After returning home, Brooke spends much time crying and wailing because Remy is her “everything.”  You know, normal post-break-up stuff.  We don’t have to put up with much of that before Remy shows up out of the blue, though.

“Miss Dumas?” Pete says with a grin, as we approach. “We believe this belongs to you?”

He’s talking about Nora, who is also in the car.  In other words, A PERSON WHO DOESN’T BELONG TO ANYONE.  Why is this so hard to understand?  Nora has been treated as a thing this entire book, just an object to propel conflict.  And I know the pronoun choice is supposed to be just glib, but these little details add up.  Once is a joke, a whole book of this shit is…well, shit.

And, naturally, Nora is 100% clean and tattoo free, because that’s totally how addiction works, right?

Everyone runs around all happy and excited that their plot point got wrapped up, while I sit in the background not caring because Nora has all the personality of a Maltese Falcon. 

We find out Remy agreed to throw the fight (surprise, surprise) in exchange for Scorpion giving up whatever influence he had over Nora.  Still doesn’t explain why Remy was so bad at throwing the fight.  Was getting his ass beaten that badly part of the deal?

Looking at me without telling me what I jerk I am for leaving him the way I did.

God damnit, book, will you stop making Brooke feel guilty?  She made the best decision she could with the information available to her, since Remy ‘conveniently’ managed to utterly fail to tell her what was going on.  Also, her whole reason for leaving was “I can’t emotionally deal with watching you in danger” and that hasn’t exactly been negated.

Feeling painfully hammered inside, which is not the optimal feeling to experience when you’re told your baby sister is, thankfully, happily, back home, I sit down on the stairs leading to my small building, knocked out by my stupor as I furiously try blinking back a well of tears threatening to fall.

Oh my god, how is that all one fucking sentence, book, what are you doing?

Damnit, now I’m doing it too.

“The loss? Other than we’re poor[…] He has a couple million to get him through the year.

Oh, you poor baby. 

Riley or Pete or whatever I can never keep them straight says that they’re going to compete again in the next season and they want to hire her back, then everyone leaves.

oblivious to my inner torture chamber called a “heart.”

I had to read that and now so do you.

Nora tells the story of how Remy ‘saved’ her and there’s no surprises there, we’re just filling out the word count now.  Brooke flails around in her head about how she loves Remy so much and she did him wrong.  Which, I really don’t give a shit.  I mean, there’s no actual drama here.  All she has to do is say “take me Remy, I’m yours.”  Wow, so hard.

He’s bipolar, and I’m crazy about him.

And throughout all this flailing, she keeps saying this over and over, and I want to punch her in her face because she hasn’t had to actual deal with any bipolar issues.  None.  Zero.  Zilch.  She hasn’t had to support him in any way except saying “wheee, manic = more sex! I love this!” and that’s not real support.  She hasn’t had to deal with any consequences, because the closest we’ve had to that was him losing the fight and turns out that was ‘good.’  There has been nothing for her to actually come to terms with when it comes to his mental condition.

Fuck, if all you knew about bipolar came from this book, you’d think it was a wild and fun ride.  And if you can’t figure out why that’s a terrible thing for any media to do, get the fuck out.

Mel chimes in. “Oh, yay! Nora, college is the place for hot guys, girl! It’s something you definitely don’t want to miss,”

Because god alone knows what kind of trauma Nora’s been through, but we should tots toss her back into the dating scene!

Oh, who are we kidding.  I’m sure this book will spend even less time caring about Nora’s mental health than it does about Remy’s.

Next day she goes to see Remy, spouts off more romanticizing of mental illness, and there is much gushy talking.  It’s…the standard last-chapter-gushy-talking.  “Why did you leave?” “Oh, I never will again!”  “Feelings!!!!”

“There’s something I might have missed then. Because I still can’t understand why, the fuck, you would leave me when I fucking needed you!”

She told you why she left.  She couldn’t handle it.  It’s not all about you, despite the book trying to convince me otherwise.

Remy goes off on a several page long monologue about all the reasons he loves her, aka a complete and total break in character for him.  I’m skimming most of it because I am so far beyond caring.

And then the book literally ends with them fucking.

Pretty fitting, all things considered.

I don’t even have the energy for this last chapter.  It’s just so…standard.  It’s the same tying up of loose ends and the same I-love-you monologues and the same emotional wrap up that we’ve seen a million times before.  And I wouldn’t care about that, really, if only I were invested in the characters.  I don’t mind formulas.  If I like something, I’m going to keep liking it the second time and third time and so on.  But only if you actually make me care.  Formulaic doesn’t mean easy.  It’s just a guide.  If all you have is formula, then I’m bored.  If all you have is formula and rage-inducing bullshit, well…

Whatever.  At least this is finally over with.