America starts her day by making plans to see Aspen, then goes to the Misogyny Room to sulk about not having any philanthropy ideas.  Her great plan is to…ask Aspen for ideas, not spend all her copious amounts of free time trying to work on the project.  There’s even mentions of the other girls reading books and reports and the like, but America does none of that.  In fact, we’ve never seen her actually work at this at all.  An idea failed to manifest in her brain, therefore there’s nothing to do about it, right?

God, America, go read something.  Where do you think ideas come from?

Finally it’s time for her to go meet Aspen, and she asks him for ideas.  His brilliant brain comes up with…a “caste exchange program.”  Where people from upper and lower castes switch for a while.  Wow, you really don’t understand what a caste is, do you, book?  I mean, we knew that from the start, but every now and then you uncover hidden depths of not understanding.

At least America calls his idea stupid, but she says it’s because it wouldn’t work and also he’s just suggesting it out of petty revenge.  Yay, she said something reasonable!

But she still doesn’t have an idea, so she goes off to do stuff like…take a bath.  And then she’s upset that she didn’t find an idea in her bubbles or something.  FINALLY she strikes on the idea of reading something to get inspiration and she goes to Greg’s diary.  But she spends all her time looking for mentions of his daughter.

Oh, and it’s a doozy when she finds it.

Katherine gets married to some Sweden/Norway royal (which is already a portmanteau in this timeline, but fuck if I’m going to write it as one) against her wishes, crying the whole way to the church, and…somehow this makes Greg the king of an entirely different country.

Once again showing an astounding lack of understanding on how this stuff works.

You cannot be the king of one country just because you’re royalty in a different country.  I don’t know how anyone even came across that idea in the first place.  It literally breaks my brain trying to figure out how anyone came to that conclusion.

And when anyone marries into nobility/royalty, the rest of the family DOES NOT go with them.  Does not.  DOES NOT.  How did you even think that?  It’s never worked that way.  Ever. 

America is shocked that Greg “sold” his daughter, even though way at the beginning of book one we were told that this was how royal daughters were treated in her country, so I’m not sure why it’s so weird to her now.  She also goes into freak-out mode as she reads through the diary and all of Greg’s plans on how to change the country, including his initial thoughts on the caste system.  But…again, this is all stuff we knew.  This is all stuff that she told us.  This is stuff that is currently in effect and that she absolutely knew was engineered because she told us that it had been.  And for some reason, only just now is she realizing that the stuff she already knew was bad all along.

And this freaking out lasts a long time.  *yawn*  *waits for America to catch up to where we’ve been since the first book*

She runs off to talk to Maxon about all this, only to be told with a wink and nudge that he can’t be disturbed, because he’s with another girl.  But then as she leaves, a maid says he’s not even in his room and the guard was just messing with her, and apparently the maid staff like America the best, for some odd reason because it’s not like she’s ever had anything to do with them.

When she finds him, oops, he is with a girl.  He’s making out in a corner with Celeste.  The macking session is…described in a slightly disturbing amount of detail.  Several pages on someone else kissing.  America’s just standing there, going on and on about Celeste’s snogability.  Weird focus.

She runs off, Maxon catches up to her, and she demands to know why Maxon would make out with someone so “fake.”  (Pretty sure Celeste isn’t a cyborg, deary, and make-up doesn’t make you not a real person.)  Maxon says he knows she’s just trying to manipulate him and…for some reason America jumps from that statement to “knowing” that Maxon has already read Greg’s diary.  And also that he’s just as bad as Greg.  Despite the only “bad” thing he’s done this entire series is kiss Celeste, which…really seems more hormonal than a matter of terrible character.

America declares that she’s done with all this and wants to go home, but Maxon says he won’t let her because she’s only saying that because she’s upset.  There’s some bad character for ya.

She yells at him, so he physically pins her arms behind her.

I wanted him to provoke me.  I wanted a reason to hurt him.

HOW IS PINNING YOUR ARMS BEHIND YOU NOT A PROVOCATION?

HURT THAT BASTARD ALREADY.

But instead she decides that there’s “no rage in him” and that makes this all okay.

Because fuck feminism, that’s why.

Still not seeing why she insists he’s just like Gregory, though.  He seems like his own new kind of bastard to me.

She gets away and decides to make a presentation that will let her “go out with a bang.”  Oh joy.  Can’t wait.