?” Crossfire is thinking, “And?”
He was smiling as he took my hand and slid the ring on my finger, nestling it next to the beautiful Asscher diamond he’d given me at our wedding.
And this is weirdly Crossfire in a nutshell: literally anything can just be done a second time, because coming up with new story is hard.
I need a boy band made up of four Joshes (who are also a team of nationally recognized mental health professionals) to understand and help me through this chapter.
Everybody knows that when loved ones you’re extremely close to die it totally brings people OUT of their spiraling, self-destructive lifestyles, right? That’s how real life works! I’m a writer!
I would LOVE to see Gideon try for “all of the above” simultaneously
Granted, posole is delicious, but if someone asked me to describe it, I think I’d go for the obvious descriptor of “hominy stew” because that’s literally what “posole” means. I mean, if I described my mom’s pot roast (her signature dish when I was growing up) that way, it would sound like “I knew firsthand that her rendition of meat and potatoes was delicious.” Yep, sounds personal.
Come on! There’s literally nothing else going on in this book anymore and Eva’s trait of being a “spicy Latina” is still around, so I would love for Day to go all-out on food descriptions. It might be more interesting than anything going on in the plot. (More interesting to me, anyway, because I looooove living vicariously through characters eating good food. It’s a weakness. Brian Jacques novels were like crack to me as a pre-teen for this reason.)
Not to totally miss the point…
But I have a signed copy of the Redwall Cookbook. And yes. That stuff is crack. Pies and stews and October Ale…
I can’t even discuss Crossfire right now because I need to go dig through a box of books to find my childhood.
So that’s it? Do we not learn why her mom was living under a false name?
Book’s not over yet, silly! http://badbooksgoodtimes.com/2016/09/05/one-with-you-chapter-16/