This chapter confuses me. It's easy to see what the chapter was meant to do. It was meant to expand on Kamalini and Dylan's backstories and make them sympathetic by showing the readers their tragic pasts. To an extent, this works with Dylan. But with Kamalini we get an event that breaks my suspension of disbelief more than anything else so far in the book.
While the implications of that sink in, let's start at the beginning of the chapter, shall we?
We open with Bravo looking up at Tookie through a window, his attention focused on her. Everyone is confused that he's paying her any attention. Zarpessa snorts and says he's just paying Tookie attention because she has an enormous head.
Tookie is embarrassed by this and angry at Bravo for pointing this out to her in front of other people. I know two year olds with better table manners than Tookie, so I have zero sympathy.
Persimmon shows up and is annoyed by the crowd of girls. She orders them into a line and marches them out of the building. (Note that none of Tookie’s class has actually gotten a chance to eat.)
Chaste is disappointed that they're leaving.
Gee, I'm glad that Chaste is such a complex and multi-faceted character. Because it would be boring if every line of dialogue she spouted was the same thing over and over.
They are lead to a reception desk that is "shaped like the letters H, O, and A". The letters are moving around for no apparent reason.
Zarpessa says she knows where they are: the OoAh. Her knowing something and explaining it to the others is somehow boasting.
She then lies and says that she has one at home. (I wouldn’t be surprised if she did have one before being forced to live on the streets.)
Tookie and Dylan roll their eyes at her.
Persimmon tells the girls that they will be divided in groups of three . . . for no apparent reason. The only rule is "enjoy yourselves."
Zarpessa, Chaste, and Bibiana go off in one group. Tookie, Dylan, and Kamalini are paired together. The rest of the girls aren't important enough to get names.
Tookie touches a wall which is made of cashmere and remembers her mother.
Probably not. Creamy is a self-absorbed jerk.
They pass some stone slabs where some Bellas are laying down. Everyone there is nude.
Uh, not to be crude . . . but shouldn't all the girls still on their periods? (They were told that it was their last period, not that it would end immediately.) That would make everyone stripping problematic and possibly messy. Or maybe we were supposed to assume that everyone’s periods ended the second the BellaDonna told them it would be the last period they ever get.
The girls are embarrassed by the idea of stripping with so many people around. I can completely relate to that, but the way they phrase it is still stupid.
"I too feel quite uncomfortable with the idea of getting disrobed while so many look on," Kamalini seconded.
Ugh. When did Kamalini suddenly develop Piper's faux-intelligent speech mannerisms?
The girls are told to lay down, and the creepy disembodied hands appear to remove their clothes.
Tookie looks at the ceiling to avoid meeting anyone's eyes, feeling embarrassed by her nudity. She sees something that was written on the ceiling in black pen. (Either the ceiling is very low or someone was really tall.)
She's a killjoy? She loves Tolstoy? She's really a boy?
How will I ever endure not knowing the answer? The fact that I have no clue who Geena is makes me really not care. (WMG: Geena is the BellaDonna's actual name.)
When the girls are on the slab, air pushes them up so they hover above the table. Then water comes at them from above and below, cleaning them up. They are given "towel frocks" with "Oooo" on one side and "Ahhh" on the other. Their dirty clothes are taken to be cleaned.
They are lead to their next destination. They pass by some another girl getting a pedicure, and are told that they can change the environment to look like what they want.
Tookie asks for "the inside of a whipped cream factory! With beach waves crashing outside the window!" And everything changes to look just like that.
You had a chance to return home during Thigh-High Boot Camp. If you really want to see Lizzie, intentionally flunk. Don't keep angsting about a situation that you can correct. If Tookie was portrayed as torn between her dream and Lizzie, that would be one thing. But Tookie just sort of floats along, blown in whatever direction the plot takes her without any real initiative of her own.
They see some other treatments: a "facial slough" that involves peeling skin off someone's face, "body snap" which involves having a person’s body closed inside a giant clam, and a hot stone treatment which involves rolling a giant boulder over a person's spine.
Then we get to the real focus of the chapter. The "Fused Flashback Females."
Their eyes were closed, and their beehive hairdo turned in slow, meditative circles. They seemed unaware of anything around them.
The Flashback Females have the ability to allow someone to look at her past, but not change it. (Like being in a Pensive, but with three women fused by an impossible hairdo instead of a basin of liquid.) This is said to be therapeutic.
There are doors that seal them within the memories while they happen, and the group is only allowed to go through together. No going in alone. Why? To allow Tookie to view Dylan and Kamalini's flashbacks, I guess.
Now the girls get to choose the memory they want to go to. Keep that in mind, since Kamalini and Dylan both choose pretty much the most awful memories they have.
Kamalini goes first. They see her as a child, looking out from her window at a nearby shantytown. There are "beautiful cocoa-, maple-, and copper-skinned children" playing in brightly-colored clothing. These kids are supposed to be in extreme poverty, so this scene doesn't seem quite right. (The kids should be emaciated and in drab clothing if they're truly that poor.)
Kamalini says that they are in her bedroom. The room is described as huge and very ornate. Kamalini is obviously from a very rich family.
Two dozen people come in the room to talk to Child!Kamalini. The group is dirt poor, and are all related to Kamalini. I guess her parents just don’t care that the rest of their families live in poverty. Child!Kamalini tells her family that she managed to get speaking parts for the entire family in one of her mother's films.
Cut to the entire family in Très Jolie, in front of "the metropolis's famous sculptural tower" which is NOT the Eiffel Tower.
Kamalini's mother tells her that they are shooting the "thunderstorm scene" that day. The family gets in front of a backdrop and do something that isn’t describe while fake rain soaks them and thunder effects are generated.
Then the backdrop falls and everybody dies.
No. I am not kidding. It crushes everyone to death except Kamalini's favorite relative, an eight-year old girl named Maya. (Maya later runs away and was never found.)
Two dozen people crushed to death by a backdrop. I'm sorry. I could buy that one or two people were killed in a freak accident, but the idea that over 20 people died during this is just too over the top. I just can't get past the ridiculousness of the scenario to feel bad for Kamalini. Plus, they didn’t even warrant names, so I have trouble feeling any emotion at their deaths.
It would have been more powerful (and much more believable) if only Maya had been killed during the filming. Then Kamalini still has a tragic backstory, and the scenario doesn't seem ridiculous.
This freak accident is the reason that Kamalini uses the Headbangor: to escape the pain of what happened. Kamalini is - understandably - freaking out over reliving the scene, but the Flashback Females don’t seem to care. They just go straight into Dylan’s turn.
They arrive in a park within the giant mall that Dylan is from. Dylan is six and playing with her father in the park. Her father tells her that he's "gonna have to go somewhere far away very, very soon."
He says she can't come with her, and then tells Dylan that she is beautiful the way she is.
He then tells her to eat and drink in remembrance of him before going to die for the sins of the Bou-Big-Tique Nation.
Okay, not really. Instead he just collapses due to an unidentified illness. An ambulance comes for him, but he dies anyway. PresentDay!Dylan collapses to the ground sobbing.
Tookie is told it's her turn next, but she tries to go over to Dylan. One of the Flashback Females tells her psychically:
Oh, shove it, you insensitive twit. Tookie is trying to help her friend. Let her.
Tookie says she wants to skip her turn. (I don't blame her.) The Mannecant guide tells her that this is actually a class, and she'll get an incomplete if she doesn't participate. This directly contradicts what Persimmon said earlier (and the class schedule they were given), but no one points this out.
Yes, the perfect way to bond with friends is to force your friends to endure trauma until they're broken and sobbing on the floor. Remember that for the next time you want to get closer to your friends.
Tookie decides that failure isn't an option, and silently asks the Flashback Females to show her something good from her life, even if she can’t remember that good memory.
They find themselves in Tookie's home, before Myrracle had been born. Tookie is about two years old. How are they making her relive something she doesn't remember? It's magic! No need for an explanation.
Tookie's mother and father enter the room with baby!Tookie. Her parents dote on her, which manages to surprise Tookie and the readers.
"You wish." Mrs. De La Crème playfully smacked him on his muscular arm. "My Tookie is the spitting image of her mommy."
Tookie is overwhelmed by this memory, and I'm just confused. Didn't her father already suspect that Tookie wasn't his by this point? Dylan and Kamalini have both recovered from sobbing in the past minute so they can look at Tookie curiously.
FORESHADOWING!
The day ends with Tookie writing a letter to Lizzie in her T-Mail Jail. Naturally, she writes in a foreign language (Gowdee'an) because it makes sense to write in a language her friend probably doesn't know.
Cliffs Notes Version of the Letter:
I hope you don't hate me. I met new friends that you would like. Everyone stares at me here. Bravo embarrassed me by gesturing at me to wipe my nose, and he's horrible and rude because of it! (And this totally isn’t UST talking!) Modelland is so amazing, but I don't fit in. I miss you. Hope you're not cutting yourself while I'm gone.*
The chapter ends.
According to my Kindle, we are now at the halfway point (well 49%, but close enough).
As far as I can tell, we have covered less than a week's worth of story. We started on the Thursday before T-DOD, which was on a Saturday. Then the girls spent one night at Modelland before starting classes. At the latest, the past few chapters took place on Monday. (Assuming T-DOD actually took 24 hours and the girls didn't get to sleep until Sunday night.)
There hasn't been nearly enough action to justify this pace. It's mostly just scenery porn and padding with occasional hints that there’s a plot aside from "generic high school drama."
Here's hoping something interesting happens next chapter.
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