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Jealous Hater Book Club: Apolonia chapter 11

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So many people have asked, “You’re not abandoning the Apolonia recaps, are you?” and my first instinct is like, “Why, is anyone still reading them?” But fear not, I am back with yet another recap.

In the last chapter, Rory saw soldiers take Cyrus away. Now she’s outside of Dr. Zoidberg’s house, waiting to see if it’s safe to go up to the door. She decides that it is:

Knocking on Dr. Z’s large wooden door was painful with cold knuckles, but I tried four times. I was glad that I’d been going to The Gym with Benji, or I’d have really been hurting.

WTF, how heavy is the door knocker at Dr. Z’s house?

Standing on the porch, shaking from the November night air, my heaving lungs were gasping for sufficient breath. The cold burned my throat every time I sucked in, but all I could think about was Cy.

That’s funny, because all I’m thinking about is the fact that earlier in the book you made such a big deal about not feeling cold because you were traumatized or whatever.

When Dr. Z doesn’t answer the door. Rory runs around the outside of the house as a storm rolls in. She’s trying to figure out which window might be to Dr. Zoidberg’s bedroom when more soldiers show up:

The doors of eight identical green Humvees flew open, and men with guns filed out, quickly surrounding the house.

So, I’m a super secret government agency, right? And I’ve got this super important space rock thing I’m trying to steal. Would I want to drive eight Humvees down a residential street in the middle of the night? Or would I want to do something a little less alarming, that people aren’t going to ask too many questions about?

Just wondering.

Rory watches through the window as the soldier guys go into Dr. Zoidberg’s bedroom, only to find the bed undisturbed. They appear to be leaving, when one of them comes around the corner of the house.

I closed my eyes. You won’t see me. Just keep walking. My heart pounded, and I struggled to keep the air in my lungs while I verged on experiencing a full-blown panic attack. I didn’t fear what they would do to me if I were caught, but I feared what they would do to Cy if I didn’t save him.

I’d only been that frightened once before, just before one of my killers pressed the sharp edge of his knife into my arm. My mother was already lying on her side, the light in her eyes nearly snuffed out–her blood spread around her–but she blinked once to let me know she wasn’t gone yet, that she would stay with me until it was over. She lowered her chin, asking me to look into her eyes, to watch her so that we could go together. And so I did while they cut into my flesh and laughed about it. I’d always feel satisfaction from knowing that I frustrated them by not crying out like Sydney.

Anyone else getting motion sick from the selfishness see-saw here? For one of the very few times in the book, Rory thinks about someone who isn’t herself. This is immediately followed by how much better she is than her friend Sydney, who just wouldn’t be quiet while she was being murdered.

This is the same Sydney, you may recall, who died specifically to teach Rory a very important lesson about herself.

The soldier doesn’t see Rory, and they all leave, so Rory steals Dr. Z’s moped:

The kickstand flew back with barely any effort, and it wasn’t long before I was zooming down the road, five blocks behind the Humvees, as fast as Silver could run.

Okay, well, good luck with that, because fully weighted Humvees can still go like fifty mph, and Silver, described as an “ancient” moped is probably a 2 cylinder and could realistically only go thirty mph.

Expletives slipped out from my mouth at every other block as the Humvees moved farther and farther away. They turned east, and I leaned forward, hoping that would somehow encourage Silver to surge ahead.

The red lights of the Humvees were still visible once I turned, and I smiled with relief but not for long. It began to rain and not the light, warm kind that made people look up and smile. It was the hard, stinging cold rain that feels as if it was cutting into your skin.

And I would know, because I remembered the knives of my murderers as I laid on the floor, blood–my mother’s and my own–seeping into my beautiful long hair while Sydney wouldn’t shut her yap a minute and just die already.

I’m actually astonished that a paragraph similar to that didn’t appear after “cutting into your skin.”

She follows the convoy to Old Copper Road, then realizes she’ll be spotted tailing them.

Instead of Old Copper Road, I drove another mile south. I knew where they were going, and hopefully, it was where they were holding Cyrus.

If you knew where they were going, why did have to tail them?

I pulled over into the ditch and laid Silver onto its side, squinting through the rain, in the direction of the old warehouse nearly a mile away.

There is so much happening in this sentence, and I’ve noticed it in another place in this chapter, so I’m going to bring it up. Writing Tip: Be aware of your prepositions. She didn’t have to pull over “into the ditch.” She could have pulled over and laid Silver in the ditch. She definitely didn’t need to put Silver “onto its side,” when “on its side” would have worked. Just make sure you don’t have too many or the wrong prepositions in your work. This shouldn’t have gotten past line edits.

Also, if you leave a moped on its side in a ditch in the rain, good luck starting it back up.

Rory can see the warehouse all lit up and knows that there’s no chance it’s a second party going on.

Zipping up my vest, I set out across the field, high-stepping across the brush, trying not to leave my boots in the mud. Terrible thoughts of what was happening to Cy behind those walls crept into my mind. He was of Egyptian descent. Maybe they thought he was a terrorist…or worse, maybe he was a terrorist.

I think what would be worse was if the government was holding someone prisoner who wasn’t a terrorist, to be perfectly frank. And Cy isn’t “of Egyptian descent.” He’s from Egypt (I know, I know, he’s not from Egypt, he’s an alien) and Egyptian. Which is even worse, from a “fallen into government hands as a suspected terrorist” standpoint.

And I’m about to break into a commandeered military post and do what? Save him? I could be caught, put in prison, or put to death.

“That only happens in the movies. They don’t even kill spies anymore,” I said aloud, tucking my chin to keep the icy rain from hitting my face.

What happened to Rory being immortal? We just found out in the last chapter that she is literally immortal. She can’t die. Yet we’re supposed to fear for her life here? That’s the high stake?

You can’t introduce an element like a character’s immortality, then assume the reader will come along with you on your “oh no, this character could die” trip.

Speaking of tripping, Rory gets her boot stuck and falls over in the mud and manure, but she makes it out of the field and to the back door of the warehouse. Luckily, no one is guarding that door, but as she tries to open it, a soldier comes out to smoke a cigarette.

A soldier walked out, lit a cigarette, and then blew a puff of smoke into the night air. His back was to me, so I slid around and along the door until I was inside and then snuck down the hall, hiding in a a dark corner under a rusted metal work table.

So many questions. First, why is this door not guarded, if it butts up to a big old field that just anybody could wander across. Second, why didn’t the soldier smell Rory? In the field she says she falls “Facedown, palms down, flat on my belly in mud and cow crap.” So, she’s covered in manure. I don’t care how long you’ve smoked, you’re going to notice the smell of treated fertilizer if it’s standing right behind you. Third, dark corner? I thought the place was “lit up like Christmas?”

Rory recognizes that maybe she’s acted a little rashly, and has no idea how to get out of the facility now that she’s in it. She hears voices down the hall and decides to disguise herself by pulling off her vest and sweater and putting on a lab coat over her tank top, which is also soaked. So, basically this disguise hinges on people seeing the lab coat and thinking, “Ah, yes, just a scientist. Who is dripping wet and smells like manure,” but really that’s no worse a disguise than when people usually break into government buildings in books.

Walking slowly down the hall and exercising caution, I checked the rooms I passed, all while trying to keep my teeth from chattering and my wet boots from squeaking or squashing with every step.

Okay, but…this is a warehouse. That’s like, a big giant building full of open space in which to store large quantities of stuff. They’re not generally divided up with long halls and many rooms.

It’s a good thing there are rooms, though, because someone comes along and Rory has to hide:

One of the men wore black leather combat boots. The other wore crocodile skin boots with gray slacks. Hideous.

Let’s not get on our high horse here, Rory. We’ve heard some of your outfits described in fanfiction level detail.

“Sir, he’s not talking,” the soldier said. “Tennison wants to put him on the chopper and fly him out to headquarters. We don’t have the experts here to question him.

“Ten minutes, Sergeant,” Crocodile said. “Give me ten minutes with him, and then Tennison can take him to Disney World for all I care.”

"It's A Small World" ride at Disney World
They have ways of making you talk.

Rory decides that that guy she needs to follow is the guy in crocodile boots.

Crocodile Boots led me down four or five corridors. I lost count. I tried to remember my route, but after a while, I couldn’t distinguish one hall from another.

Again, in a warehouse there are too many hallways to keep track of. That doesn’t sound like a good venue for a party, while we’re at it. There is a point in this chapter where she says she can’t believe how much the warehouse has been transformed, but she says only that it’s “cleaner, whiter, and brighter,” not that hallways and rooms have been added.

Crocodile dude goes into one room, and Rory goes into the one next to it, where she can overhear him trying to interrogate Cy:

“You’re going to tell me everything I want to know, or I’m going to pick up that little weirdo friend of yours and finish the game of tic-tac-toe those psychos played on her skin a few years back.”

And then, after a few lines about Rory being dizzy and Cy demanding they leave her alone:

“Are you surprised I know what happened to her? You think it’s a coincidence that her dad was working with Dr. Zorba and his partner and met such a tragic end? Majestic watched Dr. Zorba and Dr. Brahmberger for months before they discovered that signal. We intercepted an email from Marty Riorden to Dr. Zorba. He knew the signal was suspicious. He was going to interrupt their research. Marty’s discovery would have taken it in a different direction than what we had anticipated, ruining years of planning and work.”

Cy’s expression metamorphosed from confusion to recognition. “You…you killed them.”

Okay, but…Rory is in the room next door. She can’t see Cy.

“The real coincidence here is that Rory lived, Dr. Zorba took her under his wing, and ironically, you did, too. Now, I can use her again to get the information I need, just as I did when we questioned her father. It only took half an hour with Rory before he told us everything we wanted to know and even things we didn’t think to ask.”

Okay, but…what? While it’s incredibly convenient for our main character to overhear this explanation of why her family was killed, so much of this doesn’t make sense that it actually feels like everything before chapter ten belonged to a completely different book. First of all, Rory said she didn’t know why her family was picked to be murdered. Second, when she and her family where murdered, her father was there. He told them all to be quiet and let the men get what they came for, or whatever. So, does that mean they sat there murdering his wife, and his daughter’s friend, and finally his daughter, and he still wouldn’t give up information about the space rock? Rory was the last person murdered (she says that by the time the killers got to her, they were too drunk and high to take their time the way they did with the others). I always assumed that her father had died first. What the hell even happened at that crime scene? Third, since when did Cy take Rory under his wing? They’ve had barely any scenes together, and all of them were either in class, at work, or incidentally running into each other (except for the one time he stalked her to her dorm room in the guise of checking up on her). I get that this Majestic is part of the CIA, but have they been reading Cy’s diary or something?

I sat against the wall with my knees to my chest and my hands trembling from anger and hatred. We didn’t die for money or pure violence or even so that I could be strong enough to save Cy.

Princess Leia rolling her eyes

 

People don’t die horribly just so you can learn helpful shit about yourself, Rory.

Crocodile Boots had us killed so that Dr. Tennison could get the validation he’d been seeking. He kept my father from telling Dr. Z and Dr. Brahmberger what he knew about that signal so that they could continue their research. They’d probably been monitoring Dr. Z when he learned of the meteorite in Antarctica. Tennison must have been thrilled, knowing Dr. Z would bring back the rock and do half the work before Tennison stole it from him.

Well, thank you, Rory, for figuring all this out and telling it to us, because there was no possible way I was going to get any of that from anything in this book. We’ve barely heard anything about Tennison, except that he somehow went rogue or something on this project. I ran a search, and Dr. Brahmberger has never even been mentioned before this scene. Rory is connecting dots the reader doesn’t even get to see on the page.

So much violence, so many lives changed forever, ruined and taken away, all so Tennison could take the credit and be hailed for research he didn’t do.

But it’s totally cool if all that violence changed lives and ruined them so that Rory could learn to be strong. That would have been fine. Just as long as Rory learns some kind of vague martial arts self defense trick.

Crocodile Boots leaves Cy alone, and Rory rushes in to save him, using the lab coat to prop the door open. Which of course mean she’s now rescuing Cy in a thin, soaked tank top. It would be sexy if not for the all the cow poo.

I suppose I could quote the passage where Rory rescues Cy, but just imagine literally any movie you’ve ever seen or book you’ve ever read where someone is being held hostage and someone else comes in to save them, and the captive person is like, “You shouldn’t have come, [consequence will happen to you]!” and the rescuing person is like, “I’m here, so you might as well thank me!” while they work to get the captive person free.

Rory wants to go back the way she came in, but Cy knows that’s a bad idea:

“If we’re going to get out of here alive, you must listen to me,” he said, looking around. “You’re attracted to danger. I feel the impulse to avoid it. Do you understand?” When I didn’t answer, he frowned. “I don’t have time to explain everything to you. You’re going to follow me.”  With that, he pulled me in the opposite direction.

Of course, soldiers immediately flood the hall from the direction Rory had wanted to go into, and they duck into another room to hide. They crawl through a ventilation shaft up to the roof, narrowly escaping capture by the soldiers who are searching the warehouse for them. Cy explains that the place is being controlled by the CIA and “one or two branches of military.”

An Army truck was parked nearby, but we were too far to jump. Cyrus peered back at me, making a decision, and then he frowned apologetically.

“I’m sorry,” he said, covering my mouth. “Don’t scream.”

I struggled at first, but then he lifted me into his arms and ran full speed to the edge, leaping the incredible distance to the truck. We landed in the center and then rolled off, hitting the ground. With me still tucked in his arms, Cy pinned us under the truck and waited.

No one sees them pulling this stunt, but Rory is horrifically injured:

“My elbow,” I moaned, lifting up my arm. My shirt was quickly becoming a mess of dirt and blood.

Cy uttered something that sounded like a curse as he pulled up my sleeve to get a better look. He used his fingers to feel the bone and then shook his head. “I don’t think it’s broken,” he whispered. “Can you move it?”

I nodded, gently extending and flexing my arm. Cy’s pullover was ripped. I pulled the tear apart with my fingers to get a good look at my arm. The flesh had been scraped away, and graven was embedded in the meaty muscle.

WHOA. That is a one HELL of an injury.  It’s a good thing Rory is immortal, because seriously? Stripping your flesh off down to the muscle is really, really bad. It’s also a good thing that she has such high pain tolerance. She’s basically skinned a part of her body, but all she’s said is “ow.”

And because the CIA and “one or two branches of the military” somehow haven’t thought to create a secure perimeter around the warehouse base while they search for an escaped prisoner, Rory and Cy are able to just run across the road, into a field, where they run for two miles without stopping.

 “I’m not sure if you knew this about me,” I sputtered. “But I’m not athletic. Like…not at all.”

“Me either.”

“You’re not sucking in air like I am.”

“Let’s just say I’m not known for being athletic back home.”

aliens-meme

“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

Cy looked around. “I’ll try to explain everything later, but for now, we have to find Dr. Zorba, and then we have to retrieve the specimen and somehow get me to the old gas station on the south side of town by four a.m.”

“What? Why?”

E.T.'s spaceship leaving him behind
Because if you don’t, this will happen.

Rory tells Cy that Dr. Z isn’t home and that soldiers have already been to his house. Cy says he had a chance to upload the final data to Dr. Z and delete the stuff on the lab computers before the soldiers took him. Dr. Z is the only person who knows where the space rock data is stored, and they have to get it right away, so they start walking back to town.

We still have no idea what the space rock does, why it’s so important, and why the CIA didn’t just seize the lab computers and figure out where the data was uploaded to, anyway, but  at least there wasn’t any more love triangle nonsense in this chapter.

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60 Comments

  1. Petra47
    Petra47

    I’m SO glad you didn’t give up on these recaps!

    (So, I guess the answer to your question is: me. I am still reading these wonderful recaps!)

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  2. I’d say that noticing the cold is a sign of her being more involved in the world again, but this book has waaaay too many continuity issues for that.

    And dear god it would be so much better if that was actually Crocodile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyWFqtc3u-k

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  3. Hth
    Hth

    I’m also still reading them! How else can I find out if anything terrible (please, oh *please*…) happens to Rory?

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  4. Anon123
    Anon123

    Yaaay! So glad these are back! Also, I think the title for this series of posts should be “Apolonia recaps, or, ‘Okay, but…'”

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  5. Jo
    Jo

    Oh, God, this book is such a mess.

    But I got the mental image of Rory riding a moped and humming the Mission Impossible soundtrack to herself while going to rescue Cyrus, and I died laughing.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
    • Rachel
      Rachel

      Yessssssssssss that just made my day!

      July 10, 2015
      |Reply
  6. Don’t stop these! I love them! Thank you for your service!

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  7. noisyninja
    noisyninja

    Yeah when I got to this past I was like, wait, did I miss something? Way different book from here on out, and frankly, considering the total lack of exposition for any of it, the entire first half really didn’t need to be there at all.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  8. Melodie
    Melodie

    Holy crap, this book is getting even more convoluted and confusing. What the hell is even happening? Who are these people? What she told us about the murder versus what that guy was saying happened does not match up at all. Not to mention, why did the guy even explain that to Cy? Is he a cartoon/Bond villain? He just had to show off how incredibly…drawn out and dumb his plan was?

    This book…this fucking book. I hope Ellie comes in and saves Rory’s ass so that Rory has to say something nice to her. That won’t happen though, I’m pretty sure Ellie is not going to come up again…or we’ll see her stupidly trying to flirt with one of the dangerous Majestic people because she’s such a slutty slut and then Rory can think about how stupid and slutty she is. Yeah, that’s a more likely scenario. Or she’s just gone from the book completely and forgotten because this writer is horrible at creating a cohesive plot and interesting characters.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
    • alicia
      alicia

      oh, oh just wait for what happens with ellie. next chapter.

      July 9, 2015
      |Reply
      • Honey
        Honey

        ^ Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!!!!!!!!!!!!

        July 10, 2015
        |Reply
      • Melodie
        Melodie

        Oh my god…I’m scared now. 🙁

        July 10, 2015
        |Reply
  9. Pax
    Pax

    Yay, you posted another recap! I’m still reading, and I was actually really looking forward to this after your ‘Grey’ recap too. It might be hideous, have continuity issues, mention people we’ve never even heard of before and have an incredibly self-absorbed main character… but it’s not ‘Grey’ and that’s almost enough to make me more fond of it.

    Almost, anyway.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
    • Based solely on Jenny’s recaps of both books, I think they are probably equally awful.

      July 10, 2015
      |Reply
  10. Katsuro Ricksand
    Katsuro Ricksand

    Rory says that her mother “blinked once to let me know she wasn’t gone yet.” I hate to be a cynic, but… Maybe she just blinked? Earlier, it says that the light in her eyes was enarly snuffed out, so clearly her eyes were open. SO maybe she was just blinking because humans do that to keep their eyes from drying out? And even if it was a wink directed at you, you’re not a mind-reader and can’t tell what her exact intentions were.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
    • That and even when you die, there’s still a little bit of electrical charge left for little things you do unconsciously like blinking.

      July 10, 2015
      |Reply
      • JayneEyre
        JayneEyre

        I think this is the least of the problems in this chapter. I mean I am not US citizen but when I think of CIA and secret agencies I think of people being stealthy and quiet, like they come to you in civil clothing or send someone pretending to be let’s say someone from “Dean’s office” and asking you to come with them, and they would have all the right ID’s to dispel any of your doubts and all that. You know because it’s secret agency….they are supposed to be well SECRET. Not much of secret if you make this much noise. I

        July 11, 2015
        |Reply
        • Alice
          Alice

          Yes! Or the CIA can call themselves “Immigration” – because Cy’s there on a, what, a student visa? Send a couple of agents in saying there’s a problem with his student visa, take him away in a minivan, and then whoever cares enough to look for him are going to chase their tails hounding immigration officers and looking in all the wrong places. Easy!

          July 14, 2015
          |Reply
  11. Lindsay
    Lindsay

    What’s worse about that whole door knocking thing is it doesn’t even sound like there is a knocker, because she says it hurts her knuckles. . . . So that means Rory thinks working out somehow makes your bones and skin hurt less when your knocking on something?

    She must have some really meaty muscle around her finger joints.

    Also I agree, I love these recaps! The writing and plot is so ludicrous it’s always confounding and entertaining.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  12. Chris
    Chris

    Me too! Lol

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  13. Ilex
    Ilex

    I’m so glad to see another recap of this! (Does happy dance.)

    In the bit about Silver lying on its side in the ditch, I thought for a moment that it was the moped squinting into the rain … so there’s another problem with trying to cram too much into one sentence.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  14. Megan M.
    Megan M.

    Count me as another one who went “YEEEESSSSSSS!” when I saw the post title.

    This book is fucking TERRIBLE. It makes no sense at all! I’m flabbergasted, seriously. What was the point of ANY of the things that have happened so far? I’m guessing from here on out it’s just her and Cy and maybe Dr. Zoidberg against these mysterious baddies? I cannot wait to read the rest of this train wreck.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  15. Meg.
    Meg.

    I’m a reade but usually not a commenter, and I’m chiming in to say that I love these recaps. I actually went and read the damned book because I just wanted to know what happened, so thanks for that.

    I’ll say, for all the other things about 50SOG and its reprehensible content and hackneyed writing, I think this beat it as the worst book I’ve ever read. At least at least in Fifty Shades, I knew what the fuck was actually going on. Apolonia is confusing on top of that.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  16. Lieke
    Lieke

    ‘And I would know, because I remembered the knives of my murderers as I laid on the floor, blood–my mother’s and my own–seeping into my beautiful long hair while Sydney wouldn’t shut her yap a minute and just die already.’

    That was so funny. That scene could have been so cool and interesting. It could have read like a final act of defiance in the face of evil because they had killed her entire family and she knew they were going to kill her too. Sort of sad and badass at the same time.

    Instead, it just reads like Rory being smug (yet again) about not screaming and comparing herself favourably (yet again) to another woman FOR DYING BETTER!

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  17. Tessany
    Tessany

    It really bugs me that every building has some sort of gigantic ventillation system that allows for people to crawl through their duct work. I’ve worked in warehouses, hotels, and even a call center before, and have NEVER come across a ventilation shaft that a) could allow a human being to crawl through it and b) had an access panel in the roof? Why would this warehouse now filled with bright, white, twisting hallways even require a ventilation system that complex????

    Also love these as well!!

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  18. LovelloftheWolves
    LovelloftheWolves

    YAY! I’m glad you haven’t stopped these re-caps. I too thoroughly enjoy them. Is Cy supposed to be an “Egyptian” version of Superman? Like, super strength, jumps so high its almost like flying, and doesn’t need that much air to run real fast?

    Also, I read:
    “Tennison wants to put him on the chopper and fly him out to headquarters.”
    As “Tennison wants to put him on the WOOD chopper” and “fly [his pieces] to headquarters.” Because reading comprehension is for squares! (and my brain is pretty dark).
    I guess Jake Peralta is right, it is called a “choppah”.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
    • Lady Oscar
      Lady Oscar

      It’s not just you, I had to read that sentence twice! I think it was the juxtaposition with the talk of torturing people….

      July 10, 2015
      |Reply
    • Rosa H
      Rosa H

      Oh my God, I just cried laughing at this! Thank you.

      July 11, 2015
      |Reply
  19. At least stuff is happening in this book now?
    Stupid, cliche, contradictory stuff sure, but still stuff.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  20. Laina
    Laina

    This is just…. so confusing oh my gosh.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  21. Carolina West
    Carolina West

    I’m with everyone else, so excited you’re going on with these recaps! =D =D

    And all those reviews on Amazon were not kidding. This really is two different stories, both cut down the middle and slapped together. As if I didn’t have enough reasons on my list of why this book sucks…

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  22. Kk the Bunny Girl
    Kk the Bunny Girl

    This book reads like a fan fiction. The kind of fan fiction where there is potential for an amazing story, but instead the first ten chapters are just the characters living their day to day life. The chapters just drift by with events that seem unconnected and the relationships are rushed, but then the writer remembers there’s supposed to be a plot and the story randomly picks up. I swear I’ve written fic in this exact format.

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
  23. “I pulled over into the ditch and laid Silver onto its side, squinting through the rain, in the direction of the old warehouse nearly a mile away.”

    I did not know mopeds squinted.

    Also– I wish the reader had been given some kind of idea just how far a distance the jump was. From her reaction, it sounded “far,” but not far enough that she had an “Ah-hah…he’s an ALIEN, because he’s practically FLYING” awareness breakthrough. Seriously, are we talking ten feet? Twenty? Thirty?

    July 9, 2015
    |Reply
    • Suzy
      Suzy

      One of the brights in my truck needs to be replaced, so if I flip from bright to dimmer it looks like my truck is winking. But I don’t know how to make it squint…maybe when it is half covered in snow?

      July 10, 2015
      |Reply
  24. I like how she complains about not being fit while running for her life when a) I thought she did martial arts training, or did she stop that? and b) any unfit person having to run that far would not be wasting air and energy by talking.

    Keep up with the recaps! I want to see how far down this alien rabbit hole goes.

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
    • Kk the Bunny Girl
      Kk the Bunny Girl

      Also hasn’t she supposedly been working out, which she mentions earlier in the chapter.

      July 10, 2015
      |Reply
      • xebi
        xebi

        Well yeah, in the other book that was the first half of this book, she was always going to the gym with Benji, right?

        July 10, 2015
        |Reply
        • Kk the Bunny Girl
          Kk the Bunny Girl

          Right and it toughened her hands for knocking on the professor’s door.

          July 10, 2015
          |Reply
  25. Afflixi
    Afflixi

    I haven’t read the book and I might have misread this from the recap but I’m seriously confused… The people that killed Rory’s family were on a super secret fact finding mission that involved interrogating her dad, and they were drunk and high while doing it? Or were they posing as high and drunk to hide the fact that they were from the government? If so, WHY? So potential survivors they didn’t intend on leaving behind wouldn’t connect the dots? I get that they were rogue or whatnot, but weren’t they pulling off a pretty important mission? Or did Crocodile Boots hire random criminals?

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
    • “The people that killed Rory’s family were on a super secret fact finding mission that involved interrogating her dad, and they were drunk and high while doing it?”

      I wondered the same thing. I feel like she started writing one story and then changed her mind in the middle, but didn’t bother to fix the lead-up.

      July 10, 2015
      |Reply
  26. Hey Jenny, just letting you know that I’m still reading these recaps! The more I read of this book the more it sounds like a bad fan fiction of Roswell, except the plot of this makes even less sense.

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
  27. “Knocking on Dr. Z’s large wooden door was painful with cold knuckles, but I tried four times. I was glad that I’d been going to The Gym with Benji, or I’d have really been hurting.

    “WTF, how heavy is the door knocker at Dr. Z’s house?”

    But she’s knocking with her knuckles. No amount of weight lifting or cardio will make it hurt less to knock on a door with really cold hands. That has nothing to do with strength or endurance …

    “What happened to Rory being immortal? We just found out in the last chapter that she is literally immortal. She can’t die. Yet we’re supposed to fear for her life here? That’s the high stake?”

    I still think it was metaphorical.

    “Second, why didn’t the soldier smell Rory?”

    I can give a pass on this and give the benefit of the doubt the wind was in Rory’s favor. I do a lot of outdoor exercise. I can be standing right next to a bit of decaying roadkill and not smell if it the wind is blowing in the correct direction. Switch positions just an inch in the wrong direction, though, and it’s gag city from the stench.

    So, we went from classrooms to gyms to parties to dorms to labs and all the while nothing happens and all the characters do is try to date each other or hate on each other. And now suddenly there’s all this action and questions answered that no one even asked because WTH! This book just gets worse as it goes on.

    Also, I know a lot of people think the CIA is awful and evil, but they just don’t work this way.

    “I’m not sure if you knew this about me,” I sputtered. “But I’m not athletic. Like…not at all.”

    Wasn’t she on the track team or something in high school? And hasn’t she been working out regularly and building up all sorts of muscle and endurance that also numbs nerves somehow?

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
  28. xebi
    xebi

    Wow. This book is just a bad plot clusterfuck.

    I love these recaps, Jenny. I’ve been missing them. They’re less depressing than Grey!

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
  29. Mirja
    Mirja

    ‘Cy’s pullover was ripped. I pulled the tear apart with my fingers to get a good look at my arm.’
    The way this is written it sounds like she pulls the tear in HIS pullover apart to get a look at HER arm. So, they are sharing extremeties now? Huh, interesting.

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
    • Carolina West
      Carolina West

      Maybe Cy gave her his pullover? It’s impossible to tell with this book, but now I can’t the picture of them sharing limbs out of my head. Ick…

      July 12, 2015
      |Reply
      • Carolina West
        Carolina West

        “can’t get”

        Dang it, I really need to stop commenting on things when I’m not paying attention…

        July 12, 2015
        |Reply
  30. I agree with everyone, you must continue the recaps NEVER stop.

    Not only do they help make me a better writer they are as funny as heck.

    I though for sure that moped was squinting.

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
  31. I’m way confused because I thought the last recap was chapter 8? And now this is 11? Did I miss chapters somewhere or are they not listed on the JHBC page?

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
    • Kitty
      Kitty

      @manybellsdown
      I just started reading these recaps while I’m waiting for a Grey update, but I noticed that it stops at 8 on the page as well. Just scroll down to the search bar at the bottom and it’ll give you the link to the missing chapter recaps.

      July 10, 2015
      |Reply
  32. CharlotteC
    CharlotteC

    “I pulled over into the ditch and laid Silver onto its side, squinting through the rain, in the direction of the old warehouse nearly a mile away.”

    I *think* Rory is the one doing the squinting, but every time I read this it seems more and more like the moped is getting in on the action.

    Also I have no idea what is going on anymore.

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
  33. Huh? Did I miss a recap? When was it confirmed for sure that she’s immortal? I thought that might’ve been a metaphor.
    This seems like the same deal as Twilight. Written from the action point onwards and then gone back to paste a beginning to it that doesn’t really bother to set up the action, just introduce the characters. Actually, this seems more badly done than Twilight.

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
  34. Kitty
    Kitty

    I didn’t even know this book was a thing before I started to read the recaps. Now I’m a bit sad to know that it is a thing. These characters are unsympathetic and (even worse) boring.

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
  35. Rune
    Rune

    Thanks, Jenny, for continuing these recaps. This book is a car crash I can’t look away from.

    July 10, 2015
    |Reply
  36. Hiela
    Hiela

    I love these recaps. This book doesn’t just seem bad, but exceptionally half-assed as well. I don’t get the sense that the author cares at all. I’ve considered reading it, just out of curiosity, but I tried that with After when those recaps were happening and…yeah, no. That’s the only time I’ve been unable to finish a book because it was too emotionally disturbing.

    July 11, 2015
    |Reply
  37. Ria
    Ria

    Why are the CIA so useless? Like, I’m sure the CIA would not set their base camp in a warehouse in the middle of a field. Sam and Dean Winchester seem to be better at this whole government agent thing and they’re not even real FBI.

    And what is up with Rory’s backstory? (hey that rhymed) it makes less and less sense every chapter. Would someone be kind enough to explain to me why anyone thought publishing this book was a good idea?

    July 12, 2015
    |Reply
  38. Quint&Jessel, Sea of Azof, Bly, UK
    Quint&Jessel, Sea of Azof, Bly, UK

    Ok, Jenny. You’ve had your fun. I know that EL James got a Crossroads Deal and that’s why all of her frightful books were published without any editing, but you’ve gone too far–random YA authors cannot all have made the same Crossroads Deal! I mean, you’re saying that, in addition to terrible writing and a complete lack of continuity and logic, someone else also wrote a book with hateful two-dimensional characters who react absurdly, inhumanly, to circumstances; a book with a boring yet infuriating first-person narrator who loses chunks of time randomly, is romantically pursued by all the men she meets, and hates all the women she knows (who are all “sluts,” too!); that the plot has little to do with the genre of fiction to which it supposedly belongs (oh, this is SO not sci-fi! So obviously not!); that the armed and allegedly trained characters behave in exactly the opposite ways most rational people would expect them to behave (seriously? Are we supposed to think Rory was both invisible and had no heat signature when a “soldier” looked outside Dr. Z’s house? That the CIA would advertise their presence in a college town by rolling up in humvees and taking over and restructuring a warehouse that is used for raves? I think not!); and that this female narrator switches from tough martial-arts immortal warrior to whimpering damsel without even a breath? That the CIA wouldn’t prefer to experiment on an immortal person rather than “capture” a rock–a rock to which they had previous access? That the CIA would not only murder an entire family in a bloody obvious manner (rather than, say, car accident! Carbon monoxide poisoning! etc.) but that they knew one had survived and was apparently immortal and they just hadn’t gotten around to doing something about it?

    Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. ‘Fess up. You’ve made this whole thing up–there IS no such book! There can’t be! It’s impossible that two different authors made the exact same Crossroads Deal!

    July 13, 2015
    |Reply
  39. Sigyn Wisch
    Sigyn Wisch

    I’m still reading the Apolonia recaps! So is my husband! =D We call it “Crapolonia”.

    Knocking on Dr. Z’s large wooden door was painful with cold knuckles
    ^ Wouldn’t your knuckles be warm, though?

    I was glad that I’d been going to The Gym with Benji
    ^ is that a lounge? with, like, workout stuff?

    So, I’m a super secret government agency, right? And I’ve got this super important space rock thing I’m trying to steal. Would I want to drive eight Humvees down a residential street in the middle of the night? Or would I want to do something a little less alarming, that people aren’t going to ask too many questions about?
    ^ Watching a couple episodes of Burn Notice wouldn’t ha\/e hurt this author.

    I leaned forward, hoping that would somehow encourage Silver to surge ahead.
    ^ because built-in speed limits will be completely o\/erriden!

    He was of Egyptian descent. Maybe they thought he was a terrorist…or worse, maybe he was a terrorist.
    ^ RACIST, MUCH???

    I’m about to break into a commandeered military post and do what? Save him?
    ^ That’s what you wanted to do, you dumb tit.

    I could be caught, put in prison,
    ^ Then come up with a plan right quick and a couple of backups, shouldn’t you?

    or put to death.
    ^ YOU’RE IMMORTAL, AIN’T YA?

    They don’t even kill spies anymore,” I said aloud,
    ^ Way to not get caught, talking out loud to yourself. Also, how would YOU know that?

    Loki: Come on wtf are the aliens?! This sucks

    that’s no worse a disguise than when people usually break into government buildings in books.
    ^ Okay, but she watches mo\/ies, right? Maybe she should also read books and be a little more genre sa\/\/y.

    This chapter is bunk. I’\/e worked in warehouses (not that you’d ha\/e to, to see that). Maybe Jamie McGuire should ha\/e.

    I’m going to pick up that little weirdo friend of yours and finish the game of tic-tac-toe those psychos played on her skin a few years back.”
    ^ Wait, how did he know about that? Does she ha\/e scars?

    Oh, I see. It’s clumsily e> female knowledge is*
    I dunno, it just jumped out at me. I don’t usually notice those things, though.

    July 13, 2015
    |Reply
  40. redshoeson
    redshoeson

    Just binge-read all of these recaps. I NEED MORE! Your recaps are legit the best thing ever. 😀

    July 16, 2015
    |Reply
  41. Samantha
    Samantha

    I’m irrationally annoyed by the fact that the CIA is after them even though they have no jurisdiction in the United States. They operate overseas, unless they have a domestic function I’m unaware of?? Shouldn’t this be NSA?

    July 22, 2015
    |Reply

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