America tries to hide from Aspen by staying in the Women’s Room, which makes no sense, because it’s not like Aspen was going to be assigned to follow her around.  He was just going to be put on a rotation of guards who stand outside her door at night.  Seriously, she doesn’t mention ever having any interaction with any other guards, so I don’t know why she’s so concerned about Aspen.  They’re hardly going to be forced to interact. 

Well, whatever, America is now hiding.  A few days later, it’s Kriss’s birthday, so Maxon is going to throw her a huge party that’s mandatory for all the other girls to attend.  I’m not sure why it’s mandatory.  That seems a little insulting.  Like, as if Kriss is the kid in class whose party your parents make you attend, because no one wants to go voluntarily.  Why can’t the girls just go because they want to show off how generous and gracious they are, and also cake?  Cake is a good reason for anything.

America takes her violin to the party because she’s going to play as song as a birthday present for Kriss.  She creeps through the palace, checking around corners at every turn, because she doesn’t want to so much as see Aspen, I guess.  Although if she looked around a corner and saw him, she’d still see him.

Look, I know running across an ex is not fun, but just walking past him in the hallway without being required to interact in any way should not be treated as such a world-shattering event.

She gets to The Great Room, which is basically the only room we see besides the Women’s Room, because this book doesn’t seem to realize that it’s set in a fucking palace.  No, really, there should be like a dozen different rooms suitable for parties, depending on what size and formality of party you’re going for.  Why the fuck does everything happen in one of a handful of rooms?  This is a book; it doesn’t cost anything to add more rooms to your made-up building.

Anyway, everything is decorated in yellow and white, with garlands and bows and, I shit you not, glitter confetti.  Honestly, it sounds like the decorations for a mid-range wedding.  Now, on the one hand, America is supposedly poor, so I don’t mind her being all “wow” over it.  On the other hand, the book comes off as if it really is the super-awesome-est party ever.  And on a third hand, doesn’t America sing at fancy parties all the time?

America sees a string quartet in the corner and figures no one will want her gift song, because she doesn’t seem to understand the concept of a solo performance, I guess.  Also, she doesn’t give one single, solitary thought to the idea that these are Fives, doing the exact same job that she and her mother do.  Seriously, not one spare thought to how she’s seeing them and then dismissing/ignoring them, just as people used to do to her.  Not one moment of homesickness.  Not one urge to go over and give them attention/encouragement, to show them that they are appreciated.  Nothing.  Nadda.  America is no long a Five, so America no long cares about Fives.

America goes over to see Marlee, who is standing by a wall and sulking.  They chit-chat for a while, until all the girls start making a fuss over Kriss, who has just entered.  It seems while all the girls have been wearing short day dresses, Kriss has shown up in an evening gown and put a line of jeweled hair pins across the top of her head so it resembles a crown.  So…basically, she’s dressed completely inappropriately for the occasion. 

Oh, wait, no, the book is trying to pass Kriss off as awesome.

I felt a pang of jealousy. None of us would ever get a similar moment. No matter how many parties or dinners came and went, it would be rather pathetic to try to copy Kriss’s look.

Okay, so don’t copy Kriss’s look.  Come up with something else that’s shocking and completely inappropriate.  I mean, two chapters ago America was snipping at Celeste for trying to copy America and now America is bemoaning the fact that she can’t copy Kriss?  Who the fuck cares?  Just carry on being your oh-so-special you-ness, since you appear to place such a high value on that. 

Celeste descends on Kriss and sticks to her like white on rice, so clearly she has something up her sleeve.  Did I call her subtle in a previous chapter?  I take it back.  Then Kriss and Celeste come over to chat with them about past birthday parties.

Kriss was a Four, as was Marlee. There weren’t nearly as many limits to their lives as mine, but I’d imagine anything close to this scale would be hard to justify.

What was that said in a previous chapter?  That once you get below Three, it’s just varying shades of suck?  And what limits?  Is this supposed to be taken as “Fives just aren’t allowed to buy/do certain things”?  Is that why Kota, with all his money, wants to be a Two?  Because he just can’t spend his money?  Well that’s fucking stupid, because that just traps capital in places where it can’t re-enter the economy.

God damnit, book, I want to hear more about these limits!

Celeste brags about how awesome her last party was, and they flew in some famous singer named Tessa Tamble. 

“Well, Tessa’s a dear friend of the family, so she came in and did a concert for my party. I mean, we couldn’t have a bunch of dreary Fives sucking all the life out of the room.”

What the fuck, book.  Seriously, what the fuck.  What is Tessa if she’s not a Five?  When you set up this crazy system, you said that only people in certain castes are allowed to be in certain jobs, and singing is a Five job.  So how is ‘rock star’ not a Five job?  Do people in this world just go straight into either ‘fame’ or ‘party performer’ with no variance?  Was Tessa’s first job ever playing to a sold-out stadium?

Did you know that the Beatles, before they got famous, spent a couple years in Hamburg, Germany where they played nearly every night, often for the entire night, just to make ends meat?  Nobody just jumps straight into ‘famous.’  God, even the kids put out by Disney have to act in a couple of shows first.

Celeste’s outside job is being a model who does ad campaigns.  I refuse to be impressed, because I’ve done the same thing.  (Shit you not.  I was in a geeky catalogue for a company that sold costumes.  I was also in an ad for a local hairdresser.)  It’s not hard to get these jobs, it’s just hard to get steady work and get above the ‘strictly local, no, seriously, we’re just going to be in the city paper and even then only once’ level.  But Celeste just throws out ‘advertisement model’ like there’s only one level of those, because when has this book ever admitted that most jobs have a sliding scale of awesomeness to them?  I’m going to now assume that all of Celeste’s advertisements have been on midnight commercials and small-town newspapers, because I can.

Then Kriss asks about America’s own job, finds out she plays, and wants to hear her birthday song.  The string quartet stops playing so that everyone can pay attention to America, and then some of the girls even sit on the floor!  In their very expensive dresses!  Even though the room is full of chairs that can easily be brought over!  Because fuck logic, that’s why.

Then America plays music, and she gets to go to her happy place where none of the annoyances that she cries about so much can bother her.  You know, if playing music is her happy place, how come we don’t see her do that more often?  Instead of just sit and stare at the ceiling and whine?

as [the perfect notes] floated on, this gift that was meant to be something for Kriss became something for me.

Well, that’s a lovely thought.  The gift you were supposed to give to someone else becomes all about you.  Yup, I can see why everyone goes on and on about how fucking generous you are.  You clearly don’t consider yourself the center of the universe or only think about things in relation to yourself or anything like that.  Wow, thanks America.  Thanks for showing me the way.

(Really, though, this is another example of pandering to teens.  It tells them that if they act like this, they will be Mary Sues too, and since most teenagers act this selfish anyway, they gobble that shit up like candy.  I know why people do this, I just don’t know why people think it’s a good idea.)

After her song, she opens her eyes and sees Maxon is standing there looking all dumbstruck at how perfect her song is.  Eh, I don’t know, everyone else in the room is just clapping politely.  It makes it sound like America is an average violinist and just thinks she’s awesome.  Which, admittedly, I find a lot more palatable than if everyone was genuflecting over how fucking marvelous she is.

When everyone turns to greet Maxon, Celeste pours punch down Kriss’s dress and calls it an accident.  I’m not sure what that was supposed to accomplish, because Kriss’s dress may be ruined, but…well, everyone knows Celeste did it.  There’s no room to think that Kriss must be clumsy or a slob.  If anything, she gets sympathy points this way.

Marlee thinks that it’s time to get rid of Celeste, and America agrees.  Except she agrees by saying it was time for her to get rid of Celeste, since…I don’t know, it’s her responsibility to police the Selection now?  But only when it applies to Celeste, I guess, since she hasn’t shown an interest in influencing any of the other girls before now.

Wow, I hope all the rest of the chapters are this short.  It’s almost like the book wants to get to the end as much as I do.