America’s dad writes her a letter, since the families got sent home right after the whipping.  “For safety,” but I don’t understand what kind of danger they were in?

At the end of the letter, Dad tells her that he was “so proud” of her for running at the stage and that this proves her moral compass is “perfectly aligned.”  Shit, if caring about a best friend is his only standard, that’s pretty bleak.  At the time, I was happy that she was just moving, because we hadn’t seen her show any signs of life in the book yet, but that doesn’t mean she was doing anything praise-worthy.

Really look at that statement.  What is he proud of her for?  Trying to protect a friend?  That should be your standard non-sociopathic reaction.  He can be proud of her for that – he is a parent after all, and they’re happy any time their kids don’t screw up – but that’s not really moral compass territory.  Is he happy that she disagreed with the “official” party line?  There have been statements that he doesn’t like the government’s actions, but America hasn’t been particularly duped until this point.  She doesn’t like them either, she just keeps her dislike mild and quiet.  So basically, she didn’t like her society but didn’t bother to speak up about it until it was her best friend getting hurt.  All those other people in the world?  Eh, fuck ‘em, America doesn’t care.  Again, not really anything to cry moral compass over.

America goes to socialize in the Woman’s Room (I die a little every time I read that) and informs us that the country doesn’t have newspapers.  But they do have magazines.  Which basically function like newspapers in this world.  What’s the difference, you ask?  Hell if I know.  If they print the news, then they print the news.  Also, apparently only the rich can afford them.  I guess paper is expensive in this world that doesn’t have computers…

I don’t know why that bothers me.  So much of this world is so poorly glued together that I can’t really figure out how it doesn’t fit.  But it doesn’t.  And I’m bothered.  Maybe it’s the idea that media is restricted to the upper echelons.  Why would you do that?  The richies are rich; they don’t need to be brainwashed into liking the system because they’re already on top.  You need to get your propaganda out to the lower classes, saturated them with it, and a once-weekly news report on television just doesn’t do that.  Having a dearth of news just means that people will share gossip and rumors and their own version of the news amongst each other, and that’s the last thing a totalitarian government should want.

The queen comes in and officially reprimands America but does one of those wink-and-nudge-but-you-did-good things.  Book, now you’re just annoying me.  Yeah, it wasn’t a bad thing she did and she should have done it.  But it was totally and completely normal. On top of that, it was a spontaneous outburst that didn’t even do any good.  It’s not like she was warned away from acting up and decided through determination to put on a display of public criticism.  It’s not like she showed any intelligence and planned quickly.  She just acted emotionally without thinking.  That’s normal, not praise-worthy.

The girls all talk about what happened and the other girls are of the opinion that “what happened was awful but at least it’s better than death.”  America…disagrees?  Yeah, she disagrees.  It’s kind of convoluted and hard to follow.  Either she’s stubborn enough to ignore the “it’s awful but” part, or she really thinks that death is better than injury. She goes off on tangents about how they’re all so pampered and wouldn’t survive life as an Eight, which has nothing to do with the whole “at least not executed thing.”  Then she goes off about how the law was wrong.  Which, fine and true, but still very poorly presented when it makes her sound like she’s all “death before discomfort.”

God, and this book thinks her moral compass is “perfectly aligned?”

Finally Celeste calls Marlee a whore, so America jump-attacks her.  They get in a cat-fight for a bit, then the queen sends them to the …’hospital wing.’

Really?  You’ve got a hospital wing?  Book, do you even know what words mean?  Or did you just read that in Harry Potter and figure it sounded good?

While at the clinic, one of the nurses gossips with America about how horrible Celeste is, because sure, why not.  We’ve got a war and a totalitarian government that keeps around a homeless caste for no good reason, but let’s put all the focus on girl-vs-girl shit.

I know that my defending Celeste is getting thin as the evidence piles up, and she is a rotten character.  But it was the author’s decision to do that.  Celeste didn’t come into this novel pre-made.  It was a decision to create an antagonist girl and put the focus on that instead of everything else.

Maxon shows up and the first thing he does is assure America that he won’t kick her out, and it’s lucky there were no cameras to catch the incident.  Well, there were no cameras around when Anna got kicked out for hitting Celeste, so…?  So, yeah, Maxon is playing favoritism.  Great quality in a ruler, that.

America once again says that the palace is shit and she wants to leave, and Maxon once again convinces her to stay around and give him a shot.  There is no progress in this book.  Nothing changes.  Things happen, but they’re always ultimately meaningless, because they’re just episodes.  At the end of every episode, the status quo is restored, and any progress is cancelled out.  This is not how you write a book.  This is how you write a sit-com, only there’s actually be more happening in a sit-com.