Post by kait on Jan 15, 2012 10:23:36 GMT -5
CHAPTER SIX kicks off the Lena devating whether or not she should try sneaking off to the Back Cove to meet Alex, but he may or may not have been inviting her.
"All I can think is: Go? Don't go? Go? Don't go?"
Does this remind anyone else of when Rapunzel first leaves her tower in Tangled?
BEST DAY EVER!
But two seconds later...
I AM A DESPICABLE HUMAN BEING...
Aunt Carol is convinced that Lena is still upset about her evaluations and says so when her Uncle notices her strange behavior. Then Lena gets all giddy because they exchange a tense, pointed look.
"I feel a rush of excitement, It's rare for for my aunt and uncle to look at each other like that, a wordless glance, full of meaning. Most of the time their interactions are limited to the usual thing... What's for dinner? There's a leak in the roof. Blah blah blah."
If pointed looks = excitement in a marriage, I dread to think what every other aspect of their marriage is like ifyagetwhatI'msayin'
By some miracle, Lena is relieved of dish washing duty and allowed to "go over Hana's" quickly before curfew:
"I've only been out at this hour a few times on my own, and the feeling is strange-- frightening and exhilarating at the same time."
IT'S EIGHT O'CLOCK! What the hell?! At least most dystopian futures seem interesting! Lena got screwed!
Introduction time! Meet the regulators, basically a police task force designed to seek out any suspicious activity amongst the uncured, like interacting with someone of the opposite sex or dancing to unapproved music. They reported Lena's mother for showing too much emotion after her second procedure-- more specifically, crying over a picture of Lena's deceased father.
Lena tries to convince the regulators that she is riding down to the cove because she was "feeling bloaty." Because clearly, we all take high speed bike rides through hilly terrain when bloated. Thankfully, a few of the regulators live in her neighborhood and know her well enough that she's let off scot-free.
If you've not yet recognize the beautiful prose of this book, check out this AMAZING description of the sunset at the Back Cove:
"The sun ... lets out its final winking rays of light, shattering the darkness of the water, turning everything white for a fraction of a second, then falls away, sinking, dragging the pink and the red and the purple out of the sky with it, all the color bleeding away and leaving only dark."
After booking it to the Back Cove, Lena realizes that there's no way that she can possibly stay, meet Alex, and get home on time. She stops and gets out her frustration as she watches the sunset, then hightails it back home.
On top of that, she flat-out convinces herself that she was crazy for coming in the first place. After all, Alex never officially invited her to the Back Cove, he simply mentioned how beautiful it was. He may not have been there at all. Only time will tell!
In CHAPTER SEVEN, we learn that Lena's government has rewritten The Bible to fit into their lifestyle. Love is now the original sin, Mary Magdalene is the first cured. In the modern bible, Mary Magdalene is cured of "seven demons", though all of those are believed to be actual illnesses. However, Lena believes her mother named after Mary Magdalene to repent for her own deliria.
Back in Lena's real world, graduation is right on the horizon. Being a few months older than her, several of Lena's classmates are cured, after which they kind of turn into disinterested little zombies:
"It's like all their anxiety and self-consciousness has been removed along with the disease."
In the other end of the spectrum we have Willow Marks, who was just caught with a boy in the park. Within a week, both of her parents were fired from their jobs and they have been constantly harassed since. It's to the point where her parents are sending her of the procedure six months early and risking possible paralysis, blindness, or brain damage for Willow rather than be shamed any longer.
When graduation finally comes, Lena realizes that the girls who are already cured don't celebrate. They don't stick around to hug or say goodbye. Her life feels like it's changing tremendously and she doesn't understand why these girls just don't care.
But you know who DOES care? Hana! CHAPTER EIGHT tells us that perhaps she cares a little too much.
It starts when Lena walks in on Hana listening to illegal music. That's right-- the government decides what music citizens can listen to. A nightmare, indeed!
Hana, however, has found several illegal sites on the intranet that specialize in banned music. In fact, she's going to an illegal concert out on an old farm and she wants Lena to come with.
"Music. Dancing, You know--fun. The stuff we're supposed to be having, before they cut out half our brain."
Hana is invigorated by it all, but Lena is scared to death. If Hana were ever caught, she would be locked away in the Crypts. She thinks of it as a betrayal of their friendship, especially when she suggests Lena couldn't become infected because she "doesn't have it in her" to be rebellious like her mother.
Lena the RAGE MONSTER eventually leaves Hana's house, their friendship looking totally uncertain.
With something to prove in CHAPTER NINE, Lena does exactly what she told Hana she refused to do: She sneaks out to attend the concert at Roaring Brook Farms.
In a stroke of genius, Lena makes a great reference:
"...It reminds me of an Edgar Allan Poe story we had to read in one of our social studies classes, about this guy who kills this other guy and then gives himself up to the police because he's convinced he can hear the dead guy's heart beating up from beneath his floorboards ... when I first read it I thought it seemed kind of lame and melodramatic. Now I get it, though. Poe must have snuck out a lot when he was young."
After carefully biking her way around the city to avoid regulators, Lena ends up at Roaring Brook Farms. She finds Hana... surrounded by music and booze and uncured boys.
IMMEDIATE REGRET! This is everything that Lena knows to be bad!
Urgh, even I'm a bit scared because I'd really prefer Lena NOT be caught and sent to jail because she was trying to prove a point to her friend! But at the same time, it's an amazing, scary discovery.
"Is it possible that all this time I've been living my life, studying for tests, taking long runs with Hana-- and this other world has just existed, running alongside and underneath mine, alive, ready to sneak out of the shadows and the alleyways as soon as the sun goes down? ... A world without fear. Impossible."
Lena breaks away from Hana, but she doesn't get far. Alex, the very attractive cured security guard, just so happens to be at this totally reckless, illegal event as well! What a surprise!
And guess what? OMG ALEX DID WANT TO MEET HER AT THE COVE! HE WAITED FOR HER THERE BUT SHE NEVER MADE IT!
So he's kind of MY favorite now, but he's not off the hook that easily! Lena is still awfully mad at him about denying being in the labs during her evaluation, so she coaxes his official story out. She's none too thrilled with him still. She even accuses him of stalking her because they've bumped into each other twice in a week. HUH?!
Adding to his ever-growing charm factor, Alex tells Lena that he DOES, in fact, know of her. She and Hana used to always stop at a monument just outside Alex's workplace and joke around on their runs, taking no notice of anyone around them. But he took notice of her!
A slow, sweet song starts up and without much effort or thought, Lena ends up dancing with Alex on the edge of the farm.
"The second time my world exploded, it was also because of a word...
The question was Will you meet me tomorrow?
And the word was: Yes."
Each chapter starts with a bit of government propaganda, but the piece for CHAPTER TEN is especially great: It's a list of the symptoms of amor deliria nervosa. This does not bode well for Lena! Or does it?!
After a lesson in lying successfully to Aunt Carol, Lena go to East End Beach to meet Alex. The beach is usually very quiet because it's riiiiiiight next to The Wilds, the unregulated lands where the Invalids live, and a lot of people get bad juju from that.
"For a while after my mom died I used to have these fantasies that she wasn't dead, really, and that my father wasn't dead either-- that they escaped to the Wilds to be together ... At some point, I imagined, they would come back and get me."
What a beautiful dream for a girl with nothing else to hope for.. watery eyes up in here! Until, of course, she realizes that would make her parents enemies of society and says they're better off dead. It's sad that her lifestyle makes her happy about the death of her parents.
Lena has an uncharacteristic moment of complete openness because she's so comfortable with Alex. She tells him everything about her mom, which, in a society like this, SHOULD HAVE sent him running and screaming. Lena has tainted blood, after all!
"Just when I think I can't take it anymore, Alex reaches over and barely skims my elbows with one finger. 'I'll race you,' he says, standing up and beating the sand off his shorts."
Well, that's one way to end an awkward story! The hardest part about discovering something new and scary about someone is knowing when and how to change the freaking subject!
They race INTO the bay, splashing and laughing and totally enjoying themselves without thinking about it. We know for sure now that Alex does NOT acted like a normal cured boy. Maybe he never took to the cure, just like Lena's mom?!
"Pretty, isn't it?"
That little quote from Alex sounds unassuming, until you realize he's not talking about the beach or the historic bridge. He's talking about THE WILDS.
The topic leads Lena into a lot of panicked ramblings until finally Alex cuts her off and gives her the truth.
Oh.. btw.. Alex IS NOT CURED. As in NEVER. The "procedure" scar he has was simply cut into his skin. Nor is he from Portland. He grew up IN THE WILDS. All his records are falsified. He is an Invalid, one of the most deadly things ever known.
"'Lena. I like you, okay? That's it. That's all. I like you.' His voice is so low and hypnotic it reminds me of a song. It reminds me of predators dropping silently from trees."
Lena does what any sensible girl would do.. and BOOKS IT OUT OF THERE as fast as she can, leaving Alex stranded in the ocean, hoping and praying that the guy who just said he likes her isn't following.
Meanwhile... I'm like:
And we will STAY that way until next week, when we cover Chapters 11-15!
"All I can think is: Go? Don't go? Go? Don't go?"
Does this remind anyone else of when Rapunzel first leaves her tower in Tangled?
BEST DAY EVER!
But two seconds later...
I AM A DESPICABLE HUMAN BEING...
Aunt Carol is convinced that Lena is still upset about her evaluations and says so when her Uncle notices her strange behavior. Then Lena gets all giddy because they exchange a tense, pointed look.
"I feel a rush of excitement, It's rare for for my aunt and uncle to look at each other like that, a wordless glance, full of meaning. Most of the time their interactions are limited to the usual thing... What's for dinner? There's a leak in the roof. Blah blah blah."
If pointed looks = excitement in a marriage, I dread to think what every other aspect of their marriage is like ifyagetwhatI'msayin'
By some miracle, Lena is relieved of dish washing duty and allowed to "go over Hana's" quickly before curfew:
"I've only been out at this hour a few times on my own, and the feeling is strange-- frightening and exhilarating at the same time."
IT'S EIGHT O'CLOCK! What the hell?! At least most dystopian futures seem interesting! Lena got screwed!
Introduction time! Meet the regulators, basically a police task force designed to seek out any suspicious activity amongst the uncured, like interacting with someone of the opposite sex or dancing to unapproved music. They reported Lena's mother for showing too much emotion after her second procedure-- more specifically, crying over a picture of Lena's deceased father.
Lena tries to convince the regulators that she is riding down to the cove because she was "feeling bloaty." Because clearly, we all take high speed bike rides through hilly terrain when bloated. Thankfully, a few of the regulators live in her neighborhood and know her well enough that she's let off scot-free.
If you've not yet recognize the beautiful prose of this book, check out this AMAZING description of the sunset at the Back Cove:
"The sun ... lets out its final winking rays of light, shattering the darkness of the water, turning everything white for a fraction of a second, then falls away, sinking, dragging the pink and the red and the purple out of the sky with it, all the color bleeding away and leaving only dark."
After booking it to the Back Cove, Lena realizes that there's no way that she can possibly stay, meet Alex, and get home on time. She stops and gets out her frustration as she watches the sunset, then hightails it back home.
On top of that, she flat-out convinces herself that she was crazy for coming in the first place. After all, Alex never officially invited her to the Back Cove, he simply mentioned how beautiful it was. He may not have been there at all. Only time will tell!
In CHAPTER SEVEN, we learn that Lena's government has rewritten The Bible to fit into their lifestyle. Love is now the original sin, Mary Magdalene is the first cured. In the modern bible, Mary Magdalene is cured of "seven demons", though all of those are believed to be actual illnesses. However, Lena believes her mother named after Mary Magdalene to repent for her own deliria.
Back in Lena's real world, graduation is right on the horizon. Being a few months older than her, several of Lena's classmates are cured, after which they kind of turn into disinterested little zombies:
"It's like all their anxiety and self-consciousness has been removed along with the disease."
In the other end of the spectrum we have Willow Marks, who was just caught with a boy in the park. Within a week, both of her parents were fired from their jobs and they have been constantly harassed since. It's to the point where her parents are sending her of the procedure six months early and risking possible paralysis, blindness, or brain damage for Willow rather than be shamed any longer.
When graduation finally comes, Lena realizes that the girls who are already cured don't celebrate. They don't stick around to hug or say goodbye. Her life feels like it's changing tremendously and she doesn't understand why these girls just don't care.
But you know who DOES care? Hana! CHAPTER EIGHT tells us that perhaps she cares a little too much.
It starts when Lena walks in on Hana listening to illegal music. That's right-- the government decides what music citizens can listen to. A nightmare, indeed!
Hana, however, has found several illegal sites on the intranet that specialize in banned music. In fact, she's going to an illegal concert out on an old farm and she wants Lena to come with.
"Music. Dancing, You know--fun. The stuff we're supposed to be having, before they cut out half our brain."
Hana is invigorated by it all, but Lena is scared to death. If Hana were ever caught, she would be locked away in the Crypts. She thinks of it as a betrayal of their friendship, especially when she suggests Lena couldn't become infected because she "doesn't have it in her" to be rebellious like her mother.
Lena the RAGE MONSTER eventually leaves Hana's house, their friendship looking totally uncertain.
With something to prove in CHAPTER NINE, Lena does exactly what she told Hana she refused to do: She sneaks out to attend the concert at Roaring Brook Farms.
In a stroke of genius, Lena makes a great reference:
"...It reminds me of an Edgar Allan Poe story we had to read in one of our social studies classes, about this guy who kills this other guy and then gives himself up to the police because he's convinced he can hear the dead guy's heart beating up from beneath his floorboards ... when I first read it I thought it seemed kind of lame and melodramatic. Now I get it, though. Poe must have snuck out a lot when he was young."
After carefully biking her way around the city to avoid regulators, Lena ends up at Roaring Brook Farms. She finds Hana... surrounded by music and booze and uncured boys.
IMMEDIATE REGRET! This is everything that Lena knows to be bad!
Urgh, even I'm a bit scared because I'd really prefer Lena NOT be caught and sent to jail because she was trying to prove a point to her friend! But at the same time, it's an amazing, scary discovery.
"Is it possible that all this time I've been living my life, studying for tests, taking long runs with Hana-- and this other world has just existed, running alongside and underneath mine, alive, ready to sneak out of the shadows and the alleyways as soon as the sun goes down? ... A world without fear. Impossible."
Lena breaks away from Hana, but she doesn't get far. Alex, the very attractive cured security guard, just so happens to be at this totally reckless, illegal event as well! What a surprise!
And guess what? OMG ALEX DID WANT TO MEET HER AT THE COVE! HE WAITED FOR HER THERE BUT SHE NEVER MADE IT!
So he's kind of MY favorite now, but he's not off the hook that easily! Lena is still awfully mad at him about denying being in the labs during her evaluation, so she coaxes his official story out. She's none too thrilled with him still. She even accuses him of stalking her because they've bumped into each other twice in a week. HUH?!
Adding to his ever-growing charm factor, Alex tells Lena that he DOES, in fact, know of her. She and Hana used to always stop at a monument just outside Alex's workplace and joke around on their runs, taking no notice of anyone around them. But he took notice of her!
A slow, sweet song starts up and without much effort or thought, Lena ends up dancing with Alex on the edge of the farm.
"The second time my world exploded, it was also because of a word...
The question was Will you meet me tomorrow?
And the word was: Yes."
Each chapter starts with a bit of government propaganda, but the piece for CHAPTER TEN is especially great: It's a list of the symptoms of amor deliria nervosa. This does not bode well for Lena! Or does it?!
After a lesson in lying successfully to Aunt Carol, Lena go to East End Beach to meet Alex. The beach is usually very quiet because it's riiiiiiight next to The Wilds, the unregulated lands where the Invalids live, and a lot of people get bad juju from that.
"For a while after my mom died I used to have these fantasies that she wasn't dead, really, and that my father wasn't dead either-- that they escaped to the Wilds to be together ... At some point, I imagined, they would come back and get me."
What a beautiful dream for a girl with nothing else to hope for.. watery eyes up in here! Until, of course, she realizes that would make her parents enemies of society and says they're better off dead. It's sad that her lifestyle makes her happy about the death of her parents.
Lena has an uncharacteristic moment of complete openness because she's so comfortable with Alex. She tells him everything about her mom, which, in a society like this, SHOULD HAVE sent him running and screaming. Lena has tainted blood, after all!
"Just when I think I can't take it anymore, Alex reaches over and barely skims my elbows with one finger. 'I'll race you,' he says, standing up and beating the sand off his shorts."
Well, that's one way to end an awkward story! The hardest part about discovering something new and scary about someone is knowing when and how to change the freaking subject!
They race INTO the bay, splashing and laughing and totally enjoying themselves without thinking about it. We know for sure now that Alex does NOT acted like a normal cured boy. Maybe he never took to the cure, just like Lena's mom?!
"Pretty, isn't it?"
That little quote from Alex sounds unassuming, until you realize he's not talking about the beach or the historic bridge. He's talking about THE WILDS.
The topic leads Lena into a lot of panicked ramblings until finally Alex cuts her off and gives her the truth.
Oh.. btw.. Alex IS NOT CURED. As in NEVER. The "procedure" scar he has was simply cut into his skin. Nor is he from Portland. He grew up IN THE WILDS. All his records are falsified. He is an Invalid, one of the most deadly things ever known.
"'Lena. I like you, okay? That's it. That's all. I like you.' His voice is so low and hypnotic it reminds me of a song. It reminds me of predators dropping silently from trees."
Lena does what any sensible girl would do.. and BOOKS IT OUT OF THERE as fast as she can, leaving Alex stranded in the ocean, hoping and praying that the guy who just said he likes her isn't following.
Meanwhile... I'm like:
And we will STAY that way until next week, when we cover Chapters 11-15!
