What the fuck is even happening with this series anymore? Is Audrey Carlan intentionally trolling us all? This chapter is honestly about how a woman’s best friend is kidnapped and her reaction is to think about pizza all the time. I know on the surface that sound super relatable, but it’s not.
Calendar Girl (September) Chapter 5:
Mia is sent a “video text message from an unknown caller” (she obviously means number since it’s pretty clear no one is actually calling), and it’s utterly ridiculous that I wasn’t sure if it was going to be terrorist or Blaine related:
Ginelle. A black strip of fabric over her eyes, her nose bleeding, blood running down her lip into her mouth.
I know I complain about Ginelle all the time, but can we not with this?
Mia watches the video, and it’s exactly what you expected:
The video panned back, and I found she was dressed in one of her work outfits. Feathers and sequins were shredded as a man’s hand came into view. The fingertips of his meaty hand caressed down the open space between her breasts in a revolting show of power.
No kidnapping video would be complete without sexual assault! Also does anyone else feel like the book was weirdly sexualising this scene? Like why is it important Ginelle is in her sexy work attire? I felt this like it was a horny seventh grader’s vision of a gritty, sexy kidnapping scene in an action movie. Mia even confirms this hypothesis:
Blaine and his goons had Ginelle. Terrorists had Wes. Pops was in a coma. Life had become a twisted action thriller movie. I was the unsuspecting character with few resources and I was emotionally jacked up.
WHAT?! Jesus, robot Mia, you are not convincingly human at all. Factory reboot needed!
The kidnappers force Gin to…invite Mia on a date with Blaine or they’ll kill her. Oh, and of course they’ll also kill her if Mia calls the cops/tells anyone. I get that Blaine isn’t supposed to be a paragon of mental stability, but why is he going to such lengths to secure a dinner date with Mia? How could anyone possibly want to share a meal with her this badly?
To: Mia Saunders
From: Blaine Douchebag Pintero
Don’t defy me again or I’ll let him have her. Dress to impress. We have plans.
So I quoted this because I wanted to emphasise the lazy way sexual assault always has to be written in as though kidnapping and threatening Ginelle’s life wasn’t enough of a motivator for Mia. I also wanted to set the scene for how Mia keeps trying to make us understand how she could have fallen for Blaine in the first place, how young and stupid she was. Nothing is ever going to convince me that he ever came across as anything but a slimeball. Especially not when he comes across as a slimeball in all the flashbacks.
His eyes were glued to my ass, my tits, and everything in between, making me feel hot, bothered, and desired in a way I’d missed since Benny’d up and disappeared, only to find out he’d actually ditched me to save his own ass.
Also I can’t remember what any of this backstory is. I’m so sorry, I can’t help you guys here anymore than I can help myself in this horrible situation we’ve all found ourselves in with this book. I vaguely remember all of us making fun of how there was a Benny in this and Beautiful Disaster? But that’s it.
So Mia explains how Blaine asked her out to this restaurant – the very restaurant she’s meeting him at tonight – and then, I kid you not, details their whole pizza order.
We ordered pizza and an expensive wine.
[…]
[W]e talked, had two bottles of wine, and ate pizza followed by the most mouthwatering tiramisu I’d ever tasted.
Once a month, for the two years we were together, we went back to “our place” and stuffed our faces with pizza and wine.
Ginelle has just been kidnapped, Blaine has threatened to have his “goons” rape and kill her, and Mia is like, “But remember that pizza and tiramasu we had? It was hella good.”
We have spent more time reminiscing about pizza than we have expressing worry about Gin.
Mia makes another last-ditch effort to convince us that it totally makes total and complete sense totally that she fell for this obviously villainous man:
I was so young, dumb, and full of cum that I ate up every line of bullshit he fed me…
FULL OF CUM AND PIZZA. Just to clarify.
By the way, that line has been highlighted 15 times according to my Kindle, and I can only pray it’s because other bad book bloggers out there are diligently doing their jobs.
Anyway, at dinner Blaine spews exactly the kind of batshit and sexist bullshit we were all expecting.
“I don’t understand why you want me here. You know I’m good for the money,” I whispered and looked around. “There’s no way in this lifetime that I’d stiff you.”
He grinned. “Oh, but my pretty, pretty Mia, you have already made me stiff.” His eyebrows waggled…
Yeah, because that was going to win Mia back. It makes sense this clever guy is running a successful mob-style operation in Vegas, doesn’t it?
He then tries to entice Mia into marrying him by saying they’ll rule Vegas together and that he’s decided she’s the only one he wants to be his wife. But why??? I mean, we know Mia was full of cum and pizza during their love affair, but why is this man so hellbent on making Mia his wife specifically that he would kidnap and murder another person? I don’t get it. Apparently, there’s even an offer involved in all this, but first…
Before he got down to telling me what the offer was, the waiter delivered two steaming hot pizzas, one margherita and one supreme. The smell alone had me salivating.
Is this chapter Audrey Carlan’s cry for pizza-related help? Like someone please order this woman some Dominos already!
Mia spends so much time describing what they ate on their first date that I almost forgot that EVERYONE SHE KNOWS AND LOVES HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED OR IS IN A COMA. And now this weird digression! Why are we hearing about Mia craving pizza now? At a time like this?
Aragh. Finally Blaine gives his totally not at all obvious offer:
“The four hundred thousand you owe me, or you, for a single night in my bed.”
Who could have ever seen that coming? Also, I feel like now is really the time for Mia to just ask Max for the money. I thought that Blaine was just going to tell Mia she needed to sleep with him to save Gin’s life, but he’s giving her a complete out. There is no need for any of this to happen.