America mopes through several pages of stuff, including a Christmas Eve party, but she doesn’t want to participate because of the whole “make caste-support commercials or go home” thing.

But as soon as Maxon shows up at her door, all of her moping turns right on over to being about how she has to share him with other people and somehow that’s just the worst thing ever.  Isn’t that…what we usually call ‘normal’?  What America’s talking about here sounds exhausting, as well as unhealthy.  I get being upset that he’s sort of keeping himself back in case it all goes sour and he has to marry someone else, but America lumps even his parents and his friends in the whole “other people get a piece of him” complaint.

Maxon says he understands her ‘I want all of you’ complaint, so he takes her to his room to share more of ‘himself’ with her, and this sounds really dirty in summary.  But alas, there is no bow-chicka (or maybe that’s for the best; who knows what this book would make of it) and instead we get several pages of description.  Maxon has a collage on one wall full of all sorts of pictures.

We finally find out what ‘New Asia’ is.  …it’s Asia.  Really.  The continent.  If I had a physical copy of this book, I would murder it.

“New Asia. It used to be to the north of what was the Chinese border. They called it the Great Wall. I hear it was once quite spectacular, but now it’s mostly gone. It runs less than halfway through the middle of New Asia. That’s how much they’ve expanded.”

…this doesn’t even make sense.  They’ve destroyed the Great Wall of China…by expanding?  And the Great Wall is already WAY less than half the length of the China’s northern border, so how did expanding make it…longer?  I’m so confused.

America points out that, if had a choice of profession and picked photography, he’d be a Five just like her.

But then we get yet again more repeated drama.

“I can’t be yours alone with all the other girls here.”

 “And I can’t send them home until I’m sure of your feelings.”

This doesn’t even make sense anymore, since America now doesn’t have another boyfriend and has already admitted to herself and to us that she loves him.  Literally all she has to do is say so, and this whole book will end.  There is no point for this drama to keep replaying like it is.

In fact, America’s entire argument here is “I won’t agree to marry you unless I’m your only option left.”

Wow, so romantic.

“How am I supposed to be sure of that if you can’t send [Kriss] home?”

You do realize that he is offering to send her home, right?  You say the word, and they ALL get sent home, because that’s what happens after he picks a wife, i.e., you.

They get interrupted by a guard who’s looking for America.  He’s got bad news: her dad died.

America wakes up from her faint to find that things are being arranged for her to go home.  She’s got four days, because the king wants her back by then to film commercials, and she’s got to take a maid and some guards with her.  They pick Aspen to lead the guards going with her, since he’s familiar with the town.

They decide to take Lucy as the maid.  Because when I’m going into a high-stress and dangerous situation, I always take my most easily-spooked friend who has seizures.

All this was done over several pages of conversation, btw.  All that padding was really not necessary.

She gets home the next day to find throngs of people waiting to see her as she drives by.  This is actually not a bad scene, as she rather numb from the shock and has that sort of disjointed thought process associated with grief.

I lifted my head to the lights hanging off the roof. Dad did that. Who was going to take them down?

It even got me a little bit sad.  Brownie points, book.

They get inside and have more logistical plans via conversation.

This stuff really doesn’t need to be shown.  Show vs tell isn’t a hard and fast rule, and oftentimes it’s better to just go ahead and tell.  Why?  Because none of this means anything.  This isn’t revealing of the character’s emotions or development.  This is just talking.  The only part that’s useful in any way is at the end where Kota decides to be a snot and argue about the sleeping arrangements and America snaps at him.  That, there, that’s fine.  That’s emotional.  But this whole chapter has been talking about logistics, and if anything else has been revealed through that, it’s only stuff we already know.  This should be a very emotional chapter right here, and the majority of it is wasted on travel plans.