Luce had to feign astonished gratitude when Miss Sophia walked her through an hour’s worth of database instructions yet again. She felt a little ashamed, but playing dumb was far superior to admitting she’d been too busy obsessing over a certain male classmate to devote any time to her research.

Our heroine, ladies and gents.

Anyway, Miss Sophia is giving a lecture on religion which I’m sure won’t at all be conveniently relevant.  

“As you all remember from your reading of Paradise Lost last year, when God gave his angels their own will,”

*sigh*

Or maybe not, since that’s all we get of the lecture before several more pages of Luce’s endless whining about how everything, absolutely everything, every single last thing in her life is just so hard you guys.  But especially Gabbe.  That bitch offered her candy, how dare she!

Luce started furiously scribbling an answer on the back of Molly’s note. That she had been named for Lucinda Williams, the greatest living female singer-songwriter whose almost-rained-out concert was the site of her parents’ first encounter. That after her mom slipped on a plastic cup, tumbled down a mudslide, and landed in her father’s arms, she hadn’t left those arms for twenty years. That her name stood for something romantic and what did muckle-mouthed Molly have to show for herself?

…what, because there’s no Mollys out there that could have a romantic story around them?  Maybe Molly was named after a beloved family member, or Molly Ringwald, or maybe her parents have some non name-based meet-cute or MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP LUCE GOD YOU ARE NOT ACTUALLY SPECIAL QUIT GOING ON ABOUT HOW TERRIBLE THE GIRLS AROUND YOU ARE FOR DARING TO GIVE YOU CANDY AND BE NAMED MOLLY.  JESUS CHERRYPICKIN CHRIST, IT’S NOT LIKE YOU CAN EVEN TAKE CREDIT FOR THAT STORY, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SHOW FOR YOURSELF?

Miss Sophia goes on about fallen angels and that triggers Luce to remember some uber symbolic and special dream she had last night that I can’t be arsed to care about because unless you already know you have prophetic dreams then it shouldn’t count for shit.  I had a dream about a talking crow that transformed into the uggliest teenager ever and took me out to the desert to go find my missing brother, but that’s just mildly interesting not special, just like everything else I’ve ever dreamed.  And unless Luce has a history of special dreams or of believing her dreams are special (I’d take either), then reporting her dreams to me means about as much as my crow-man.  Shrug, yawn, and move on.

I know the book wants it to be symbolik and awesome, but it’s a dream.  It’s not.  Stop it with the dreams already.  Tossing them in there without actually playing with them isn’t helping.

Blah, blah, blah, they’re all in class passing notes and sniping at each other and Luce whines a lot and WHERE IS THIS EVEN GOING?

Shadows show up.

A tentacle of darkness curled around her wrist, and Luce looked down in terror. It was trying to weasel its way into her pocket. It was going for Arriane’s paper plane. She hadn’t even read it yet! She stuffed her fist deep into her pocket and used two fingers and all her willpower to pinch the shadow out as hard as she could.

An amazing thing happened: The shadow recoiled, rearing back like an injured dog. It was the first time Luce had ever been able to do that.

The book wants me to be impressed, but all I’m thinking is “well, have you ever tried?”  Because that didn’t come off as particularly hard to do.

Daniel. But first … He was standing before her. His silver belt buckle shone at eye level.

If you know what I mean.

Daniel’s violet-flecked gray eyes

Dafuq?

Daniel is there to make idle chitchat with her and apologize for leaving her high and dry wet at the lake.  So, Daniel knows that if he gets romantic with Luce, shadows will nom her face.  He knows that they have a connection that means any time spent with her will mean she falls for him.  He starts out trying to push her away by being cold and distant.  Then he…what, gives up on that plan?  He sucks so hard at actually keeping them apart.  There’s no inciting incident here; he just randomly decides to start swimming with her and chatting with her.  Luce puts her foot in her mouth mid-talk and they end on an awkward note.

Luce was proving day after day that—especially when it came to Daniel—she was incapable of doing anything that fell under the category of “normal” or “smart.”

Because when I think soul-stirring romance, I totally think “man, if only I could find a guy who makes me feel stupid and incapable.”  Truly this is a romance for the ages.