Nina again. Boo, why didn’t we get a Daphne chapter?

Anyway, Nina is dealing with the media fallout by hiding in her room and using a couple of campus friends as buffers any time she needs to leave for class. But even in classes the other students take pictures of her.

Hey, hey. Remember when this book claimed that Bea was left alone at Harvard just because she did one interview a year?

Sam shows up at her dorm room to beg her to talk again, since Nina hadn’t been answering any texts.

Suddenly, Nina saw her room through Samantha’s eyes. It was smaller than Sam’s closet, and had the worn, lived-in look that comes from decades of students. […] Alongside the note cards were collages of pictures – of Nina with her parents, or hanging out with her college friends. There wasn’t a single photo of Nina and Sam.

Sam had noticed.

Wow. Harsh. I hope she dumps your faux-poor-acting ass.

They argue for a bit, because Nina was keeping secrets and also Sam wants to mope about Teddy. There’s a bunch of “I’m having issues and need a friend and you’re being selfish” going in both directions. They both need an unbothered friend right now, but alas, they are both bothered and can’t provide. Which is a fine and very normal problem to have. I approve.

And then we’re back to “wah, I just want to be normal!”

Sam asks about the lack of pictures, to which Nina says no one at school knows about their friendship.

Really? The best friend of the princess, who has been her best friend for over a decade and goes on events and trips with the family? Is unknown? The fuck? The media landscape in this book is just as conveniently there-not-there-as-the-plot-demands as Teddy.e’s a

Instead of this continuing to be a ‘both wrong’ fight, everything shifts to Nina calling out Sam for being a terrible, selfish best friend who treats Nina like a charity case. Even though, really, we haven’t seen much of that and also all of Nina’s info-dumping about things makes it sound more like Nina is just a doormat who feels bowled over by someone with a more type-A personality.

Also, STILL MORE WITH TRYING TO CLAIM NINA IS POOR. Bish, you got into an ivy school and your parents are a power couple and you live in a fancy house in the country’s capitol city. Shut the fuck up with all that. I’m so fucking tired of this book trying to pass Nina off as poor, and frankly, the fact that she’s the only character of color in the main cast and they’re trying to do the poor-friend bit with her is GROSS, even grosser than the fact that she’s NOT POOR.

What, were just supposed to see ‘Latina’ and assume that even though HER MOTHER IS SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY? WHY DO YOU KEEP FORGETTING ABOUT THAT PART, BOOK?

Anyway, Sam flounces out and goes to mope with Jeff, who also can’t get Nina to give him the time of day. And both feel guilty, because oh woe, they didn’t realize how hard it was on Nina to feel inferior to all of their wealth and splendor.

Damn, usually I’m all on board with this attitude and making the rich people wallow in guilt, but I’m still so mad at Nina’s portrayal I just want one of them to shake her and scream ‘fuck your also-rich ass you fucking Capitol Hill brat!’

God, the closest this book can get to an actually poor character is someone who simply isn’t a princess.

But now the Queen comes and takes the Sam to the vault with the Crown Jewels. They’re going to pick out pieces to wear to the engagement party, since TB was announced by now. Or at least, that’s what Sam thought they were doing, until Teddy shows up and they’re really there to pick out Bea’s engagement ring. The queen leaves them both alone to do that while she takes a phone call, so…more angsty shipper moments ahoy.

Sam mopes at all the pretty jewels and how she’ll never be a monarch, and I was suspicious before but now I’m confident enough to call it: the end of the book is going to be Bea abdicating in favor of Sam, and then Sam gets with Teddy and Bea gets with Conner. Which would be terrible given Sam’s view of wanting power for power’s sake, but I guess I’ll complain about that when/if we get there.

Teddy picks out a ring that’s perfect for Sam, but not Bea and she gets all choked up about him “willing her to understand that even though their love could never be, because of reasons much more powerful than either of them, he would always care about her.”

TWO KISSES AND ONE CONVERSATION.

THE FUCK OUT OF HERE WITH THAT LOVE BULLSHIT.

Sam keeps carrying on about how it’s so soon for Bea to propose to him when she’s spent even LESS time with Teddy and just I hate all of these kids they’re so bad.

Consequence of having four POV characters and three romances going at once, I guess. There’s really not enough time to develop ANY of this shit.

Or possibly only three POV characters because we skip right over Daphne AGAIN and check in with Bea. Daphne doesn’t exactly have a good plot, but she’s still the most interesting thing going on here.

Bea and Teddy do a televised interview to announce the engagement, and it seems she still hasn’t told Conner about it. She thinks she’s clever for doing this on his day off so she doesn’t have to deal with AAAAAAA NNNNNNG SS S T T T T but oh no! Conner walks in on the interview anyway! Because….? Kind of a random place for this off-duty guard to go.

Later after the media hubbub, she seeks out Conner so they can angst some even more.

Conner haphazardly proposes to her, but Bea says she can’t because Princess Stuff, but she wants him to stick around be her side-ass. Which seems a very royal thing to do with some long traditions behind it, but Conner doesn’t think he’s able to bear such a situation and instead says he’s quitting as her guard.

I ain’t mad at either of them for that conversation, I guess. I ain’t sad, either, though. Because I don’t care about them.

Still no Daphne next chapter. Getting kind of mad about this.