Matthew comes to pick Diana up for dinner, and it seems that when he’s not living in his 16th century manor house, he lives at All Souls College.  Is it really necessary to heap this much specialness on one character?  He’s already a vampire with multiple fancy houses and supposed-brilliance and the respect of all his scientist peers and oddles of money and also on top of that he single-handedly started the magical-civil-rights movement. 

Oh, here’s what else we can give him.   A private wine cellar full of unspeakably old and fine wines. 

None of this, of course, has anything to do with the plot.  Apparently the author just really has a fetish for wine and all the trappings of high-class.  Which is fine, but work that into the setting, don’t spend five pages trying to impress us with the grand size of the wine cellar that’s in the bottom of the old cathedral that’s in the uber-exclusive college.  There’s a bit difference between setting a scene, and making the story all about going down the basement to get wine. 

Oh, and also Matthew has like a zillion degrees and has been to a couple dozen colleges, because he’s still just not special enough. 

Blah, blah, several pages now about how the food is just so awesome and everything’s just so awesome and the oysters and champagne are just so awesome, and guys, you have no idea how awesome Diana’s life is at this moment, and don’t you just want to be in her shoes?  Uhg, wasn’t one dinner date with every single flavor and texture described enough for this book?  Do we really need another one?  Is the age of every one of his five wines for the evening really that important?

It’s not.  None of this is important.  I hate this book.

Then Diana idly wonders what she would taste like if Matthew ate her, and that makes him angry.  He grabs her and gets…extremely creepy, talking about the legend that a vampire ‘can’t help himself’ when it comes to a woman he wants to eat.  Yeah, because we really need more of that toxic old idea.

This doesn’t happen in real life.  Yes, on occasion, you will find a man who ‘can’t control himself.’  It’ll be because he’s mentally hampered in some way.  There are disorders and illnesses and other conditions can make people act in ways that are outside their control.  But that’s kind of the point.  It’s a disorder.  ‘Lust’ does not count as a disorder.  If you are a mentally competent person, you can control your own actions, and you should.  Maybe it’s hard, maybe you don’t want to, but tough cookies.  If you aren’t legally insane, then do it anyway.  There is no amount of ‘sexiness’ or ‘temptation’ or ‘lust’ or anything else that can make a man ‘unable to help himself’ when it comes to shit like this.  (And visa-versa for female-on-male harassment.)  It doesn’t happen.  If anyone claims this, they’re basically admitting to being mentally incompetent. 

Furthermore, it puts the responsibility for someone else’s actions off on the woman.  It’s saying that it’s her fault, that it’s her responsibility to somehow be less tempting.  Or, if it’s just her woman-ness that’s at fault, then it’s now her duty to cover up or stay indoors or something.  Fuck that.  No woman is responsibility for the actions of another man.  It’s up to him to be a decent person and if he fails at that, it’s his own damn fault.

Now, Matthew is a vampire, so you could claim that it’s all because of magic and shit, yes?  Fine, cool, I’ll buy magic as a work-around for personal responsibility.  But that’s fucking scary.  It’s a horrifying thing.  Both for the vampire and for the victim.  It’s terrible to be out of control no matter how much you want to be in control, and it’s terrible to be at the mercy of someone who you would otherwise trust, knowing that you can’t be around them because they might hurt you.  It’s a horrifying thing, and it’s fine to play with as a horror/angst concept. 

Here?  There’s no horror.  There’s no struggle.  Matthew is perfectly able to keep himself in check as he starts to make out with her, and the whole ‘I can’t help myself’ bit is played off as romance.  This book is taking horror and presenting it as romance. 

Was I drunk from two glasses of wine? Drugged? What else would explain the feeling that I couldn’t break free?

Also don’t forget that we’ve already been presented with the idea that vampires can ‘charm’ their victims.  While I’m sure this book wants us to believe she’s just taken up with ~*~*~feelings~*~*~ that are of cosmic importance, what it’s really done is imply that Matthew is magically inhibiting her free will so that she’ll stay still long enough for him to make out with/nom on her.

“Be still,” he said, voice harsh. “I might not be able to control myself if you step away.”

How the hell am I supposed to read this scene as anything but some horrific story of manipulation, shaming, and abuse?

The ‘horror as romance’ gets just worse when Diana spontaneously declares that she trusts Matthew not to harm her.  So, either she’s an idiot (or rather, more of an idiot than she was already), or Matthew’s “I can’t help myself” is just his own dickery and not magic, or she’s still under his thrall and saying stuff while mind-controlled.  Or some combination of all three, but “oh, what a sweet romantic moment” sure isn’t on the list.

“I’ve seen courage like yours before—from women, mostly.” Matthew continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Men don’t have it. Our resolve is born out of fear. It’s merely bravado.”

What the fuck even is this bullshit?

There’s nothing I hate more than the brand of ‘feminism’ that tries to elevate women by giving out ‘his and hers’ traits.  A man’s courage is no different from a woman’s courage.  There is no gendered courage.  There is no ‘female power’ and ‘male power.’  It’s incredibly insulting to both genders to say otherwise.  Men can have true courage, and women can have false bravado, and the other way around as well, because we are all people.  We’re individuals, defined by so much more than just our gender.

One cold finger reached out and captured a tear from the tips of my eyelashes.

When did she start crying?  Because this really isn’t helping to convince me that this is anything other than horror.

Finally he lets her sit down again and warns her not to tempt him (there we go again, blaming the victim) with jokes about how blood tastes.  What an ass.

They go back to dinner as if nothing had just happened and spout of some really trite shit about the nature of desire and magic.  Complete with more talk about how if Diana used magic to do anything, it somehow wouldn’t count.

Finally, Diana admits that she’s going to recall the magic book next time she goes to the library, try and break the spell, and then show it to Matthew.  Then they realize that Diana didn’t break the spell at all the first time, the book opened of its own accord because she ‘met the spell’s conditions.’  Cool, I like that, too.  Whenever this book finally gets around to doing shit, I tend to like it.  It’s the fluff and padding and pseudo-intellectual bullshit and horror-as-romance that makes this book terrible.  Too bad that’s 99% of this mess.

The decide that once the other creatures know it’s not a spell that they can copy, but something unique to Diana, they’ll get…um, angry?  Yeah, they just spontaneously decide that said creatures will want to do something terrible to her at this discovery, but I’m not sure what it is or why.  I mean, it seems more likely that they’d simply kidnap her or bribe her into opening it for them, not brutally murder her in a fit of pique. 

Oh, well, enough of that.  Like so many of these chapters, we’ve gotten a dozen pages of pointless and stupid bullshit, followed by a slight hint of a promise of further plot.  Will next chapter break the mold or continue the tradition?