The entirety of Ch 29 is just the letters Maxon wrote to America while she was away.  The first one rhapsodizes about the joys of being a Five, which really highlights a big problem with this world and the caste system.  It wants to use the system as a boogieman and highlight the rich/poor dichotomy, but at the same time it romanticizes poverty way too much.  Everything Maxon says about it sounds like a rerun of the Andie Griffith Show.  So either America is really awful at her purported job of Champion of the Lower Class, or (more likely) he’s being accurate and this book has no fucking clue what poverty really means. 

I wouldn’t do a scrap of work. Nothing having to do with armies or budgets or negotiations. I’d sit with you, maybe try to work on my photography while you played the piano. We’d be Fives together, like you said.

Just look at this.  He assumes that the life of the terminally poor is one of leisure and just occasionally doing some work if you feel like it.

While this is rather accurate for how idiot rich people thing things work, so it’s fair for Maxon to make this assumption, but we’re near the end of the book and supposedly our ‘honest’ and ‘real’ heroine has been telling him all about her life.  So I really doubt that we’re going to get this refuted at any point, and leaving bullshit like this to just hang is pretty much the same as validating it.

The rest of the letters are just mushy talk about missing her.

Skip ahead to the ceremony and official announcement.  America, Maxon, and Kriss are sitting on a dais in the being main room of this castle that apparently only has two rooms where anything happens.  Georgia and August are in the audience, and America notices that the guards are all looking rather harried and unkempt.  Aspen looks concerned, too.

Yes, Aspen.  Apparently he’s stationed right next to the woman he’s accused of having an affair with.  On television.

Maxon barely talks to her, and when he does he’s extremely mean about it.  Because, yeah, when I think romantic hero, I think someone who can flip from loving to cruel in the blink of an eye.

Look, I get that he’s angry, and I get that he thinks she cheated on him.  Yes, that necessitates an emotional reaction.  But there’s two things at work here.  1) This isn’t his first blowup, and based on that pattern, it’s not nearly going to be his last.  2) While people who are this cruel are (sadly) quite common, I don’t like those people.  And I don’t like Maxon.  It’s possible to have a reaction to this shit without that reaction being “say the meanest thing possible to the woman you supposedly love.” 

After that America just starts staring at random things, so she notices when some of the guards suddenly turn out to be rebels and attack everyone!

So, the whole room is in chaos, and America just sits there on her chair watching all of it.  Also, Celeste dies.  *sniff* Bye, Celeste.  Apparently character assassination in the figurative sense wasn’t good enough for this book.

I looked to my right for Aspen and was in awe for a moment. He was on one knee, taking aim, firing deliberately into the crowd. He must have been very sure of his target to do that.

I don’t care how sure he was, this is the stupidest shit ever and Aspen should be ashamed for doing it.  In a crowded, chaotic situation, you can never be sure that an innocent person won’t run in front of your gun, or that a bullet won’t pass through someone (yeah, bullets do that) and hit a bystander behind them.  Plus, no one’s aim is that good.  Just flat-out.  Maybe if the crowd is being relatively still and the shooter is in a calm environment, okay, but when everyone is running?  No.

Anne had told me this had happened once before, when the rebels had gotten the guards’ uniforms and had sneaked into the palace. But how?

Shit, really?  And no one thought to maybe fix that particular security leak?

Oh, who are we kidding.  They still have parties in front of giant-ass windows.

America just continues to sit there the whole time, even as a rebel takes aim at her, and both Maxon and Aspen jump in front of her to protect her.

Aspen keeps shooting and then leaves to get Kriss out of harm’s way, because she’s freaking out the most and therefore needs to get out of there soonest.  That leaves America behind to realize that Maxon was actually shot.  They have a scene that actually manages to be melodramatic.  I’m not sure how you get too much drama for a scene that includes rebels attacking everyone, but by golly, this book managed it.  Maybe I’m just predisposed to roll my eyes at any “death” scene where someone has a sucking chest wound and yet can still spout out poetry about being in love for five minutes.

As you might have guessed, Maxon declares his love for her and apologizes for breaking up with her.

They’re going to have such a healthy marriage, what with him flying off the handle at everything and her shooting him repeatedly to make him change his mind.

Aspen comes back, and Maxon orders him to get America out before himself.  Unfortunately, personal guards don’t really work like that, as their main priority is keeping their employers safe and not keeping them happy so the whole ‘direct orders’ line doesn’t really work and bodyguards often have to ignore the wishes of their subjects in order to–

Haha, nope, Aspen carries America out of there.  He gets America to a saferoom, but just then one of the rebels shows up, so he shoves her into it and locks the door behind her.