I was absolutely, totally not thinking about the disturbing scene I’d accidentally witnessed. I was forgetting it—on purpose. The last thing I needed was to have more to deal with than a new life and a weird Mark. So, blow job—forgotten.

Zoey forgets things by telling us about them.  Interesting tactic, Zoey.

Neferet takes Zoey over to the dorms very slowly, so that Zoey has time to gawk and question.  The place is ‘castle-like’ despite that making no fucking sense.  It was built as a monastery to a rather extremist fake sect of Christians.  In the 1920s.  Christians, much less the extremists, were not building fucking castles in the 1920s.  That monastery should be blocky and boring and made of local bricks, not stone imported from Europe.  I mean, you have to keep up at least a pretense of austerity.

But, no, vampyres.  They got to have castles and fucking gaslamps.  Because…reasons.

They get to the dorm.  It’s pretty and super nifty.  Also, they have TVs in the common room, so clearly they are capable of electricity.  However, Zoey once again points out that all the lights are gas.

Zoey becomes the center of attention again as everyone looks at her, then some little blond chick named Aphrodite stands up to welcome her.

Actually, she reminded me of a young version of Sarah Jessica Parker (who I don’t like, by the by—she’s just so…so…annoying and unnaturally perky).

Book.  I fucking hate you.  You have moved on from insulting women in general and are now insulting specific real-life women and I hate you.

Zoey thinks it’s stupid to have the name ‘Aphrodite.’  But ‘Neferet’ is perfectly normal, I guess?

And I didn’t need my new intuition to clue me in that something was wrong, because Aphrodite laughed—and I recognized the sound of it.

Aw, look, Zoey is learning how to use her brain and actually figure stuff out!  Good job, Zoey.  You’ve graduated to a toddler-level of reasoning ability.

Anyway, Aphrodite is the blow job girl.  She offers to show Zoey around the dorms.  Because…she knows which room is being assigned to Zoey?  Is this common knowledge?  Do they just go on a rotation, or fill in a hallway so that new girls go to whichever the next ‘free’ room is?

was as fake and cold as Pamela Anderson’s humongously huge boobs

I hate you times infinity.

“It’s amazing here mostly because of me.”

I glanced at her, thinking that she must be kidding, and met her cold blue eyes.

“Yeah, you heard me right. This place is cool because I’m cool.”

Oh. My. God. What a bizarre thing for her to say.

Yeah, that is bizarre.  As in, no one would say this unless they are some socially maladjusted shut-in who’s desperately trying to either convince themselves of something or be funny.  This is not what an actual Queen Bee would say, because someone with skill would realize that it sounds fucking stupid.

Halfway to the dorm rooms, Aphrodite rounds on Zoey and says that the whole school thinks she’s hot shit, but Zoey shouldn’t get a big head, because really Aphrodite is the one in charge.

Book.  Let me help you out here: people in charge do not need to say they are in charge.  They just are.  At least, in setting like this.  Aphrodite shouldn’t have to threaten everyone into treating her special, primarily because that’s a one-way ticket to the bottom of the totem pole.  Either Aphrodite isn’t the Queen Bee and just wants at least one sycophant in the form of Zoey, or she should be trying to cotton up to Zoey so that Zoey’s popularity rubs off on her.  If Aphrodite took Zoey in hand and became ‘friends’ with her, then any attention Zoey got would automatically be shared, and Aphrodite, as the ‘mentor,’ would be placed above Zoey in importance.  Rising tide, all boats, that sort of thing.

So basically what I’m getting from this is that Aphrodite is really, really fucked up in ways that aren’t her fault, is probably unpopular, is desperate to fit in, probably gets all of her ideas about socializing from books and movies about high school, and just needs a friend.  But instead, the book hates her and insults her every other line by saying that her voice or her walk or whatever is stupid.

Because my hate for this book will never end, that’s why.

They move on to Zoey’s new roommate.  Stevie Rae Johnson.  Apparently Stevie Rae has an Oklahoma accent.  Says the girl who fucking grew up in Oklahoma.

Apparently Stevie Rae is terrified of Aphrodite, so Zoey kicks Aphrodite out.  Because we have to do that thing again, where the main character isn’t afraid of non-scary things, and somehow that makes her awesome. 

“She’s a bitch!” I said.

Stevie Rae’s eyes went round, and then she giggled. “She’s not very nice, that’s for sure.”

“She needs pharmaceutical help, that’s for sure,” I added, making her laugh some more.

“I think we’re gonna get along just fine, Zoey Redbird,” she said

UHG!  PEOPLE WHO ARE UNIFORMLY REGARDED AS ‘BITCHY’ DO NOT BECOME POPULAR!  THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF POPULAR!

And, oh, yay, throw in an insult for people with personality disorders.  Because if someone really does need professional help, it’s perfectly alright to mock them for it and call them bitches.

Stevie Rae is a stereotype of a country girl, right down to the cowboy boots and posters of country music performers.  Because, you know, growing up in Oklahoma, Zoey hasn’t seen all this stuff before or nothing.

reminding me of a cute puppy with her short, curly hair and her smiling round face.

This book just can’t stop comparing women to dogs, can it?  The mean ones are bitches, the nice ones are puppies, but no one is a person.  Because fuck feminism, that’s why.

“Zoey, I’m so glad you’re feelin’ better! I was so worried when I heard you’d hurt yourself. I’m really glad you’re finally here.”

This total stranger…um, heard Zoey was hurt and actually worried about her?  Why?

Oh, right, because this is the supporting yesman character who lives only to be a satellite of the main character and has no thoughts or worries for herself.  Sorry, I was thrown off for a moment by how fucking blatant it is.

Seems that SR was told about getting a roomie as soon as the tracker marked Zoey.  Again: why did the tracker not stick around and bring her to the fucking school so that she wouldn’t do something crazy like, I don’t know, go running around in the middle of the day and pass out and crack her head open?

Zoey’s stuff is all in her room already, even stuff she didn’t pack, because her Grandmother brought it from home.  When?  There’s been no time between Zoey waking up and Zoey getting here for her Grandmother do make a run to her house and collect all her stuff.  So when did this happen?  Did her Grandmother, while on the way to school with an unconscious and bleeding Zoey, decide “hey, I’ll just make a pit stop by the house and grab books and linens and shit.  That’s totally a priority right now”?

More insults to her mom.

You know, to save space and time and sanity, I shouldn’t probably not go on about every insult this book gives.  I could just keep a running list of the people she insults in each chapter.

Apparently they are allowed to add things to their uniforms to make them unique.  Which really defeats the purpose of having uniforms.  Might as well just let them wear anything.

Unlike too many kids from our suburb of Broken Arrow, I actually knew my way around Tulsa, thanks to what Grandma liked to call “field-tripping” with her.

I…I don’t…what the fuck am I looking at?

Broken Arrow is a real town in Oklahoma.  IT’S TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES AWAY FROM TULSA.  Twenty minutes!  Not even twenty minutes of country, but twenty minutes of city since it’s all one big metropolis sprawl.  That makes no fucking sense.  Most of the kids in BA should be used to going to Tulsa FOR DINNER, not for a fucking field-trip.

I drive further than that to get to my own nearest mall.

This is so stupid it’s reaching brain-breaking levels.  I don’t even know how stupid someone has to be that they can’t realize that people in one town will very often go to A TOWN THAT’S RIGHT FUCKING NEXT DOOR.

Whatever, Zoey starts showing off her ‘oh so special’ knowledge of Tulsa, because the school kids are allowed out, there’s just a bunch rules about it.  Before SR can explain the rules, she spontaneously remembers that its dinner time.  They get set to put Zoey in a uniform, and Zoey checks out SR’s uniform.  Which isn’t a uniform, it’s just jeans (that Zoey mentally insults, because she has to insult even her friends because she is that low on the scum scale) and a regular shirt.

Book, I think you need to look up ‘uniform’ again.  You seem to have missed the point.

Zoey’s new uniform is just a shirt and sweater.  The sweater has an embroidered pattern on it, and each class has their own pattern, so that’s what those mean.

They bond a bit over how SR has no thoughts or curiosity and always says just the right thing to make Zoey feel better and is just the most perfect little doormat ever.  Then she’s compared to a dog again.

Then more bullshit about Zoey looking in a mirror and angsting about how special she is.  I have no more flying fucks to give for Zoey’s wangst.