Luce starts the chapter by, surprise surprise, obsessing over Daniel during class.  She even writes out a timeline of all their interactions so far.  It’s just as dull in this format as it was reading about it the first time.

I don’t like these recap scenes in any book – wastes of space, pay attention to the actual novel if you want to know what’s going on – but at least in a story with a complex plot I can understand why some people feel they’re needed.  But here?  Nothing has happened!  Luce goes on about all their interactions, but it’s basically the same interaction played out with different set dressing each time.  Daniel is rude, then he tries to get close to her, then he runs away.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  She’s not even spending her time wondering about his weird reaction to her shadows story, she’s literally flummoxed by his hot/cold behavior when anyone with two brain cells to rub together would just say “he’s an asshole” and have done with it.  

A pretty asshole that you have a crush on, fine, but that’s a phenomenon that exists.  It’s emotionally bothersome and (if you crush hard enough) painful, but that’s not the same thing as mysterious.  If you have a crush on an ass because he’s pretty and hormones suck, then you avoid him and try to get over it.  It’s not fun, but it’s also not terribly complicated.  I’m sick of people mixing up “I don’t like that and doing it makes me feel bad” with “therefore it’s a moral quandary.”  No, sometimes the right thing just sucks.

I would give this more of a break if she’d at least focus on the suspicious-as-fuck things he’s done, or the weird purple lights, or…you know, anything other than what she’s giving us.

She’d thought if she could track every time they’d connected and every time he’d pulled away, she might be able to find some reason behind Daniel’s erratic behavior.

She’ll do this for Daniel but not for her shadow monsters?

Your priorities are fucked up, Luce.

She runs into Cam and he asks her out.  Should I even bother?  Can I just repost one of the previous chapters?  Would anyone even notice?

She goes swimming to clear her mind and we get pages and pages and pages and pages and pages of filler, including yet another description of some dream she had about boys.  I wouldn’t mind having a dream about boys right about now.  This book is already putting me to sleep anyway.

Penn shows up to spend far too many words pointing out that Luce has no reason to be into Daniel, then one paragraph later drags her to the library for Daniel-stalking.  I think Penn is just bored, but bless her for it, anything to get away from Luce and her “I don’t understand” litany.

Luce took her first look at where Miss Sophia’s desk had sat, now a charred, nearly perfect circle on the old tile floor in the library’s center. Everything in a fifteen-foot radius had been removed. Everything beyond that was strangely undamaged.

Well.  That sure sounds deliberate.  How come the “police” weren’t asking Luce what she was trying to destroy in the librarian’s records, if they really wanted to pin something on her?

“We were wondering if you could give us the password to use the computer,” Luce asked, pointing at the error message on the screen.

“You’re not doing social networking, are you? Those sites are the devil’s work.”

Are you telling me that the reform school doesn’t even have a net nanny on their computers?  The only restriction they have is that you can’t get on after 4 pm?  Why?  Are they under the delusion that…what, Facebook isn’t open before that?

So, the whole reason Penn did this was because she found a “critical essay” on Watchers by using some “subscribers-only literary search engine” which just makes me flail because FUCKING GOOGLE!  FUCKING WIKIPEDIA!  FUCKING OTHER BOOKS IN YOUR FUCKING LIBRARY!  THAT FUCKING DICTIONARY OF ANGELS LUCE WAS LOOKING AT!  WHY DO YOU FAIL SO HARD AND BASIC RESEARCH, THIS SHIT ISN’T EXACTLY WELL-BURIED!

Is this some sort of alternate universe where…I don’t know.  I just don’t know.  I don’t.  I can’t even.  This fucking book, you guys.

Miss Sophia hangs around because she’s bored and helps them look up stuff.  She seems to be fairly well informed on “the Grigori clan” and knows exactly where to look for information.  In this world, apparently “the Grigoris” are just a bunch of scholars that study Watchers, which is strange because “grigori” means “watcher.”  It’s like having a study group together to prep for your chemistry test and then calling yourselves “the chemistry.”

They’ve only got nine minutes of computer time, because this book fucking hates you.  They decide to write stuff down isntead of print the page to read later, because this book fucking hates you.

The Grigoris do not sleep. Seemed possible; Daniel always did look tired. They are generally silent. Check. Sometimes talking to him was like pulling teeth. In an eighth-century decree—

The screen went black. Their time was up.

And that’s the extent of the information we’re going to get because this book fucking hates you.

This is mind-boggling.  The book is actively withholding information from us.  Why?  What is the point of this?  To keep things mysterious?  To hide the fact that the author did zip-zero-zilch world building?  This is fucking infuriating and you cut that shit out right now, book, it’s stupid.  If you can’t make a world interesting enough to actually be interesting, then go back to the drawing board and try again, don’t try to slap some duct tape on your shoddy sets and then sell it to me.

Cam and Daniel both show up pointlessly and pointless pointless pointless THIS IS ALL SO POINTLESS GOD I HATE THIS BOOK WHY WHY WHY I HATE ALL OF YOU FOR VOTING ON THIS NOTHING IS HAPPENING SHITFUCKNOTHING.

Cam kisses her out of the blue so Daniel punches him.  I want to care, because at least it’s movement, but I’m still crying.  They brawl for a while, then randomly decide to take it outside and leave.  Oh, after ‘ordering’ Luce to stay put inside.  The girls watch from a window until a teacher comes by to break things up.

No, I don’t care that there was fight.  It’s still nothing.  Why?  BECAUSE THIS CHANGES NOTHING.  NOT ONE SINGLE DAMN THING.  THERE IS NO PROGRESS JUST BECAUSE THERE’S PUNCHES.  We already knew Daniel and Cam didn’t like each other and were antsy over Luce’s affections…for some reason.  This did not impart any new information, nor did it change the stakes at all.  This was just more filler.  It was somewhat more active filler, but it was filler.  This is a whole fucking book of filler and I HATE YOU ALL.

(That’s not true, ILU, but still.)