Last chapter we left off with the Designated Love Interest.  This chapter, one cliché disappears in the blink of an eye (literally) and another cliché walks up. 

Enter the Mean Girl.

“Watch it,” the girl said. With venom.

Watch what? I hadn’t done anything

Wow.  I can tell we’re going to get such astounding character development here.  Just, really, look at that complex motivation going on. 

Both character introductions were completely pointless and did absolutely nothing besides stuff in as many markers for their respective stereotypes as possible.  Honestly, there was nothing to them.  Hot Guy is hot.  Mean Girl is mean.  And then they both leave.  Why?  No reason.  Not one single reason.

Mara gets to her new classroom, and as she walks in, the walls begin to fracture and the roof to cave in.

Except we find out pretty quickly this is all a hallucination.

Mara continues on into the room as if she’s accustomed to seeing things that aren’t there.

…bweh?

I mean…just…what?

Why would you see a building collapse and then go “oh, wait, it’s just my brain being wonky”? 

1) Freak out because you think the building is collapsing.

2) Freak out because you’re seeing things that aren’t real and THAT’S KIND OF A BIG DEAL.

Where is this even coming from?  Were we supposed to know this was happening already, because if so, way to completely fail, book.

The very first instance of seeing hallucinations in a book should not be treated so casually.  (Unless we’ve got some backstory on it, but that doesn’t apply here.)

Okay, well, instead of any reasonable drama coming from the fact that Mara is hallucinating a building collapse like the one that killed her friend, the book instead decides to make me want to murder small cute things.  Mara trips while trying to avoid shit that isn’t there, and now all of the potential of this idea is diverted into your standard “oh no, I’m so embarrassed on my first day of school” bullshit.

I’m serious, there is an adorable teapot on my dresser that is about to meet a violent end.  I may not murder small cute living things, but I’ve got other options.

 She gets a bloody nose from the fall.

I tried to say my name, but I think it sounded more like “I’m dying”

While that makes sense if your name is “Dyer,” that does not make sense if you’re name is something else, as the opening claimed.  (For that matter, when the Ouija board spelled out her name they guessed “murder” and “machete” in the process, which also doesn’t make sense unless her real name starts with MA.)  Why include these name-based lines if you’re name isn’t supposed to be your name?

The “threat” of going to the nurse’s office snaps her out of her funk and she insists she’s fine.  I feel like pointing this out because, while it’s a pretty bland line, you at least could read it as a response to being recently hospitalized in the midst of a traumatic experience.

I willed myself out of my dizziness

This, on the other hand, is just pure silliness. 

She goes to the bathroom to clean up, still wholly unconcerned over that whole “hallucinated a building collapse” bit.  In the bathroom, however, she sees Claire in the mirror in place of her own reflection.

That only lasts for a second, though, and then it’s back to being her own reflection.

BTW, I’m getting pretty sick of these “dramatic” chapter ending lines.  The chapters are short, 3-4 pages each, and yet a lot of them end on some dramatic line like

The girl in the mirror smiled. But she wasn’t me.

This was fine the first couple of chapters, when there was a lot of set up to be done and a change in scene the next chapter, but you shove in enough of those, and you’re going to run out of ways to do it legitimately.  Either you’ll have to shove in drama at weird points, or make ominous statements about ordinary things.  (Like, the end of Ch 4 was saying that the Hot Boy was smiling at her like this was some big shocking reveal.)

My heart pounded against my rib cage. It was nothing. Just like the classroom was nothing. I was okay. Nervous about my first day of school, maybe. My disastrous first day of school.

No, this is really bothering me, why is she not more freaked out?  Yes, she’s reacting to it and very shaken up, but this isn’t really the amount of shaken up I’d expect from the first time something like this happens, and if it’s not the first time I’d really like to know!

I went back to Ch 3.  Here is, literally, the only line about the subject:

Nightmares and visual hallucinations were my new normal, apparently

Wow.  So informative. 

What does this even really mean?  It could be anything.  It’s common to think you see a recently deceased person, but that doesn’t usually progress to “vivid and multiple-sensory hallucinations of the ceiling caving in” type stuff.  It’s so bland, so blasé, how am I supposed to get any sort of reasonable understanding of her mental state/history from that?

*sigh*  But, that’s what we’re left with, so I guess we proceed assuming these are the kinds of hallucinations she’s having, and that she’s had them enough times before to get used to them.

Although that brings up other questions, like why the holy fucking hell did she decide that “just live with them” is such a better option than “TELL THE DOCTOR AND MAKE HIM HELP ME, ACTUALLY, THAT MENTAL HOSPITAL LOOKIN PRETTY GOOD RIGHT NOW, HEY MOOOOOOOOOOM HEEEEEEEELP!”

I can get that she might do that, I’d just like to see the process and know the wherefores.

She goes back to the classroom and takes a seat.

For eight painful minutes and twenty-seven infinite seconds, I sat sweltering in the seventh circle of my own personal inferno, motionless at my desk. I listened to the sound of the teacher’s voice but heard nothing. Shame drowned him out, and every pore of my skin felt painfully naked, open for exploitation by the pillaging eyes of my classmates.

The hallucinations have been played so…strangely, and yet the “omg you guys I’m so embarrassed on my first day!!!!” trope has been so straight, that it’s almost impossible to read this as anything other than “building falling in?  Psh.  Minor thing next to OMG YOU GUYS I’M SO EMBARRASSED ON MY FIRST DAY!!!!”

The rest of her morning is uneventful (not that she’ll stop with the OMG SO DRAMATIC comments about being in hell) and she finds a quiet spot to read during lunch.  But she hears Jude (third dead friend, crush) laughing and can’t find the source, so it’s another hallucination.

Which meant that I’d had three hallucinations in less than three hours. Which wasn’t good.

Okay, but, so that means…?  Is this normal for you?  Abnormal?  Slightly abnormal?  Wildly abnormal?  What?  I know nothing about these hallucinations except that for some reason you don’t seem to care much about them.

And then Jude shows up in visual hallucination as well as she walks to class, and Mara gets unsettled and runs away from him/it.

I glanced over my shoulder once, just to see if he was still there.

He was.

And he was close.

Oh, look, yet another dramatic ending to an incredibly short chapter.  Gee, I wonder if this will amount to anything or will serve as literally puss-fucking nothing except a quota-filling cliffhanger?

(I looked.  It amounts to nothing.  Color me shocked.)