Calendar Girl (May) Chapter 9: This Book Was Apparently About Mia Looking for Purpose in Life

Apparently we’ve already reached the penultimate chapter. This book feels particularly plotless, and that’s saying a lot.

Calendar Girl (May) Chapter 9:

Everyone goes riding on ATVs.

Tao sat on his ATV, pulled out a small ukulele from his backpack, and started to strum a tune.

There’s only one person I will tolerate playing the ukulele unprovoked and that’s Matthew and just barely. At least pretend to check in if everyone is on board for your unsolicited ukulele playing, Tao. Like that’s rude.

As Tao sings beautiful lyrics such as, “I love you like a mango,” Tai confesses that he doesn’t want Mia to leave. Mia is sad too, but she tells him, “…you know, Tai, that we’re not each other’s forever.” Because his mother’s prophecy foretold he was destined for a blonde woman with green eyes. Seriously. I’m not saying Mia couldn’t know deep down they’re not right for each other, but they’ve been dating a month and seem really into each other, so it seems like that weird/offensive trope was introduced with the sole purpose of not letting us think there was any competition for Wes at this point.

It wasn’t love that kept us clinging to one another. It was friendship, lust, and ease. Being with Tai, the two of us together just worked. It was easy. I’d not had a month a man yet that was as smooth as it had been with Tai.

Which is actually the perfect formula for love, but twas not written in the stars, so it can never be.

Mia promises Tai he’s going to find the love of his life, which is apparently how Mia is going to solve someone else’s life this book.

After the ATVs, they go to a ranch to ride horses. Maybe next they will go on a segue tour of Hawaii.

…my horse, aptly named “Buttercup” for his caramel color and black hair, reminding me of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup…

Yes, because a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup is the first thing people assume you mean when you say “Buttercup.”

Ginelle continues to be disgusting as she and Tao talk about how she could crack coconuts with her thighs.

I rolled mine.

“Gross.” “It’s true. I probably could crack some nuts with these thighs. Maybe we should give it a go tonight, big boy,” she said to Tao, and I noisily made gagging sounds. “What? You think it’s fair you’re the only one getting hot Samoan meat between your legs. Hell no. I’m going to ride this guy like a prized bull rider to-night!” She emphasized the last word, making it two.

If you ned a minute to go throw up, I understand completely.

It turns out while all this delightful and not-at-all racist banter is going on between Mia and Gin, there’s a tour guide giving Maddie all the details about the ranch and how movies like Jurassic Park were filmed there. If I were Mia, I would be 100% listening to this cool shit rather than talk to Gin.

Instead, she just talks to Tai about how proud she is of her sister and how she needs to find something in her life for herself since she’s spent so much time looking out for Maddie. Then they talk about how Tai still wants to find his soul-mate. Smooth way to work that into the conversation, Tai.

Later on the beach, Maddie and Mia have a heart to heart about how Mia can stop basing all her life decisions around her sister. She also reassures Mia that even though she’s getting married, she’s still determined to become a doctor.

“But now I’m going to be Matt’s everything, and he will be mine. You need to find that too.”

I feel like Maddie is only getting married so Mia can feel like someone else is taking care of her and she can focus on herself. That’s a pretty extreme way to get Mia to accept that Maddie is an adult and Mia doesn’t need to treat her like her daughter anymore.

But this conversation leaves Mia wondering what she does now that she doesn’t have to make all her decisions for Maddie. I honestly can’t really remember a time in this book that Mia referenced any recent decisions that were made solely for Maddie’s benefit. Becoming a call girl was to pay off her father’s debts (and I guess by extension this protected Maddie), but what else? Why is this book suddenly like what’s next for Mia besides 7 more months of call girldom?

The chapter ends with Mia realizing she needs to do some soul-searching and figure out what’s next for her and what she wants out of life, which actually makes a lot of sense. It’s just weird that it’s being shoe-horned into the penultimate chapter.