Which is, if you have read this book, the end.
So I've been busy and exhausted and I'm trying to knit a baby blanket and also I decided to knit a scarf for a friends birthday but with cabling and I have never done that before so I've been concentrating on that and my *minor* perfectionism problem may make it very important that I concentrate super hard on not dropping a stitch or, and this is what happened with my nephews baby blanket, I rip the whole thing apart and start over. That blanket could have been ready months before it was if I'd just learned to be cool with fixing the problem like a normal human.
But anyway, so I hadn't read much of the book over the last couple of weeks and then um, I binged it last night.
So.
Hal gets into town with something like thirty pounds to her name, and it is, of course, raining because it is a funeral in a murder mystery. Mr. Treswick (the lawyer) lets Hal into the church and we get through Hal's awkward knowledge that she is definitely doing something wrong, but again, she is desperate to not get her everything broken and I cannot blame her.
There's no room in the 'official funeral cortege' so Mr. Treswick drives Hal to the house and honestly it wouldn't be out of place in a ghost story. Then again I just finished watching the Netflix adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House (LOVED IT) and so maybe creepy houses just need ghosts right now.
Also I keep misreading the name of the house as 'Trespassen' not 'Trepassen' but that's just me.
We meet Mrs. Warren, who would put Mrs. Dudley to shame (Haunting of Hill House for the win) for cranky and uselessly obscure statements and Hal's 'uncles'. There's Harding, his wife Mitzi and their kids, then Abel (who is gay and whose husband is a doctor) and Ezra, who lives the high life out in France. Because Europe.
There's scotch and talking and meeting everyone and no one seems to think much of Hal except oh, yes, her mother was their sister who disappeared (Ezra's twin, BTW) and then Mr. Treswick gets to the reading of the will and oh, hey, that little legacy that Hal thought would solve all her problems turns out to be the whole damn estate.
Harding mildly loses his shit - as the oldest and the one that sort of stuck around, he seems to have thought that he would inherit, and also, in fairness, who the fuck is Hal?
Hal passes out, which, same.
She's stressed, hasn't eaten, is cold, and just got told she's maybe a millionaire? I mean the house is in shitty condition but you can 100% sell it and there's other monies. I too would pass the fuck out.
Anyway.
Hal wakes up and gets shoved into the attic equivalent of Harry Potter's cupboard under the stairs, which is to say that this is a giant fucking house you cannot tell me that there were not guest rooms. Mrs. Warren is just....so mean.
Mrs. Warren continues to be not the actual worst person in this book, but she's pretty bad.
Hal, through snooping and context clues, figures out that she is related to the family, but it's more like a cousin to the main family than the long lost granddaughter. Turns out the missing daughter, Maud, her real name was Margarida and the cousin, who went by Maggie, was also really named Margarida.
And the diary entries that are peppered throughout the book are from Maggie, who was living with the family after her own parents died and got pregnant while she was there when she was 18. But Hal thinks she's figured out where the mistake by Mr. Treswick came from.
She tries, really, she does, to like reject the will but her uncles are the executors of the will and they don't all want to let her do that, and it's mostly Ezra who is just like, 'NAH'. Which, in hindsight, makes sense because we go through this whole song and dance and Hal really likes the family (for the most part) and decides that she can't do this to them - ALSO SOMEONE TRIES TO MURDER HER by that whole thing where they put some string over the top of the stairs so you trip and goddamnit that is a Poirot call back. It's from Dumb Witness. Anyway.
I want to know who the hell else got tripped down those stairs - when Hal examines the nails they are old and rusty and HAD CLEARLY BEEN THERE A WHILE.
So Hal nopes the hell out in the middle of the night and we find out that Mrs. Warren 100% knows that Hal is not Maud's daughter, and just wants her gone, but Hal then feels bad for just running away and also she knows that they are not going to just let her vanish they literally know where she lives. So she calls and comes back and she's poking around and finds the maid who used to help smuggle letters between Maud and Maggie who was locked in the attic while she was pregnant because Mrs. Westaway was a monster and Maggie won't tell her who got her pregnant.
Hal tells Lizzie the whole story and she knows that she's going to have to confess the whole thing to the family but it also helps her figure out that Maud and Maggie ran away together and were living together but since Hal doesn't know Maud she vanished for real before Hal was old enough to remember her.
Hal confesses, sort of. She tells the family that she was confused like everyone else, but she's figured out that she is the daughter of Maggie, not Maud, and the names are the same, yada, yada. And Harding thinks this solves everything, and Mr. Treswick is like...nah....but that sort of gets brushed aside because there's a storm and everyone is getting the heck away from Trepassen and Ezra gives Hal a ride to the station but then there are no trains and they wind up having to go back to the house.
And this is where I was actually shocked.
So Hal, Ezra and supposedly Mrs. Warren are alone in the house and Hal has this nagging feeling that she is so close to figuring out something - she wants to know who her father is, but her mother had removed any mention of his name from her diary so there's no clue there.
She wanders down to this library that she had found earlier and there's a photo album that she takes to look through and as she's flipping through she realizes that Maud is, in fact her mother.
And I shrieked, 'SHE WHAT?!?!' at like 1 am.
SO.
Hal, not having labels or any knowledge of these people, had figured out that she was the Maggie daughter by dint of this picture that Ezra had given her of himself, Maud, and this other girl who was Maggie.
But I guess he didn't use his fucking finger to point to anyone, because it turns out that the girl that Hal knew as her mother, who she assumed was Maggie, was, in fact, Maud. But Maud was not the one who was pregnant!
*deep sigh*
SO.
Maggie and Maud ran away when Maggie was pregnant and they lived together and Hal was born and they were raising her together for a little while. And then Maggie marched her happy blond ass back to the mansion to demand that Hal's father support the baby. And Maggie never came back.
So Maud raised Hal.
Hal is the daughter of BOTH Margarida's.
And also Ezra, who is garbage and I did not see that coming.
Turns out nice uncle Ezra is actually human garbage father Ezra who murdered Maggie when she came up demanding that he support his daughter and he hid her body in the lake and then he years later murdered Maud - he's the one who ran her over in the street, his own twin sister, because Maud was going to tell Hal the truth when she turned 18 and then he murdered Mrs. Warren and was going to murder Hal because MONSTER.
But Hal gets away, gets onto the lake which is iced over, and while Hal is a tiny slip of a human being, Ezra is not and he falls through the ice and drowns which is how he killed Maggie, so good.
End result - the will was accurate, Mrs. Westaway knew who Hal really was, and left her everything. Questionable whether she did it because she felt any shred of guilt for harboring a monster for decades or whether she just was such a monster she wanted to kick things up when she was unable to suffer any consequences. Mrs. Warren also knew that Ezra was a monster, but he was her favorite too, so whats a little murder?
Hal inherits all the things, and it seems like the rest of the family is actually embracing her and I'm pleased with everything.
She also tells them where she thinks Maggie's body is - the reason Ezra didn't want to let her give away her inheritance was likely because any work at the house would include dredging the lake where he had hidden Maggie's body.
I loved this book, and I did not see the whole 'it was Ezra' thing coming. Which is nice, since I normally at least have an inkling of what the secret twist is.
Monday, October 22, 2018
Sunday, September 30, 2018
The Death of Mrs. Westaway Ch 1 - 7 by Ruth Ware
Okay, so I didn't get a lot of reading time this week. Even though the chapters in this book are super short, I didn't make it very far. But that's why we have the new rules!
Anyway.
I'm guessing that this is a thing that Ruth Ware likes to do, where she starts the book with a scene that clearly comes from later in the book.
So, the first seven chapters seem to be a lot of set up.
We meet Hal, who is barely scratching out a living as a psychic on the boardwalk? Is it a boardwalk if it's in England? She's living in the worlds shittiest apartment, which may or may not have heat depending on the moment, and she's barely eating. She's getting threatening notes from a loan shark and wow, you find out later that his rates are super not reasonable.
But I guess that's why they're loan sharks.
So she borrowed $500 from Mr. Smith back months ago and the interest rate is just insane, so even with having paid him back what she estimates to be something like $1500 she still owes him over $3000 according to his math.
She's got no money to pay him, no money to pay her rent, no money to pay the lease on the booth that she uses to make her living, such as it is, and no idea what she's going to do. She's a 'psychic' in the cold read, let people answer their own questions kind of way - she does tarot out of preference, and I get the impression that her mother held the same trade, though she did palm reading and the other usual psychic tricks as well. Hal will do them if she has to, but she prefers the cards.
Hal's mother has passed away, back when Hal was still in British high school (listen, all I know about British schools comes from Harry Potter and I'm going to assume Hal did not go to Hogwarts) and Hal has been on her own since. She's got no other family, not really any friends.
She is alone and she is progressively getting more and more in debt and she sees no way out.
And then, in the midst of a pile of bills that she cannot pay, she receives a letter telling her that she is an heir to some fortune, according to the Will of one Mrs. Hester Mary Westaway. Which would be great, except that she is 100% sure that she is not related to this dead woman, who is ostensibly her grandmother.
And Hal is arguing with herself, trying to tell herself that there has been a mistake and they got the wrong Hal. After all, she dug through her mothers papers and her grandparents are definitely not Mrs. Westaway. At least, on her mothers side. She knows nothing about her father, but given that Hal's name is Harriet Westaway and that Westaway was her mothers maiden name (we assume) it seems unlikely that this would be from her fathers side.
However, the loan shark is sending people around and Hal is getting very desperate.
And after all, if anyone could pull this off, it would be someone who makes their living cold reading strangers and telling them what they want to hear.
I do find it interesting that the first reading that we see in detail is where Hal is reluctantly doing a tarot reading for an older woman who sort of forces her way in after Hal has closed shop. The woman is trying to decide what to do about her son who is a drug addict. And Hal, who tries very hard to not tell people things that aren't true - she doesn't tell them about messages from long dead relatives, etc. reads the cards and basically tells her that she needs to go with her instincts - that she knows what she needs to do.
And the woman pays her with apparently way too much money, but is gone before Hal can give her the excess back. And when Hal chases after her, she's long gone off the promenade. So Hal donates the excess money to the charity of the month on the boardwalk, which just happens to be one for addiction recovery.
I mean I think we're meant to understand that Hal is a generally nice person who has found herself in an impossible situation.
But that's as far as I've gotten, so I guess we'll find out.
Anyway.
I'm guessing that this is a thing that Ruth Ware likes to do, where she starts the book with a scene that clearly comes from later in the book.
So, the first seven chapters seem to be a lot of set up.
We meet Hal, who is barely scratching out a living as a psychic on the boardwalk? Is it a boardwalk if it's in England? She's living in the worlds shittiest apartment, which may or may not have heat depending on the moment, and she's barely eating. She's getting threatening notes from a loan shark and wow, you find out later that his rates are super not reasonable.
But I guess that's why they're loan sharks.
So she borrowed $500 from Mr. Smith back months ago and the interest rate is just insane, so even with having paid him back what she estimates to be something like $1500 she still owes him over $3000 according to his math.
She's got no money to pay him, no money to pay her rent, no money to pay the lease on the booth that she uses to make her living, such as it is, and no idea what she's going to do. She's a 'psychic' in the cold read, let people answer their own questions kind of way - she does tarot out of preference, and I get the impression that her mother held the same trade, though she did palm reading and the other usual psychic tricks as well. Hal will do them if she has to, but she prefers the cards.
Hal's mother has passed away, back when Hal was still in British high school (listen, all I know about British schools comes from Harry Potter and I'm going to assume Hal did not go to Hogwarts) and Hal has been on her own since. She's got no other family, not really any friends.
She is alone and she is progressively getting more and more in debt and she sees no way out.
And then, in the midst of a pile of bills that she cannot pay, she receives a letter telling her that she is an heir to some fortune, according to the Will of one Mrs. Hester Mary Westaway. Which would be great, except that she is 100% sure that she is not related to this dead woman, who is ostensibly her grandmother.
And Hal is arguing with herself, trying to tell herself that there has been a mistake and they got the wrong Hal. After all, she dug through her mothers papers and her grandparents are definitely not Mrs. Westaway. At least, on her mothers side. She knows nothing about her father, but given that Hal's name is Harriet Westaway and that Westaway was her mothers maiden name (we assume) it seems unlikely that this would be from her fathers side.
However, the loan shark is sending people around and Hal is getting very desperate.
And after all, if anyone could pull this off, it would be someone who makes their living cold reading strangers and telling them what they want to hear.
I do find it interesting that the first reading that we see in detail is where Hal is reluctantly doing a tarot reading for an older woman who sort of forces her way in after Hal has closed shop. The woman is trying to decide what to do about her son who is a drug addict. And Hal, who tries very hard to not tell people things that aren't true - she doesn't tell them about messages from long dead relatives, etc. reads the cards and basically tells her that she needs to go with her instincts - that she knows what she needs to do.
And the woman pays her with apparently way too much money, but is gone before Hal can give her the excess back. And when Hal chases after her, she's long gone off the promenade. So Hal donates the excess money to the charity of the month on the boardwalk, which just happens to be one for addiction recovery.
I mean I think we're meant to understand that Hal is a generally nice person who has found herself in an impossible situation.
But that's as far as I've gotten, so I guess we'll find out.
Monday, September 24, 2018
Smoke in the Sun by Renee Ahdieh
Right.
So here's how it's going to have to go. It's just going to be, every Sunday, however far I've gotten in the chosen book, that's how far we are. Because three chapters a week is killing me slow, but some books that I have lined up are probably going to take me more than a week to read. And that's not even factoring in that some weeks I have less time to read than others.
There is no plan, we're just winging it!!!
Last week, I read Smoke in the Sun, by Renee Ahdieh. It's a YA book, and the second in a duology. I'd read the first one some time ago - I actually have three autographed books by this author, I got to meet her when I went to the RT convention back in 2017 with Texas Heather. :)
The first series by Ms. Ahdieh is sort of a retelling of the whole, 1,001 Nights conceit, which, I think everyone knows? But if you don't the whole idea is that there is this king and his wife betrays him. So in order to keep that from happening again, he marries a new wife every night and then executes her in the morning. And while this has SO MANY logical flaws, not the least of which is that you are definitely setting yourself up to get assassinated if you just keep murdering women left right and center, but that's not the point. A noble-woman named Scheherazade is next up and she's like, 'Okay, I get it, fine. But before we get to the wedding night and the executing and all could I please tell my little sister a bed time story?' and the king, WHILE A MONSTER, is not a monster and lets her tell her little sister the story and of course he gets into it and Scheherazade stops right in the middle so he's just...fine. You can live to finish the story tomorrow night!
And this goes on for a LONG time until he falls in love and stops planning to murder her.
So the first duology is The Wrath & the Dawn, and then The Rose & The Dagger and it's that general idea, but there's curse and yada yada. They're very good books, especially if you like romance and fantasy. They are YA, so there's no graphic sex or violence 'on screen' as it were.
Right.
So, this pair of books is set in....Asia. Maybe Japan? It's fantasy fiction so maybe not super important but I'm pretty sure it's meant to be Japan.
The first book, Flame in the Mist, is definitely necessary to know what the hell is going on in this one. I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but basically we start with a young boy watching his father be executed for betraying the emperor, and you know that'll be important, but then we jump ahead in time and we're with Mariko, the only daughter of a powerful daimyo who is on her way to the capital to marry the illegitimate son of the emperor. Or. I mean he's acknowledged, and he's the oldest, but he's the son of one of the emperor's mistresses, so he's not in line to the throne. Raiden, is his name and he's a big bully. His younger brother Roku (which is the name of my tv streaming box and I giggled the first couple of times I read it) is in line, since his mother is the empress.
So. Mariko is on her way to a life of luxurious captivity and she's not thrilled, but the honor of her family, etc. etc. And, of course, her caravan is attacked on the way to the capital and everyone is killed, including the maid that is riding in the little 'girls only' thingy. Mariko is the only survivor, and she winds up lost in the woods and has to kill a man to save herself - he deserves it, trust me. She believes, based on what happened, that the Black Clan (they be ninjas) attacked her and murdered these people that she knew and loved in some cases. So her plan is to infiltrate the ninjas and find out why and also get revenge.
And this goes swimmingly.
It does not go swimmingly.
However, through much trial, she winds up living with the ninjas and becomes 'one of them' while also disguised as a boy and having a sort of romance with the second in command of the Black Clan who *SPOILERS* turns out to be the actual leader and the kid from the beginning of the book and he's the son of the last shogun who was betrayed by his friend who was then killed by the emperor who hey, is a bag of dicks.
*waves hands*
Basically, we go through so many things and we wind up with Kenshin, Mariko's twin brother, on the side of the emperor and his beloved Amaya believed to be dead but she's not really dead because Kanako (Raiden's mother) has her magicked into a tree (she's inside the tree, not turned into a tree) and Mariko is in the hands of the emperor's forces, and they're the bad guys (not the ninjas) and Okami (shogun's son, leader of the ninjas) captured - also, hey, he maybe sold himself to a demon so he can turn into smoke and his best friend Asano Tsuneoki ALSO sold (maybe his soul? not clear) so he could be a night beast which is like...half bear half wolf? and all magical badass and Mariko is pretending to be on the side of the empire in order to find out who tried to kill her and also to save Okami.
AND.
The empress poisons her husband and puts Roku on the throne.
Whee.
Smoke in the Sun.
Right.
Mariko has to work the palace intrigue, which is tough, these people are mostly horrible. But she also gets to use her alchemical knowledge (she's smart, of course, but not allowed to use her brains in the society she lives in) and her ninja skills to try and save Okami.
Who is being tortured down in the dungeon by Roku who, apparently, takes after his father and is a monster. He really is.
Like, for example, he definitely enjoys torturing people. A lot. A lot.
And his father murdered and betrayed friends and family in order to solidify his empire. Which, is how empires are made, but still makes him a horrible person. Who died SO BADLY.
Mariko is in this weird, trusted but not position. On the one hand, her family is still rich and powerful and loyal to the emperor and she (as far as anyone knows) was a victim of the Black Clan and their vendetta against the emperor. On the other hand, she's a young girl whose 'worth' is in her virginity to a great degree and she's been living in the woods with a bunch of men for months.
However, everyone agrees to the same lie, that Mariko was just a captive.
Because it would be SUPER awkward to admit that she and Okami were in love. And also that she'd gotten rid of her virginity WAY before that in an act of rebellion.
There's a lot of intrigue and backstabbing and magical goings on.
Kanako (Raiden's mother) is....I'm torn.
On the one hand, she does some bad, BAD stuff. She murders people with magic, takes over other peoples' minds to make *them* commit murder. She causes the death of this innocent kid and she's causing so much chaos and destruction to get her son on the throne.
She 100% murders the empress, which I'm torn on. Not because she didn't deserve to die, because she kind of did, but Kanako's reasoning is a little off to me. She talks about how the Emperor was weak willed, and horrible, and blah, blah, but then she avenges him by killing the empress? Fair, she did poison him, and she needed to get killed, but just admit that she's in your way, Kanako!
Also, Kanako is sort of a support to Mariko? And it turns out that she raised a much less insane son.
Raiden is...not the nicest person out there, but he's also not a monster. Once he and Roku start pulling apart, you can see that Raiden is the better of the two.
Anyway.
Mariko manages to get herself married to Raiden, though they never consummate the marriage. And Raiden starts proving he's Not the Worst in good part when he protects Mariko from his brother who is the literal worst, and also lies to his brother about Mariko being a virgin. Which he doesn't have a damn clue about, because again, they did not have sex. There's an assassination attempt on Roku at the wedding, and Okami finally escapes, ninja clan to the rescue, thanks to Mariko's plan, and Okami makes it out of the city which is then surrounded by...kind of zombies?
Kanako has just been attacking towns and mind controlling the people. So they're not *zombies* but they're also not really all there.
Anyway.
Turns out Okami is maybe part dragon?
This is one of the things that sort of threw me.
Like, okay.
His mother might have been a dragon.
Was probably a dragon.
BUT I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!
As in, then where they hell did her family lands come from?
Why did she just NOPE back into the ocean at one point and never come back?
What does this mean for the deal that Okami made with a demon?
Can he turn into a dragon?
Was his fathers family also related to a phoenix?
There's a sword, it's a whole thing. I cannot say that it actually comes into play. Because it DOESN'T.
Did his dad know he was married to a DRAGON?
Honestly, the book is the book and I enjoyed it a lot.
But there's no surprises in it.
End of the day, Mariko and Okami are going to wind up together.
Tsuneoki winds up with no one because he's in love with Okami and just...exists. He was not given enough of an ending, dammit.
Roku winds up dead, because Raiden is done with his shit and realizes that his brother is a MONSTER.
Kanako also dies, in order to undo all the bad magic she's got flying around. She takes herself out, because magic has a price and she's too weak to stop it any other way. Still not sure how I feel about her.
Kenshin gets Amaya back? Maybe? I mean the magic keeping her secret hidden in the tree dies with Kanako, so maybe? I know she gets out of the three. Don't know if she winds up with Kenshin.
And Okami gets his fathers shogunate back.
BUT I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!
Like, DRAGON.
Like, as I understand it, Okami's deal with the demon means he can't ever have children, can't leave a legacy in the world. Which maybe isn't a problem, maybe he and Mariko don't care about that.
Look, most of my questions revolve around why would you tell me he's MAYBE PART DRAGON and then have it MEAN NOTHING!!!!
*sigh*
Maybe there are short stories out there that get more into it? But that annoys me. You can either throw in that HE'S A DRAGON and use it or leave it the fuck out.
And Tsuneoki deserves better.
*grumbles*
Dude is part dragon and it just means nothing, lets not do anything with it, why bother....
So here's how it's going to have to go. It's just going to be, every Sunday, however far I've gotten in the chosen book, that's how far we are. Because three chapters a week is killing me slow, but some books that I have lined up are probably going to take me more than a week to read. And that's not even factoring in that some weeks I have less time to read than others.
There is no plan, we're just winging it!!!
Last week, I read Smoke in the Sun, by Renee Ahdieh. It's a YA book, and the second in a duology. I'd read the first one some time ago - I actually have three autographed books by this author, I got to meet her when I went to the RT convention back in 2017 with Texas Heather. :)
The first series by Ms. Ahdieh is sort of a retelling of the whole, 1,001 Nights conceit, which, I think everyone knows? But if you don't the whole idea is that there is this king and his wife betrays him. So in order to keep that from happening again, he marries a new wife every night and then executes her in the morning. And while this has SO MANY logical flaws, not the least of which is that you are definitely setting yourself up to get assassinated if you just keep murdering women left right and center, but that's not the point. A noble-woman named Scheherazade is next up and she's like, 'Okay, I get it, fine. But before we get to the wedding night and the executing and all could I please tell my little sister a bed time story?' and the king, WHILE A MONSTER, is not a monster and lets her tell her little sister the story and of course he gets into it and Scheherazade stops right in the middle so he's just...fine. You can live to finish the story tomorrow night!
And this goes on for a LONG time until he falls in love and stops planning to murder her.
So the first duology is The Wrath & the Dawn, and then The Rose & The Dagger and it's that general idea, but there's curse and yada yada. They're very good books, especially if you like romance and fantasy. They are YA, so there's no graphic sex or violence 'on screen' as it were.
Right.
So, this pair of books is set in....Asia. Maybe Japan? It's fantasy fiction so maybe not super important but I'm pretty sure it's meant to be Japan.
The first book, Flame in the Mist, is definitely necessary to know what the hell is going on in this one. I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but basically we start with a young boy watching his father be executed for betraying the emperor, and you know that'll be important, but then we jump ahead in time and we're with Mariko, the only daughter of a powerful daimyo who is on her way to the capital to marry the illegitimate son of the emperor. Or. I mean he's acknowledged, and he's the oldest, but he's the son of one of the emperor's mistresses, so he's not in line to the throne. Raiden, is his name and he's a big bully. His younger brother Roku (which is the name of my tv streaming box and I giggled the first couple of times I read it) is in line, since his mother is the empress.
So. Mariko is on her way to a life of luxurious captivity and she's not thrilled, but the honor of her family, etc. etc. And, of course, her caravan is attacked on the way to the capital and everyone is killed, including the maid that is riding in the little 'girls only' thingy. Mariko is the only survivor, and she winds up lost in the woods and has to kill a man to save herself - he deserves it, trust me. She believes, based on what happened, that the Black Clan (they be ninjas) attacked her and murdered these people that she knew and loved in some cases. So her plan is to infiltrate the ninjas and find out why and also get revenge.
And this goes swimmingly.
It does not go swimmingly.
However, through much trial, she winds up living with the ninjas and becomes 'one of them' while also disguised as a boy and having a sort of romance with the second in command of the Black Clan who *SPOILERS* turns out to be the actual leader and the kid from the beginning of the book and he's the son of the last shogun who was betrayed by his friend who was then killed by the emperor who hey, is a bag of dicks.
*waves hands*
Basically, we go through so many things and we wind up with Kenshin, Mariko's twin brother, on the side of the emperor and his beloved Amaya believed to be dead but she's not really dead because Kanako (Raiden's mother) has her magicked into a tree (she's inside the tree, not turned into a tree) and Mariko is in the hands of the emperor's forces, and they're the bad guys (not the ninjas) and Okami (shogun's son, leader of the ninjas) captured - also, hey, he maybe sold himself to a demon so he can turn into smoke and his best friend Asano Tsuneoki ALSO sold (maybe his soul? not clear) so he could be a night beast which is like...half bear half wolf? and all magical badass and Mariko is pretending to be on the side of the empire in order to find out who tried to kill her and also to save Okami.
AND.
The empress poisons her husband and puts Roku on the throne.
Whee.
Smoke in the Sun.
Right.
Mariko has to work the palace intrigue, which is tough, these people are mostly horrible. But she also gets to use her alchemical knowledge (she's smart, of course, but not allowed to use her brains in the society she lives in) and her ninja skills to try and save Okami.
Who is being tortured down in the dungeon by Roku who, apparently, takes after his father and is a monster. He really is.
Like, for example, he definitely enjoys torturing people. A lot. A lot.
And his father murdered and betrayed friends and family in order to solidify his empire. Which, is how empires are made, but still makes him a horrible person. Who died SO BADLY.
Mariko is in this weird, trusted but not position. On the one hand, her family is still rich and powerful and loyal to the emperor and she (as far as anyone knows) was a victim of the Black Clan and their vendetta against the emperor. On the other hand, she's a young girl whose 'worth' is in her virginity to a great degree and she's been living in the woods with a bunch of men for months.
However, everyone agrees to the same lie, that Mariko was just a captive.
Because it would be SUPER awkward to admit that she and Okami were in love. And also that she'd gotten rid of her virginity WAY before that in an act of rebellion.
There's a lot of intrigue and backstabbing and magical goings on.
Kanako (Raiden's mother) is....I'm torn.
On the one hand, she does some bad, BAD stuff. She murders people with magic, takes over other peoples' minds to make *them* commit murder. She causes the death of this innocent kid and she's causing so much chaos and destruction to get her son on the throne.
She 100% murders the empress, which I'm torn on. Not because she didn't deserve to die, because she kind of did, but Kanako's reasoning is a little off to me. She talks about how the Emperor was weak willed, and horrible, and blah, blah, but then she avenges him by killing the empress? Fair, she did poison him, and she needed to get killed, but just admit that she's in your way, Kanako!
Also, Kanako is sort of a support to Mariko? And it turns out that she raised a much less insane son.
Raiden is...not the nicest person out there, but he's also not a monster. Once he and Roku start pulling apart, you can see that Raiden is the better of the two.
Anyway.
Mariko manages to get herself married to Raiden, though they never consummate the marriage. And Raiden starts proving he's Not the Worst in good part when he protects Mariko from his brother who is the literal worst, and also lies to his brother about Mariko being a virgin. Which he doesn't have a damn clue about, because again, they did not have sex. There's an assassination attempt on Roku at the wedding, and Okami finally escapes, ninja clan to the rescue, thanks to Mariko's plan, and Okami makes it out of the city which is then surrounded by...kind of zombies?
Kanako has just been attacking towns and mind controlling the people. So they're not *zombies* but they're also not really all there.
Anyway.
Turns out Okami is maybe part dragon?
This is one of the things that sort of threw me.
Like, okay.
His mother might have been a dragon.
Was probably a dragon.
BUT I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!
As in, then where they hell did her family lands come from?
Why did she just NOPE back into the ocean at one point and never come back?
What does this mean for the deal that Okami made with a demon?
Can he turn into a dragon?
Was his fathers family also related to a phoenix?
There's a sword, it's a whole thing. I cannot say that it actually comes into play. Because it DOESN'T.
Did his dad know he was married to a DRAGON?
Honestly, the book is the book and I enjoyed it a lot.
But there's no surprises in it.
End of the day, Mariko and Okami are going to wind up together.
Tsuneoki winds up with no one because he's in love with Okami and just...exists. He was not given enough of an ending, dammit.
Roku winds up dead, because Raiden is done with his shit and realizes that his brother is a MONSTER.
Kanako also dies, in order to undo all the bad magic she's got flying around. She takes herself out, because magic has a price and she's too weak to stop it any other way. Still not sure how I feel about her.
Kenshin gets Amaya back? Maybe? I mean the magic keeping her secret hidden in the tree dies with Kanako, so maybe? I know she gets out of the three. Don't know if she winds up with Kenshin.
And Okami gets his fathers shogunate back.
BUT I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!
Like, DRAGON.
Like, as I understand it, Okami's deal with the demon means he can't ever have children, can't leave a legacy in the world. Which maybe isn't a problem, maybe he and Mariko don't care about that.
Look, most of my questions revolve around why would you tell me he's MAYBE PART DRAGON and then have it MEAN NOTHING!!!!
*sigh*
Maybe there are short stories out there that get more into it? But that annoys me. You can either throw in that HE'S A DRAGON and use it or leave it the fuck out.
And Tsuneoki deserves better.
*grumbles*
Dude is part dragon and it just means nothing, lets not do anything with it, why bother....
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Proud by Ibtihaj Muhammad (with Lori L. Tharps)
Right, so, best way to establish what we're doing is to do one book with the stated theme (murder) and then do something else.
So I decided to read a non-fiction memoir about an Olympic medalist.
You're welcome.
I have what is possibly a problematic thing going on with Islam. On the one hand, I find it fascinating and want to support Muslims (especially women) in being able to live their lives in the US without having to apologize for their own existence. On the other hand, I am Catholic and firmly believe that they are...misguided in their faith. The problematic part of this comes in when you factor in my irrational love of hijab and my ability to focus on it like it's a shiny penny. *sigh*
So I feel like I should admit, up front, that I saw Ms. Muhammad in the 2016 Olympics, and while I care nothing for fencing as a sport, I was like, "YES!!!! HIJABI ON THE FIELD!!!"
And when I heard that she was writing a book I jumped on that too, because I felt that I should support her - for example I was offended when I went to buy her book and there was no display for it. I honestly think that another Olympic medalist would have had a little display for their books debut, but the rules of book display have been explained to me and maybe I'm wrong but maybe not.
Even though biographies/memoirs and non fiction are not my normal bag, I was really looking forward to this.
So here we go.
First, over all, I enjoyed the book.
I enjoyed reading the little bits we get about Ms. Muhammad's family, especially her parents who were both converts to Islam for the peace and stability that they found there. Her parents pulled themselves out of a rough background and went on to be a teacher (her mother) and a police detective (her father) while also raising five children. They worked to make sure that their children had the best set up to succeed in life and that takes a lot of work and dedication. I could read a whole book just about them, no kidding.
Finding out that Ms. Muhammad picked up fencing as just another sport for part of the school year (her parents were very in to the extracurriculars as a means of keeping their children active and also with an eye to scholarships, etc in the future) and did not like it after one lesson. I guess you always get the impression that someone who makes it to the Olympics just...picked that sport and it clicked and they knew that they were meant to do this thing.
Ms. Muhammad did not click, and did not know that she was meant to do this thing. She actually only picked it back up in high school because it was a sport she could play when volleyball was off, and the uniform meant that she could remain covered without having to make extensive changes to the uniform. And even then, though she used it to help her get into the college of her choice, she did not take it up as her career, or her life. That all came later, after she graduated and failed to get a job in her chosen field.
So I found that all very, very interesting and I enjoyed the stories of her interactions with fans, and her family, and the almost accidental way that fencing became more and more important to her. Not that she just lucked into being able to compete in the Olympics, please, she worked impossibly hard to make it, just like any other Olympic athlete has to.
However.
I find it hard to put 100% in the fact that literally almost everyone that Ms. Muhammad ever worked with in the fencing world was against her, or eventually failed her because they weren't as invested in her as she was. Which, okay, that sounds odd but we'll get back to it.
I cannot think of anyone on any of her own teams or groups that Ms. Muhammad ever says were friendly towards her or just even polite. It seems like at every turn she is getting snubbed and insulted and even the coaches are trying to sabotage her. And even coaches who at one point are ideal and important and helpful in getting her to the next level fall away and suddenly aren't there to support her anymore. Because they have other students and their own lives and a family, which all seem like reasonable things.
And I just don't know...it seems like a lot? Admittedly, I am not African-American. I am not Muslim, and I am not a hijabi. I am also not involved in competitive sports. But it just....
Literally everyone?
Everyone?
Only her family ever fully supported her?
It's a lot.
And I think....from the impression she gives in her own words, Ms. Muhammad is incredibly focused and driven and perhaps that is not the best combination of traits to win friends? Certainly she mentions a couple of friends, but I know some people who are hyper-driven and they are exhausting and while I love them they find that most people fall short of their own self defined goals and aren't able to keep up with them. So I can't help but wonder if part of the problem is that. Mind you, I am certain that she has faced and will continue to face a lot of backlash and prejudice.
Maybe I just don't want to believe that so much prejudice can be so pervasive and widespread.
So.
I recommend the book, it's a fairly quick read and it's well written. It's an interesting story, especially if you like getting a look into how much work it takes to hit Olympic level and the fact that it's not just a magical talent - it's effort and will and your whole life on the line for this one chance.
So I decided to read a non-fiction memoir about an Olympic medalist.
You're welcome.
I have what is possibly a problematic thing going on with Islam. On the one hand, I find it fascinating and want to support Muslims (especially women) in being able to live their lives in the US without having to apologize for their own existence. On the other hand, I am Catholic and firmly believe that they are...misguided in their faith. The problematic part of this comes in when you factor in my irrational love of hijab and my ability to focus on it like it's a shiny penny. *sigh*
So I feel like I should admit, up front, that I saw Ms. Muhammad in the 2016 Olympics, and while I care nothing for fencing as a sport, I was like, "YES!!!! HIJABI ON THE FIELD!!!"
And when I heard that she was writing a book I jumped on that too, because I felt that I should support her - for example I was offended when I went to buy her book and there was no display for it. I honestly think that another Olympic medalist would have had a little display for their books debut, but the rules of book display have been explained to me and maybe I'm wrong but maybe not.
Even though biographies/memoirs and non fiction are not my normal bag, I was really looking forward to this.
So here we go.
First, over all, I enjoyed the book.
I enjoyed reading the little bits we get about Ms. Muhammad's family, especially her parents who were both converts to Islam for the peace and stability that they found there. Her parents pulled themselves out of a rough background and went on to be a teacher (her mother) and a police detective (her father) while also raising five children. They worked to make sure that their children had the best set up to succeed in life and that takes a lot of work and dedication. I could read a whole book just about them, no kidding.
Finding out that Ms. Muhammad picked up fencing as just another sport for part of the school year (her parents were very in to the extracurriculars as a means of keeping their children active and also with an eye to scholarships, etc in the future) and did not like it after one lesson. I guess you always get the impression that someone who makes it to the Olympics just...picked that sport and it clicked and they knew that they were meant to do this thing.
Ms. Muhammad did not click, and did not know that she was meant to do this thing. She actually only picked it back up in high school because it was a sport she could play when volleyball was off, and the uniform meant that she could remain covered without having to make extensive changes to the uniform. And even then, though she used it to help her get into the college of her choice, she did not take it up as her career, or her life. That all came later, after she graduated and failed to get a job in her chosen field.
So I found that all very, very interesting and I enjoyed the stories of her interactions with fans, and her family, and the almost accidental way that fencing became more and more important to her. Not that she just lucked into being able to compete in the Olympics, please, she worked impossibly hard to make it, just like any other Olympic athlete has to.
However.
I find it hard to put 100% in the fact that literally almost everyone that Ms. Muhammad ever worked with in the fencing world was against her, or eventually failed her because they weren't as invested in her as she was. Which, okay, that sounds odd but we'll get back to it.
I cannot think of anyone on any of her own teams or groups that Ms. Muhammad ever says were friendly towards her or just even polite. It seems like at every turn she is getting snubbed and insulted and even the coaches are trying to sabotage her. And even coaches who at one point are ideal and important and helpful in getting her to the next level fall away and suddenly aren't there to support her anymore. Because they have other students and their own lives and a family, which all seem like reasonable things.
And I just don't know...it seems like a lot? Admittedly, I am not African-American. I am not Muslim, and I am not a hijabi. I am also not involved in competitive sports. But it just....
Literally everyone?
Everyone?
Only her family ever fully supported her?
It's a lot.
And I think....from the impression she gives in her own words, Ms. Muhammad is incredibly focused and driven and perhaps that is not the best combination of traits to win friends? Certainly she mentions a couple of friends, but I know some people who are hyper-driven and they are exhausting and while I love them they find that most people fall short of their own self defined goals and aren't able to keep up with them. So I can't help but wonder if part of the problem is that. Mind you, I am certain that she has faced and will continue to face a lot of backlash and prejudice.
Maybe I just don't want to believe that so much prejudice can be so pervasive and widespread.
So.
I recommend the book, it's a fairly quick read and it's well written. It's an interesting story, especially if you like getting a look into how much work it takes to hit Olympic level and the fact that it's not just a magical talent - it's effort and will and your whole life on the line for this one chance.
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
The Woman in Cabin 10 Ch. 29 - End
Okay, so...I finished the book.
Let's see.
Lo is locked below deck but she works slowly and gets the trust of pseudo-Anne, who turns out to be named Carrie.
Maybe.
Trust nothing.
Nothing.
Lo does eventually worm out the story of the night that Anne Bullmer was murdered, and I was wrong. So Carrie, assuming that her story is the truth, did not *intentionally* murder Anne Bullmer. Supposedly, she was seeing Lord Bullmer for a while and oh, wasn't it just a stunning coincidence that she could pass for his ailing wife with just a little effort. And oh, hey, wouldn't it be a lark if I snuck you on the boat and when my wife got off the boat you could pretend to be her and we could be together in the light of day.
Because that was DEFINITELY not a setup at all.
Sweetie.
So anyhow, in a stunning turn of 'bad luck' that no one could have predicted, that first day on the boat, Bullmer and Anne have a fight and he 'accidentally' kills her. And then hauls her body to the cabin in a suitcase for Carrie to dispose of later.
Only, and here's where the 'Carrie didn't do it on purpose' thing comes in. Because when she goes to dispose of the body, as instructed, the suitcase pops open and there's Anne Bullmer's body and hey, Carrie thinks she might not be dead, but she's startled and scared and screams and drops the suitcase over anyway.
Spoiler: Anne Bullmer was not dead. She drowned. So.
Lo and Carrie bond over Winnie the Pooh (is now a bad time to admit that I have literally never read any of these books?) and they exchange stories that make them both more human to one another.
Eventually, Lo realizes that she is alone on the boat with Carrie and some of the crew, even Bullmer is off the boat and it's hard for Carrie to get her food sometimes. More being trapped and determined to get out, and trying to convince Carrie that they can turn Bullmer in, blah, blah, look, you both know that he is going to murder you both that is the only way this scheme works.
Carrie eventually, when Bullmer is about to come back on board, sets Lo free. She gives Lo her 'Anne' outfit, because wow its lucky they all sort of vaguely resemble one another enough that with their hair covered and in the flowy outfits they can pass. -.-
Carrie is clearly the brains at this moment, because she is running things and trying to get Lo to make it look good by hitting her to make it look like she got knocked out and Lo escaped on her own. Admittedly I can't blame Lo for not being at her best. This is a weird situation and she's been locked up and on not her full dose of meds or getting all the food she should be getting. Either way, Carrie winds up having to brain herself on the bed and wow, I feel you.
I stood up one time beneath the overhanging top of my bunk bed - I had a metal frame bunk bed where the bottom was a futon - and I clocked myself right on the top of my head with the edge of the bottom of the top bed. Have you ever hurt yourself so badly that you laugh? Like, I HURTS and you are bleeding and there are tears, but your body just goes, NOPE! WE CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS STIMULUS!!!! LAUGHTER!!! Because that's how hard I hit my head. It was surprising.
Anyway.
Lo eventually scoots out, but while she's trying to sneak around the boat to get to Bullmer's cabin to get money, passport, etc., turns out Bullmer is back on the damn boat!!! She gets the money, finds a gun that she leaves behind and then hell, there's Bullmer inside the cabin.
Lo winds up out on the verandah thing and...well. She tries to scoot over to the next verandah, like had been done to break into her room, but she is not wearing the right shoes for this and she slips and falls into the ocean.
And you're reading, and wondering if she dies, because there was a body and her clothes were found in the water and I was concerned, I really was, but Lo makes it to land.
She makes it to land, and to a hotel, and the busboy or whoever working the desk who speaks English *definitely* calls Bullmer. Lo should have believed Carrie when she told her about what sort of influence Bullmer has. So Lo smartly scoots the fuck out of there, but she's left her money behind. She starts just walking, and eventually she slips into a ditch and there's a car that turns out to be a cop.
And she's maybe leaning towards trusting him, but then he says her name and she is not going to fall for this twice! Lo books it across country and I do not blame you, sweetie. You go!!!
She winds up sleeping in a barn and then after...I think it was a day and a half? Poor Lo was so exhausted. But a nice little old man shows up and she gets in the car with him because she is out of options.
BUT!! Little old man is safe, and lets her use his cellphone when there is service to call Judah!
Woo!
So Bullmer is fucked, but throughout this whole thing we find out that a second body was found when looking for Lo.
*waves hands*
The wrap up is that Anne Bullmer's body was found - she drowned. Poor Anne. Poor Carrie.
Ballmer's body was found, supposedly he'd shot himself in the head. And the gun was found wrapped in Lo's clothes. Which were not, in fact, found on a body.
And just...listen.
Here's a thing.
It's just...a fact.
If someone commits suicide, they are not, by definition, capable of hiding the damn weapon after the fact!
*sigh*
But let's ignore this, for the fact that Carrie's body is never found.
Because she lives!
Tigger's bounce!!
Okay, she definitely killed Bullmer.
But in fairness, he was a terrible person who murdered his wife and was 100% going to murder Lo and Carrie to cover his own ass.
Turns out Ben is....not as big of an asshole as he could have been?
He helped raise the alarm. Of course he also apparently implied that he and Lo had *just* broken up. So. Still an asshole.
We never get confirmation that Chloe and Cole where a thing, but they were and you all know it.
Carrie is off living her best life - she wires Lo some money and that's lovely.
And Lo and Judah are moving to New York.
I mean I have questions about this sudden life changing choice when Lo has been through some trauma, but I also and down for her and Judah being together and her getting to also live her best life, so I'm going to allow it.
Let's see.
Lo is locked below deck but she works slowly and gets the trust of pseudo-Anne, who turns out to be named Carrie.
Maybe.
Trust nothing.
Nothing.
Lo does eventually worm out the story of the night that Anne Bullmer was murdered, and I was wrong. So Carrie, assuming that her story is the truth, did not *intentionally* murder Anne Bullmer. Supposedly, she was seeing Lord Bullmer for a while and oh, wasn't it just a stunning coincidence that she could pass for his ailing wife with just a little effort. And oh, hey, wouldn't it be a lark if I snuck you on the boat and when my wife got off the boat you could pretend to be her and we could be together in the light of day.
Because that was DEFINITELY not a setup at all.
Sweetie.
So anyhow, in a stunning turn of 'bad luck' that no one could have predicted, that first day on the boat, Bullmer and Anne have a fight and he 'accidentally' kills her. And then hauls her body to the cabin in a suitcase for Carrie to dispose of later.
Only, and here's where the 'Carrie didn't do it on purpose' thing comes in. Because when she goes to dispose of the body, as instructed, the suitcase pops open and there's Anne Bullmer's body and hey, Carrie thinks she might not be dead, but she's startled and scared and screams and drops the suitcase over anyway.
Spoiler: Anne Bullmer was not dead. She drowned. So.
Lo and Carrie bond over Winnie the Pooh (is now a bad time to admit that I have literally never read any of these books?) and they exchange stories that make them both more human to one another.
Eventually, Lo realizes that she is alone on the boat with Carrie and some of the crew, even Bullmer is off the boat and it's hard for Carrie to get her food sometimes. More being trapped and determined to get out, and trying to convince Carrie that they can turn Bullmer in, blah, blah, look, you both know that he is going to murder you both that is the only way this scheme works.
Carrie eventually, when Bullmer is about to come back on board, sets Lo free. She gives Lo her 'Anne' outfit, because wow its lucky they all sort of vaguely resemble one another enough that with their hair covered and in the flowy outfits they can pass. -.-
Carrie is clearly the brains at this moment, because she is running things and trying to get Lo to make it look good by hitting her to make it look like she got knocked out and Lo escaped on her own. Admittedly I can't blame Lo for not being at her best. This is a weird situation and she's been locked up and on not her full dose of meds or getting all the food she should be getting. Either way, Carrie winds up having to brain herself on the bed and wow, I feel you.
I stood up one time beneath the overhanging top of my bunk bed - I had a metal frame bunk bed where the bottom was a futon - and I clocked myself right on the top of my head with the edge of the bottom of the top bed. Have you ever hurt yourself so badly that you laugh? Like, I HURTS and you are bleeding and there are tears, but your body just goes, NOPE! WE CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS STIMULUS!!!! LAUGHTER!!! Because that's how hard I hit my head. It was surprising.
Anyway.
Lo eventually scoots out, but while she's trying to sneak around the boat to get to Bullmer's cabin to get money, passport, etc., turns out Bullmer is back on the damn boat!!! She gets the money, finds a gun that she leaves behind and then hell, there's Bullmer inside the cabin.
Lo winds up out on the verandah thing and...well. She tries to scoot over to the next verandah, like had been done to break into her room, but she is not wearing the right shoes for this and she slips and falls into the ocean.
And you're reading, and wondering if she dies, because there was a body and her clothes were found in the water and I was concerned, I really was, but Lo makes it to land.
She makes it to land, and to a hotel, and the busboy or whoever working the desk who speaks English *definitely* calls Bullmer. Lo should have believed Carrie when she told her about what sort of influence Bullmer has. So Lo smartly scoots the fuck out of there, but she's left her money behind. She starts just walking, and eventually she slips into a ditch and there's a car that turns out to be a cop.
And she's maybe leaning towards trusting him, but then he says her name and she is not going to fall for this twice! Lo books it across country and I do not blame you, sweetie. You go!!!
She winds up sleeping in a barn and then after...I think it was a day and a half? Poor Lo was so exhausted. But a nice little old man shows up and she gets in the car with him because she is out of options.
BUT!! Little old man is safe, and lets her use his cellphone when there is service to call Judah!
Woo!
So Bullmer is fucked, but throughout this whole thing we find out that a second body was found when looking for Lo.
*waves hands*
The wrap up is that Anne Bullmer's body was found - she drowned. Poor Anne. Poor Carrie.
Ballmer's body was found, supposedly he'd shot himself in the head. And the gun was found wrapped in Lo's clothes. Which were not, in fact, found on a body.
And just...listen.
Here's a thing.
It's just...a fact.
If someone commits suicide, they are not, by definition, capable of hiding the damn weapon after the fact!
*sigh*
But let's ignore this, for the fact that Carrie's body is never found.
Because she lives!
Tigger's bounce!!
Okay, she definitely killed Bullmer.
But in fairness, he was a terrible person who murdered his wife and was 100% going to murder Lo and Carrie to cover his own ass.
Turns out Ben is....not as big of an asshole as he could have been?
He helped raise the alarm. Of course he also apparently implied that he and Lo had *just* broken up. So. Still an asshole.
We never get confirmation that Chloe and Cole where a thing, but they were and you all know it.
Carrie is off living her best life - she wires Lo some money and that's lovely.
And Lo and Judah are moving to New York.
I mean I have questions about this sudden life changing choice when Lo has been through some trauma, but I also and down for her and Judah being together and her getting to also live her best life, so I'm going to allow it.
Monday, September 3, 2018
The Woman in Cabin 10 Ch. 22 - 28
Okay, I was sick last week, sorry.
Babysitting the nephew, who kindly shared all of his baby germs with me. How are baby germs 10,000% more virulent than regular germs?
Anyway, rather than split it up, I just decided to do the six chapters in one post.
Lead with, Lo has gotten herself captured and locked somewhere on the ship. Because she...she was every dumb woman in every horror/thriller ever.
Bad guy is somewhere out there, out to get you.
Knock comes on the door and you...answer it.
Like an idiot.
I mean, I guess it's sort of like I told a friend, if no one was dumb in a horror movie, it'd be a very short movie.
"What, that noise in the basement? Hell no. We out. Investigate NOTHING."
Not today, Satan.
But wow, is it frustrating. We were all rooting for you!
*facepalm*
So we sort of pick up where we left Lo, sitting on her couch knowing that she is Not Fucking Safe. And there's a knock on the door.
She tries to be all sneaky and stealthy about checking the door, but all sense goes out the window when she sees that it's the Woman! And then she follows the woman, who is acting creepy and suspicious and Lo, Lo, really this is the worst of ideas, and hey, she gets knocked out in a dark stairwell in the bowels of the ship and wakes up some indeterminate amount of time later locked in a tiny fucking room.
I don't blame her for the panic attack, I too would be peeing myself. Though maybe less from the 'being trapped in a small space' and more the, 'I am at the mercy of a killer and am going to die, also I WAS THE DUMB CHICK IN THIS MOVIE'
Though I question the logic of not just killing Lo. I mean, sure, separate her 'disappearance' from wherever you're going to dump her body, but why is she still alive? This is not smart. You could totally keep a body hidden in this tiny room for a day or two if you had to. Logistics of the smell might be difficult, but I don't know what resources they have access to.
It would definitely be smarter to kill her right off.
*sigh*
So, Lo is locked in, panicking, and also having withdrawals from her antidepressants which is....not going well.
The Woman pops in to feed her, and there's obvious messing with the lights and her sense of time and day, which is just standard 'I have a captive' evil laughter inserted wherever. Lo tries to fight her way free, and also sort of realizes that she just accidentally got caught up in this by accidentally giving the Woman the secret knock she was expecting from her accomplice.
Lo also pegs Ben as the accomplice and she is...*sigh* much as it pains me. She is wrong.
It's not Ben. It was never Ben.
I still hate him.
Hates.
But he's not a murderer.
FINE.
Lo and the Woman reach a sort of agreement.
Lo won't try to escape and the Woman gives her her meds.
Which is good, from Lo's description, she cannot afford to loose the focus that it sounds like she loses without the meds.
ALSO, hey, guess who the Woman is?
Anne Bullmer.
Or.
Well.
She's playing Lady Anne Bullmer.
Who, one must assume, went overboard that first night.
I mean it makes sense.
Ambitious man marries woman with money.
Woman looks like she's about to die and leave him with all of that glorious money.
Then lo, (ha ha), she is not going to die, and she gets to keep controlling all of her own money.
Man suddenly needs a plan to get money into his control.
Know what would help with that?
Less wife.
*shakes head*
Dude.
Everyone kills for money. Or rage.
Or serial-killer-ness.
People are people, even when they're stupid rich.
Lo puts it together because she is Not Dumb, in spite of her earlier behavior. Especially when the Woman wipes blood from Lo's attack off of her face and also cleans off an eyebrow. Like Lo says, she's a good actor to pull it off, but Lo knows - also they have different eye colors. Anne Bullmer had grey eyes and the Woman has dark eyes.
Which is...a sign that this is not a long term plan.
Like, I'm certain that Bullmer has sold the Woman on the fact that he loves her and his wife was just awful and they could be together now but damn, man, you could spring for some colored contacts if you wanted to keep the charade up for long. But, as Lo point out when she's working on getting the Woman on her side, this is not going to end in a happy ever after for her and Bullmer.
He's used her to murder and dispose of his wife.
He is definitely going to get rid of her as soon as he doesn't need her anymore.
Because she is the only person who can tell his part of the events - Lo knows that he was involved, but that's just from putting things together. I would bet actual money that the Woman has evidence. And money spends so much more easily when it's just you spending it.
I kind of feel sorry for the Woman, even though she is totally a murderer, because she seems trapped. She's in love and she has gotten way too far in to back out now. In spite of her assurances that they're not going to hurt Lo, or that Bullmer loves her. She has to know that neither of those things are true.
Bullmer is going to kill them both, eventually.
Because it's the smart thing to do.
And he's probably also a sociopath.
We get another insert from an email that Jude sends out, announcing that they have identified some of the clothes that were fished out as Lo's, and they seem to be accepting that Lo is the body that was fished out of the ocean.
*sigh*
I really hope Lo makes it through this.
I've read books before where the, or one of the, main characters gets killed and it's interesting, but I like Lo in spite of her lapse in judgment from earlier.
I also like the Woman.
So....
Maybe they run off together and Thelma and Louise it, but without the finale?
What's another pair of female criminals that get to ride off into the sunset?
I can't think of any.
So, I think I'll finish the book for next week. Three chapters is too slow, I'll do the next book a bit faster.
I'm torn between reading Proud by Ibtihaj Muhammad or Smoke in the Sun by Renee Ahdieh. Non fiction or YA? Probably less murder in the non fiction, one can hope.
Babysitting the nephew, who kindly shared all of his baby germs with me. How are baby germs 10,000% more virulent than regular germs?
Anyway, rather than split it up, I just decided to do the six chapters in one post.
Lead with, Lo has gotten herself captured and locked somewhere on the ship. Because she...she was every dumb woman in every horror/thriller ever.
Bad guy is somewhere out there, out to get you.
Knock comes on the door and you...answer it.
Like an idiot.
I mean, I guess it's sort of like I told a friend, if no one was dumb in a horror movie, it'd be a very short movie.
"What, that noise in the basement? Hell no. We out. Investigate NOTHING."
Not today, Satan.
But wow, is it frustrating. We were all rooting for you!
*facepalm*
So we sort of pick up where we left Lo, sitting on her couch knowing that she is Not Fucking Safe. And there's a knock on the door.
She tries to be all sneaky and stealthy about checking the door, but all sense goes out the window when she sees that it's the Woman! And then she follows the woman, who is acting creepy and suspicious and Lo, Lo, really this is the worst of ideas, and hey, she gets knocked out in a dark stairwell in the bowels of the ship and wakes up some indeterminate amount of time later locked in a tiny fucking room.
I don't blame her for the panic attack, I too would be peeing myself. Though maybe less from the 'being trapped in a small space' and more the, 'I am at the mercy of a killer and am going to die, also I WAS THE DUMB CHICK IN THIS MOVIE'
Though I question the logic of not just killing Lo. I mean, sure, separate her 'disappearance' from wherever you're going to dump her body, but why is she still alive? This is not smart. You could totally keep a body hidden in this tiny room for a day or two if you had to. Logistics of the smell might be difficult, but I don't know what resources they have access to.
It would definitely be smarter to kill her right off.
*sigh*
So, Lo is locked in, panicking, and also having withdrawals from her antidepressants which is....not going well.
The Woman pops in to feed her, and there's obvious messing with the lights and her sense of time and day, which is just standard 'I have a captive' evil laughter inserted wherever. Lo tries to fight her way free, and also sort of realizes that she just accidentally got caught up in this by accidentally giving the Woman the secret knock she was expecting from her accomplice.
Lo also pegs Ben as the accomplice and she is...*sigh* much as it pains me. She is wrong.
It's not Ben. It was never Ben.
I still hate him.
Hates.
But he's not a murderer.
FINE.
Lo and the Woman reach a sort of agreement.
Lo won't try to escape and the Woman gives her her meds.
Which is good, from Lo's description, she cannot afford to loose the focus that it sounds like she loses without the meds.
ALSO, hey, guess who the Woman is?
Anne Bullmer.
Or.
Well.
She's playing Lady Anne Bullmer.
Who, one must assume, went overboard that first night.
I mean it makes sense.
Ambitious man marries woman with money.
Woman looks like she's about to die and leave him with all of that glorious money.
Then lo, (ha ha), she is not going to die, and she gets to keep controlling all of her own money.
Man suddenly needs a plan to get money into his control.
Know what would help with that?
Less wife.
*shakes head*
Dude.
Everyone kills for money. Or rage.
Or serial-killer-ness.
People are people, even when they're stupid rich.
Lo puts it together because she is Not Dumb, in spite of her earlier behavior. Especially when the Woman wipes blood from Lo's attack off of her face and also cleans off an eyebrow. Like Lo says, she's a good actor to pull it off, but Lo knows - also they have different eye colors. Anne Bullmer had grey eyes and the Woman has dark eyes.
Which is...a sign that this is not a long term plan.
Like, I'm certain that Bullmer has sold the Woman on the fact that he loves her and his wife was just awful and they could be together now but damn, man, you could spring for some colored contacts if you wanted to keep the charade up for long. But, as Lo point out when she's working on getting the Woman on her side, this is not going to end in a happy ever after for her and Bullmer.
He's used her to murder and dispose of his wife.
He is definitely going to get rid of her as soon as he doesn't need her anymore.
Because she is the only person who can tell his part of the events - Lo knows that he was involved, but that's just from putting things together. I would bet actual money that the Woman has evidence. And money spends so much more easily when it's just you spending it.
I kind of feel sorry for the Woman, even though she is totally a murderer, because she seems trapped. She's in love and she has gotten way too far in to back out now. In spite of her assurances that they're not going to hurt Lo, or that Bullmer loves her. She has to know that neither of those things are true.
Bullmer is going to kill them both, eventually.
Because it's the smart thing to do.
And he's probably also a sociopath.
We get another insert from an email that Jude sends out, announcing that they have identified some of the clothes that were fished out as Lo's, and they seem to be accepting that Lo is the body that was fished out of the ocean.
*sigh*
I really hope Lo makes it through this.
I've read books before where the, or one of the, main characters gets killed and it's interesting, but I like Lo in spite of her lapse in judgment from earlier.
I also like the Woman.
So....
Maybe they run off together and Thelma and Louise it, but without the finale?
What's another pair of female criminals that get to ride off into the sunset?
I can't think of any.
So, I think I'll finish the book for next week. Three chapters is too slow, I'll do the next book a bit faster.
I'm torn between reading Proud by Ibtihaj Muhammad or Smoke in the Sun by Renee Ahdieh. Non fiction or YA? Probably less murder in the non fiction, one can hope.
Sunday, August 19, 2018
The Woman in Cabin Ten Ch. 19-21
Okay, so I went and saw Crazy Rich Asians today and boy, was that a trip and a half.
I loved it.
Secretly, I love romance novels.
I mean it's not much of a secret, I admit, but wow, do I love them. Like, Hallmark levels of sap sometimes too. We shall not speak about the Hallmark channel and how it makes its way onto my television way too often these days.
But I've read the series this movie is based off of - well it's based on the first one, so I have hopes for the sequels! And I loved them so, so much so I was super excited and also worried because movies never live up to the books. And sure, there are differences and some things that got left out that I would have loved to have seen, but I know you can't fit everything in and things that work on paper don't work on the screen, yadayadayada. I liked a couple of the changes a lot and I realized that I've never seen mahjongg actually played in my life. I've only ever done the little matching game thing on the phone and it is apparently not like that at all. Which makes sense.
Still, it was fun and so lovely and everyone who gets a chance should go see it.
Anyway.
All I'm saying is that I had a pretty crappy week this past week with work being insane and some personal stuff.
*sigh*
Adulting.
But Crazy Rich Asians cheered me up and now I'm writing about murder and watching Tremors and not Avengers Infinity War because I don't need that kind of pain in my life right now, thank you.
Fuck Thanos.
Moving on to the murder!
Okay, so we start with Lo getting back to her room and eating the food that's been left for her.
Which, I know that she asked for food and that if we don't eat we die and all but 1) if there is a murderer on the boat and you've been running around telling everyone that you semi-witnessed their murder, maybe eating randomly left out food is a bad idea? and 2) Prawn and hard-boiled egg on rye sounds awful and I don't know why that is a thing that exists. Kill it with fire.
We go over the fact that Cole, Alexander and Archer were all at least one time in the same room as murdered girl, maybe? If it is her. Even though Lo seems sure, she also can't exactly remember the girls face anymore so maybe not? And hallelujah she's realizing that maybe she can't trust Ben! 184 pages in and she thinks that maybe he has his own reasons for lying to her.
Jesus.
Archer's alibi is dependent on Ben, and Ben's alibi is dependent on Ben and on Lo's trust in him which I have said is over the top and he doesn't deserve it.
Also, still no WiFi connection.
I'm with you Lo, this seems suspicious.
But then again, you're out in the middle of the ocean, so maybe not?
I'm not swanky enough to go on a boat like this but I also kind of think that they'd have their own internet provision. Like...if I turn it on, my phone acts as a hotspot and lo, I have internet. So....
Lo decides to go talk to Lord Bullmer without Ben, thank you, but of course he's not in. His wife Anne answers the door and she's been crying.
Lo wants to ask what's wrong, but there's the perfectly understandable problem of asking someone that you definitely do not know, who you know has been very ill, what's wrong. I'm sure that some people would, but I, for one, was raised to know that internal problems stayed internal. You don't ask someone else about their business unless they volunteer and you surely do not volunteer your own business.
So unless Anne Bullmer collapses coughing blood, I too would ignore her tears and just try to get on with my business. Because it's none of my business and I will leave her with her dignity.
And then Lo asks her about her treatment, which makes me cringe, please, no, we were doing so well with not asking people inappropriate questions...
Lord Bullmer is apparently in the hottub, so after Lo shames us all with her terrible terribleness she bops on up there to find Bullmer, Cole, Chloe and Lars all in the tube doing some sort of mad polar bear thing? Where it's super hot in the tub and the air is cold and there's also a cold shower that they hop out into and then back into the tub? Crazy people.
Bullmer doesn't want to wait to hear whatever Lo has come to say, so in front of the other three she tells him the story. Lars is a dick about it, so fuck you Lars, and Cole breaks his champagne glass conveniently.
Listen, man, you and Chloe are having an affair, so I really hope it's not you who's the murderer because I kind of like you and Chloe.
Bullmer takes charge, gets people to treat Cole's hand and then comes to talk to Lo about what she heard in the dining room. He takes it well? Or at least has a great deal of control over himself and pumps her for all the details he can get. After he's heard the story a couple of times he breaks to let Lo rest, let the crew set up the dining room and to go ponder all of this.
He also seems to take Lo's shaming by Nilsson (I mean is it shaming? Dismissal, at the very least) because of her drinking and the drugs she takes and the break in badly but that could just be lip service. There's something...slimy about Bullmer. Maybe it's just rich douche syndrome.
Lo runs into Ben (UGH) and tells him about Bullmer, etc. Then Ben tells her that Cole, when he was cutting up his hand, accidentally knocked his camera into the water so the SD card, you know, the one with the picture of murder girl? Is ruined.
*taps fingers*
I mean that's suspicious.
So Cole could have knocked it into the water by accident. Or on purpose because...something else was on the card? Sure you can delete those things but they can generally bring them back if they really need to and just saying you lost it if questions come up looks extra suspicious. Or someone else knocked it in the water and Cole is just assuming that he did it because that makes sense to him? Like you can't remember doing the thing, but you probably did do the thing because it happened and the theoretical story makes sense.
Hah! But no, Lo remembers that the camera was on the deck before the accident, so it definitely wasn't accidentally dropped into the tub.
Excellent.
Also, they will be in Trondheim the next day, and as we know from the blurbs, Lo vanishes the day they go into Trondheim.
Intersting happenings at dinner:
Karla maybe hints that someone *was* in the cabin, like someone let a friend use it, but then she denies that anyone was there or that she's saying anything of the sort and hey, maybe don't get us all fired because we need these jobs, thanks.
Cole is in pain, drunk, and upset about his camera. He's hoping to get some of the pictures back from an expert he knows (supposedly) but nothing is happening at the moment. Also, some of the other pics he had on that card were from a gentlemen's club called the Magellan - Archer belongs to it, as does Bullmer.
Bullmer was called away with an emergency. But I assume he's still on the boat, since there wasn't another boat that pulled up alongside or a helicopter or whatever.
Anne Bullmer has some pretty bad bruising, which could be from the chemo. Or not. *frowns*
Owen White is there as a potential investor, but he's not buying. The guy who was supposed to be in cabin 10, Solberg, was another potential investor, but his house was broken into and so he stayed home to be with his wife and children.
ALSO BEN IS STILL A FUCKING TOOL
He tried to save a seat for Lo, but she sat elsewhere, so now he's being a dick and then when she tells him that hey, you lied, so maybe I don't trust you, he's all butt hurt about it like it's all about him and oh, hey, he's such a nice guy but she's just *wounding* him by not accepting his help and friendship and damn, fuck you Ben.
Lo gets back to her cabin, leaving Ben outside LIKE A DICK and takes a bath.
When she gets out, she checks that Ben is gone, then goes to get her phone and realizes that it's gone out of her purse.
ALSO, the veranda doors don't lock from the outside. WHICH IS A PROBLEM.
I'm with you Lo.
Safety measure, sure.
But now I, too, do not feel safe in this room. Because there is a footprint and the phone is gone and someone definitely snuck into the room while she was in the bath.
And she's all, 'I just have to make it to Trondheim' but if she does go missing in Trondheim then this is not true and everything is about to be worse.
We break for another insert. This one from a web forum, a lot like the ones that really exist for true crime fans and arm chair detectives, so called.
Bit of a thread about the disappearance of Lo and someone anonymously claiming to be a family friend saying that hey, Lo was taking anti-depressants and was maybe suicidal and others talking about how the ex (BEN) or her boyfriend (poor innocent Jude) are likely involved and then of course Jude gets involved and then the thread gets shut down because that's how the internet rolls.
I loved it.
Secretly, I love romance novels.
I mean it's not much of a secret, I admit, but wow, do I love them. Like, Hallmark levels of sap sometimes too. We shall not speak about the Hallmark channel and how it makes its way onto my television way too often these days.
But I've read the series this movie is based off of - well it's based on the first one, so I have hopes for the sequels! And I loved them so, so much so I was super excited and also worried because movies never live up to the books. And sure, there are differences and some things that got left out that I would have loved to have seen, but I know you can't fit everything in and things that work on paper don't work on the screen, yadayadayada. I liked a couple of the changes a lot and I realized that I've never seen mahjongg actually played in my life. I've only ever done the little matching game thing on the phone and it is apparently not like that at all. Which makes sense.
Still, it was fun and so lovely and everyone who gets a chance should go see it.
Anyway.
All I'm saying is that I had a pretty crappy week this past week with work being insane and some personal stuff.
*sigh*
Adulting.
But Crazy Rich Asians cheered me up and now I'm writing about murder and watching Tremors and not Avengers Infinity War because I don't need that kind of pain in my life right now, thank you.
Fuck Thanos.
Moving on to the murder!
Okay, so we start with Lo getting back to her room and eating the food that's been left for her.
Which, I know that she asked for food and that if we don't eat we die and all but 1) if there is a murderer on the boat and you've been running around telling everyone that you semi-witnessed their murder, maybe eating randomly left out food is a bad idea? and 2) Prawn and hard-boiled egg on rye sounds awful and I don't know why that is a thing that exists. Kill it with fire.
We go over the fact that Cole, Alexander and Archer were all at least one time in the same room as murdered girl, maybe? If it is her. Even though Lo seems sure, she also can't exactly remember the girls face anymore so maybe not? And hallelujah she's realizing that maybe she can't trust Ben! 184 pages in and she thinks that maybe he has his own reasons for lying to her.
Jesus.
Archer's alibi is dependent on Ben, and Ben's alibi is dependent on Ben and on Lo's trust in him which I have said is over the top and he doesn't deserve it.
Also, still no WiFi connection.
I'm with you Lo, this seems suspicious.
But then again, you're out in the middle of the ocean, so maybe not?
I'm not swanky enough to go on a boat like this but I also kind of think that they'd have their own internet provision. Like...if I turn it on, my phone acts as a hotspot and lo, I have internet. So....
Lo decides to go talk to Lord Bullmer without Ben, thank you, but of course he's not in. His wife Anne answers the door and she's been crying.
Lo wants to ask what's wrong, but there's the perfectly understandable problem of asking someone that you definitely do not know, who you know has been very ill, what's wrong. I'm sure that some people would, but I, for one, was raised to know that internal problems stayed internal. You don't ask someone else about their business unless they volunteer and you surely do not volunteer your own business.
So unless Anne Bullmer collapses coughing blood, I too would ignore her tears and just try to get on with my business. Because it's none of my business and I will leave her with her dignity.
And then Lo asks her about her treatment, which makes me cringe, please, no, we were doing so well with not asking people inappropriate questions...
Lord Bullmer is apparently in the hottub, so after Lo shames us all with her terrible terribleness she bops on up there to find Bullmer, Cole, Chloe and Lars all in the tube doing some sort of mad polar bear thing? Where it's super hot in the tub and the air is cold and there's also a cold shower that they hop out into and then back into the tub? Crazy people.
Bullmer doesn't want to wait to hear whatever Lo has come to say, so in front of the other three she tells him the story. Lars is a dick about it, so fuck you Lars, and Cole breaks his champagne glass conveniently.
Listen, man, you and Chloe are having an affair, so I really hope it's not you who's the murderer because I kind of like you and Chloe.
Bullmer takes charge, gets people to treat Cole's hand and then comes to talk to Lo about what she heard in the dining room. He takes it well? Or at least has a great deal of control over himself and pumps her for all the details he can get. After he's heard the story a couple of times he breaks to let Lo rest, let the crew set up the dining room and to go ponder all of this.
He also seems to take Lo's shaming by Nilsson (I mean is it shaming? Dismissal, at the very least) because of her drinking and the drugs she takes and the break in badly but that could just be lip service. There's something...slimy about Bullmer. Maybe it's just rich douche syndrome.
Lo runs into Ben (UGH) and tells him about Bullmer, etc. Then Ben tells her that Cole, when he was cutting up his hand, accidentally knocked his camera into the water so the SD card, you know, the one with the picture of murder girl? Is ruined.
*taps fingers*
I mean that's suspicious.
So Cole could have knocked it into the water by accident. Or on purpose because...something else was on the card? Sure you can delete those things but they can generally bring them back if they really need to and just saying you lost it if questions come up looks extra suspicious. Or someone else knocked it in the water and Cole is just assuming that he did it because that makes sense to him? Like you can't remember doing the thing, but you probably did do the thing because it happened and the theoretical story makes sense.
Hah! But no, Lo remembers that the camera was on the deck before the accident, so it definitely wasn't accidentally dropped into the tub.
Excellent.
Also, they will be in Trondheim the next day, and as we know from the blurbs, Lo vanishes the day they go into Trondheim.
Intersting happenings at dinner:
Karla maybe hints that someone *was* in the cabin, like someone let a friend use it, but then she denies that anyone was there or that she's saying anything of the sort and hey, maybe don't get us all fired because we need these jobs, thanks.
Cole is in pain, drunk, and upset about his camera. He's hoping to get some of the pictures back from an expert he knows (supposedly) but nothing is happening at the moment. Also, some of the other pics he had on that card were from a gentlemen's club called the Magellan - Archer belongs to it, as does Bullmer.
Bullmer was called away with an emergency. But I assume he's still on the boat, since there wasn't another boat that pulled up alongside or a helicopter or whatever.
Anne Bullmer has some pretty bad bruising, which could be from the chemo. Or not. *frowns*
Owen White is there as a potential investor, but he's not buying. The guy who was supposed to be in cabin 10, Solberg, was another potential investor, but his house was broken into and so he stayed home to be with his wife and children.
ALSO BEN IS STILL A FUCKING TOOL
He tried to save a seat for Lo, but she sat elsewhere, so now he's being a dick and then when she tells him that hey, you lied, so maybe I don't trust you, he's all butt hurt about it like it's all about him and oh, hey, he's such a nice guy but she's just *wounding* him by not accepting his help and friendship and damn, fuck you Ben.
Lo gets back to her cabin, leaving Ben outside LIKE A DICK and takes a bath.
When she gets out, she checks that Ben is gone, then goes to get her phone and realizes that it's gone out of her purse.
ALSO, the veranda doors don't lock from the outside. WHICH IS A PROBLEM.
I'm with you Lo.
Safety measure, sure.
But now I, too, do not feel safe in this room. Because there is a footprint and the phone is gone and someone definitely snuck into the room while she was in the bath.
And she's all, 'I just have to make it to Trondheim' but if she does go missing in Trondheim then this is not true and everything is about to be worse.
We break for another insert. This one from a web forum, a lot like the ones that really exist for true crime fans and arm chair detectives, so called.
Bit of a thread about the disappearance of Lo and someone anonymously claiming to be a family friend saying that hey, Lo was taking anti-depressants and was maybe suicidal and others talking about how the ex (BEN) or her boyfriend (poor innocent Jude) are likely involved and then of course Jude gets involved and then the thread gets shut down because that's how the internet rolls.
Sunday, August 12, 2018
The Woman in Cabin 10 Ch. 16 - 18
Hey, hi, sorry, so last week I just didn't budget my time well.
I write as a hobby and I've been in a slump of no ideas and just BLAH and then last Sunday I was struck and I wrote something for the first time in forever. Of course, I also felt like if I stopped writing it to a) finish reading the three chapters I was supposed to read and b) post about it, I was going to lose the muse.
So I made my choice. I regret nothing, because it's some good fic is what it is.
And then I was going to post on Monday, or any other day of the past week, but we're doing a lot of upgrades and changes at work and honestly I was too tired to even go to the gym after work all last week. I mostly just collapsed onto the nearest horizontal surface and watched really bad 'true' paranormal tv (I grew up watching A Haunting and I love it still) or those megalodon 'documentaries' from Shark Weeks past. Also the one they did this year where they had actual scientists talk about the megalodon just to make myself laugh. Those poor people.
Keeping in mind that I love the megalodon as a concept, I am also still really glad that it's extinct. It was a good, giant smooth ocean puppy, but that is a concern that I do not need.
I've also seen The Meg because I have trashy, trashy taste sometimes. I've also read all but the latest book in the series that it was based on and actually they improved the damn thing. Which would admittedly not have been a hard task. They're some awful books.
Some days you just want to watch a giant prehistoric shark eat all the things.
ANYWAY.
Here we go, a week late because I am not good at managing time.
Start off at the spa, where Tina is spying on the guest list or whatever else she can get off of the spa computer for reasons of being shady. I don't think Tina is the problem here - she's too obvious. I mean she might be up to no good, but I don't think it's related to the murder. Lady Bullmer shows up, all deathly and tragic, and then we get to discover that oh, hey, the treatment rooms are inside the ship which is going to go well for Lo and her claustrophobia.
She tries to get out of staying down below for a treatment, but there's no other options and she's determined to get through this so she heads off for her mud wrap which just sounds awful to me, I'm not going to lie. I don't have claustrophobia, but being stuck inside a little room with no windows and then being naked and wrapped in muddy bandages just sounds awful. I, too, would try to nope out of this.
We also get some sort of apology from Tina about her behavior the night before but I think it reads more like someone who doesn't want anyone poking around why she was so snippy as opposed to someone who actually feels bad about behaving badly.
Somehow, Lo falls asleep wrapped in all this mud, I do not know how except maybe she's just that exhausted. We get a bit that's reminiscent but not exactly the same as the beginning of the book, Lo dreaming of a body in the water, and it's eerie and beautiful all at the same time. Then, of course, Lo wakes up and also in an echo of the very beginning of the book, she hears the shower (still in the treatment room) running, goes in, and sees that someone has written STOP DIGGING in the steam on the mirror.
We get an inset from a newspaper article dated September 28th, claiming that Lo Blacklock's body may have been found by Danish fishermen. I mean we know that there's theoretically another body of the right age range floating around out there, but I hope it's not really Lo. I kind of like her.
Lo does her best, absolutely loses her shit, but gets it back together using CBT techniques which, apparently, is short of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Google CBT at your own risk, because it stands for at least one other thing that is not at all about meditative techniques for helping yourself through an anxiety/panic attack. In fairness, it's not so much the actual CBT that gets Lo through this as it is her rage at the smug therapist who tried to teach it to her. So....victory?
She's going to call Nilsson, but realizes that the words are vanishing because they're written in steam and that Nilsson will never believe her. She's on her own.
Lo talks to Eva on her way out, learns that the door she took down is supposedly the only way into the treatment area below decks, though there is an emergency fire exit but it's one way and alarmed so no one came in that way. So...unless there's a secret entrance (I rule nothing out) then the one who wrote the words on the mirror had to be one of the women that was down there with her. Tina, Chloe, Ulla, Hanni and Klaus. Also, Eva, because she had access.
I guess also Lady Bullmer and the manicurist. Would Eva mention it if the ship owners wife slipped below decks for a second? Maybe not.
ALSO FUCKING BEN.
Who was looking for Lo.
UGH.
Lo runs into Chloe and Cole up in the dinning room and they chat for a bit. She's playing detective, asking them both about the poker party that happened the night of the murder. They were both there, but poker is absolutely boring to watch, maybe even if you're into poker. Chloe went to bed, and Cole was there in the room for about half an hour. He does, however, remember that FUCKING BEN left to get his wallet at one point, which he conveniently left out of his story to Lo.
Cole offers to let Lo look at the pictures from the party and oh, hey, he definitely has a thing for Chloe. In case you were wondering. Lo does that thing we all do, when someone hands you their phone to look at a picture and you flip too far back or forward and see some other even that you're not interested in. Only in this one pic, conveniently for the plot, is a waitress (she's not the focus of the pic so it's not extra super weird) who Lo is certain is the woman from cabin 10.
Again, she does the smart thing and doesn't mention this to Cole or Chloe because hey, someone on the ship is a murderer and someone has made the only piece of evidence Lo had vanish so maybe don't draw attention to this other piece of evidence. Good, great, thanks.
Lo scoots out of the dinning room, asks for a sandwich to be delivered to her room, and finds FUCKING BEN. Who she proceeds to tell all about the incident in the spa room like she doesn't ALSO suspect him of maybe being the one to write the ominous words on the glass!!!!
But sure, yes, lets keep telling him things.
Jesus.
Ben, however, has been snooping, ostensibly on Lo's behalf, but who knows, and he thinks that Archer (the asshat who twisted Lo's arm at the first night's dinner) was trying to text a young woman named Jess who looks like Lo's description of the woman. Of course, the internet is still down, but Ben gives Lo a rundown of their movements, and the fact that Eva was not, in fact, at her station the whole time, so someone could totally have snuck downstairs if they'd really wanted to.
Lo panics, realizing how easily someone could have killed her as opposed to just writing threats, so she bolts up to the deck to puke. Ben follows her, probably out of a nice impulse, I'm going to give him that much, and Lo doesn't puke on him which I suppose is fine. Might have been satisfying though.
More importantly, we get a lot of maybe alibis and tying people down to a location when the murder happened.
Tina, apparently, was having a little personal visit from one of the room attendants. Cole was for some reason roaming Lo's end of the ship - his cabin is at the other end and Ben maybe had a young woman sneaking out of his. All of this information brought to you by the resident over weight foodie - Alexander. Who, I'm guessing, just likes spying on people.
I mean I think we can guess that maybe Cole was down there to visit Chloe. Because they are totally having a thing. And Ben is protesting too much about not having anyone in his room. Which is nuts because hey, Ben, Lo is not dating you and does not care who you're seeing.
I really wish Lo would stop telling Ben All the Things. Though she didn't tell him about the photo, so there's that.
I write as a hobby and I've been in a slump of no ideas and just BLAH and then last Sunday I was struck and I wrote something for the first time in forever. Of course, I also felt like if I stopped writing it to a) finish reading the three chapters I was supposed to read and b) post about it, I was going to lose the muse.
So I made my choice. I regret nothing, because it's some good fic is what it is.
And then I was going to post on Monday, or any other day of the past week, but we're doing a lot of upgrades and changes at work and honestly I was too tired to even go to the gym after work all last week. I mostly just collapsed onto the nearest horizontal surface and watched really bad 'true' paranormal tv (I grew up watching A Haunting and I love it still) or those megalodon 'documentaries' from Shark Weeks past. Also the one they did this year where they had actual scientists talk about the megalodon just to make myself laugh. Those poor people.
Keeping in mind that I love the megalodon as a concept, I am also still really glad that it's extinct. It was a good, giant smooth ocean puppy, but that is a concern that I do not need.
I've also seen The Meg because I have trashy, trashy taste sometimes. I've also read all but the latest book in the series that it was based on and actually they improved the damn thing. Which would admittedly not have been a hard task. They're some awful books.
Some days you just want to watch a giant prehistoric shark eat all the things.
ANYWAY.
Here we go, a week late because I am not good at managing time.
Start off at the spa, where Tina is spying on the guest list or whatever else she can get off of the spa computer for reasons of being shady. I don't think Tina is the problem here - she's too obvious. I mean she might be up to no good, but I don't think it's related to the murder. Lady Bullmer shows up, all deathly and tragic, and then we get to discover that oh, hey, the treatment rooms are inside the ship which is going to go well for Lo and her claustrophobia.
She tries to get out of staying down below for a treatment, but there's no other options and she's determined to get through this so she heads off for her mud wrap which just sounds awful to me, I'm not going to lie. I don't have claustrophobia, but being stuck inside a little room with no windows and then being naked and wrapped in muddy bandages just sounds awful. I, too, would try to nope out of this.
We also get some sort of apology from Tina about her behavior the night before but I think it reads more like someone who doesn't want anyone poking around why she was so snippy as opposed to someone who actually feels bad about behaving badly.
Somehow, Lo falls asleep wrapped in all this mud, I do not know how except maybe she's just that exhausted. We get a bit that's reminiscent but not exactly the same as the beginning of the book, Lo dreaming of a body in the water, and it's eerie and beautiful all at the same time. Then, of course, Lo wakes up and also in an echo of the very beginning of the book, she hears the shower (still in the treatment room) running, goes in, and sees that someone has written STOP DIGGING in the steam on the mirror.
We get an inset from a newspaper article dated September 28th, claiming that Lo Blacklock's body may have been found by Danish fishermen. I mean we know that there's theoretically another body of the right age range floating around out there, but I hope it's not really Lo. I kind of like her.
Lo does her best, absolutely loses her shit, but gets it back together using CBT techniques which, apparently, is short of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Google CBT at your own risk, because it stands for at least one other thing that is not at all about meditative techniques for helping yourself through an anxiety/panic attack. In fairness, it's not so much the actual CBT that gets Lo through this as it is her rage at the smug therapist who tried to teach it to her. So....victory?
She's going to call Nilsson, but realizes that the words are vanishing because they're written in steam and that Nilsson will never believe her. She's on her own.
Lo talks to Eva on her way out, learns that the door she took down is supposedly the only way into the treatment area below decks, though there is an emergency fire exit but it's one way and alarmed so no one came in that way. So...unless there's a secret entrance (I rule nothing out) then the one who wrote the words on the mirror had to be one of the women that was down there with her. Tina, Chloe, Ulla, Hanni and Klaus. Also, Eva, because she had access.
I guess also Lady Bullmer and the manicurist. Would Eva mention it if the ship owners wife slipped below decks for a second? Maybe not.
ALSO FUCKING BEN.
Who was looking for Lo.
UGH.
Lo runs into Chloe and Cole up in the dinning room and they chat for a bit. She's playing detective, asking them both about the poker party that happened the night of the murder. They were both there, but poker is absolutely boring to watch, maybe even if you're into poker. Chloe went to bed, and Cole was there in the room for about half an hour. He does, however, remember that FUCKING BEN left to get his wallet at one point, which he conveniently left out of his story to Lo.
Cole offers to let Lo look at the pictures from the party and oh, hey, he definitely has a thing for Chloe. In case you were wondering. Lo does that thing we all do, when someone hands you their phone to look at a picture and you flip too far back or forward and see some other even that you're not interested in. Only in this one pic, conveniently for the plot, is a waitress (she's not the focus of the pic so it's not extra super weird) who Lo is certain is the woman from cabin 10.
Again, she does the smart thing and doesn't mention this to Cole or Chloe because hey, someone on the ship is a murderer and someone has made the only piece of evidence Lo had vanish so maybe don't draw attention to this other piece of evidence. Good, great, thanks.
Lo scoots out of the dinning room, asks for a sandwich to be delivered to her room, and finds FUCKING BEN. Who she proceeds to tell all about the incident in the spa room like she doesn't ALSO suspect him of maybe being the one to write the ominous words on the glass!!!!
But sure, yes, lets keep telling him things.
Jesus.
Ben, however, has been snooping, ostensibly on Lo's behalf, but who knows, and he thinks that Archer (the asshat who twisted Lo's arm at the first night's dinner) was trying to text a young woman named Jess who looks like Lo's description of the woman. Of course, the internet is still down, but Ben gives Lo a rundown of their movements, and the fact that Eva was not, in fact, at her station the whole time, so someone could totally have snuck downstairs if they'd really wanted to.
Lo panics, realizing how easily someone could have killed her as opposed to just writing threats, so she bolts up to the deck to puke. Ben follows her, probably out of a nice impulse, I'm going to give him that much, and Lo doesn't puke on him which I suppose is fine. Might have been satisfying though.
More importantly, we get a lot of maybe alibis and tying people down to a location when the murder happened.
Tina, apparently, was having a little personal visit from one of the room attendants. Cole was for some reason roaming Lo's end of the ship - his cabin is at the other end and Ben maybe had a young woman sneaking out of his. All of this information brought to you by the resident over weight foodie - Alexander. Who, I'm guessing, just likes spying on people.
I mean I think we can guess that maybe Cole was down there to visit Chloe. Because they are totally having a thing. And Ben is protesting too much about not having anyone in his room. Which is nuts because hey, Ben, Lo is not dating you and does not care who you're seeing.
I really wish Lo would stop telling Ben All the Things. Though she didn't tell him about the photo, so there's that.
Sunday, July 29, 2018
The Woman in Cabin 10 Ch. 13 - 15
I didn't do four chapters this week because I went to see the new Mission Impossible movie today and that ate up two hours of my life that will never be given back to me.
I mean okay, I know these aren't deep thinky movies, but good lord, this was ridiculous. Even watching Henry Cavill run around beating people up didn't make up for this thing.
ANYWAY.
Chapter 13 starts off with Lo still at breakfast, contemplating whether or not she's losing her shit. Which she, and we, must be pretty sure she's note. One, there's the mascara, and two, she has a very distinct memory of the woman and the impression of her having been doing *something* which Lo knocked on the door. She's just...very real to Lo even though she can't prove to anyone else that she was real.
I like Lo's thought process, considering the reasons why it doesn't fit (on top of the fact that none of the staff look like the woman) for her to be a cleaner. Her clothes, her attitude, etc. why would she even be carrying around mascara if she was a cleaning woman? I mean I could argue with Lo that a cleaning woman would still take time and pride in her appearance - her hair, makeup, etc. but it's not important that Lo is wrong, just that these are the reasons that *she* doesn't think the woman was a member of the staff.
There's a good consideration of why Nilsson would like this whole problem to go away, but I think it's also important to appreciate that from his point of view there's no proof that anything has happened. Lo was, by her own admission, asleep and had been drinking. She *thinks* that she heard something like a scream and she saw something smeared on the glass. But there's no one missing from the ship and when they go into the room in question there's no evidence that anyone has been living in it and there's no evidence of a struggle or anything else.
At the same time, I like that Lo is very certain in what she heard.
"I knew what it was like to be that girl - to realize, in an instant, how incredibly fragile your hold on life could be, how paper-thin the walls of security really were."
Still, she knows that she has no proof for anyone else. All she has is the mascara - which I assume is also easy enough to get in Europe so it's not as if its some super rare item that can be traced down to a single store that only sells ten of them a year. Lo has this wacky thought about getting it DNA tested which...I mean sure? But like she realizes, it's not going to do her any good even if she can get it tested somewhere.
'Here's some random DNA.'
'Great. I'll put it with the rest.'
It's not like we have DNA databanks of everyone on the planet or anything. Not that the government will admit anyway. *shifty eyes* Not sure what it's like in Europe, or England in particular, but DNA testing is not done to every single person on the planet. I know that it's been in the news lately, what with the Golden State Killer being caught, and people are always dropping their DNA to Ancestry or 23 and Me (me too! listen, my family knows if they murder someone I am abandoning them - they got caught all on their own) but there are plenty of unsolved murders or crimes and they have DNA from the crimes, but they don't have a match in a suspect. You have to have the two things to have it make sense. A sample and something to compare the sample with.
Also, it's expensive.
The backlog of rape kits that haven't been processed in the US is just....*screams into the void* Which is not all about money, I know, there's a lot of factors that go into it, but it is a factor. Real world, police level processing is expensive.
Back to the fictional murder and violence.
Oh look, whoever went over board was definitely not Ben.
I'm so thrilled.
We also run back into Tina who I am not sure of. I like her one minute, when she's talking to Lo like a reasonable human being and then she's threatening her so clearly she was up to something the night before since she's so touchy about the whole thing.
Lo makes it back to her room to find that it's been cleaned.
And the mascara is gone.
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUNNNNNN
We get another one of the inserts, this time dated September 26th to tell us that Lo has been reported missing.
I like these little interjections from the outside world and the glimpses we get of what it looks like to people who aren't trapped in this little boat world. Now, the article mentions that Lo hasn't been seen according to the people on the Aurora since a stop at Trondheim which Ben mentions in the chapter won't be for another day.
So there's a narrow window for whatever is about to go down to go down.
Lo is panicking because the mascara is gone and that means that someone has been in her room, someone who knows that she knows there was some sort of crime on the boat and she is trapped on this ship with a killer. I like that she doesn't even consider that maybe the mascara was never real at all. Like...okay I know that seems insane but a lot of times in mystery books like this the woman gets gaslighted and she honestly falls for it - doubts her own sanity, thinks that she's hallucinating or dreaming or whatever.
Whatever Lo has going on, claustrophobia and anxiety and all, she knows that there was a woman in the next cabin, she definitely interacted with her and something super shady is going down.
Go Lo!
She does check with a cleaning woman in the hallway, but of course she didn't take it even though Lo probably looks like she's accusing the poor woman of stealing this cheap little makeup doohickey.
Lo calls Nilsson and he shows up, and is SUPER HELPFUL.
I mentioned gas lighting, right? Right.
Now here's where it would start to happen in many another book.
Nilsson pops in, all big and gruff and manly and listens to Lo talk about a missing mascara for like 2 seconds before he's telling her that what she says happened could definitely not have happened. And he does it so politely, so calmly, like he's dealing with a person on the edge.
"No. No, you don't get to do this......Call me 'Miss Blacklock' one minute, tell me you respect my concerns and I'm a valued passenger blah blah blah, and then the next minute brush me off like a hysterical female who didn't see what she saw!"
And I'm not blaming Nilsson for having doubts. It sounds like he went through as much of an investigation as he could. Like I said, there's no signs of a crime, no one is missing. But he is handling it as well as he can, I'm just saying that in another book Lo would fall for this line. 'oh, I must have been mistaken, I must have lost the mascara, maybe it was someone that got off the boat somehow, teehee' but no.
Lo Blacklock knows what she fucking saw and heard.
And then Nilsson tells her that he talked to Ben Fucking Howard that big mouthed little asshat why didn't he get thrown overboard? Why do I hate him so much?!?! Maybe because he can't stop talking! Did he tell Nilsson about how he groped Lo in the hallway?!?!?! I bet he fucking didn't! But he tells Nilsson all about her having been attacked and being on antidepressants and whoooo boy!
And Lo is on antidepressants and she's been drinking and of COURSE that means she can't be trusted!!!!
Woman! Mental Illness! Pills and Booze! SHE CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO KNOW THINGS!!!
I read on a kindle a lot and even when I read hard copy books, I do not throw them because I love my books too much to hurt them like that. So I keep a squishy brain and a squishy hulk nearby to throw in rage. The bounce and amuse the cats when I toss them.
I definitely threw squishy hulk.
So.
Okay.
Look.
My rage here is less about the existence of this moment in the book than it is about the way that it is handled in 10,000 other books and also in real life. There is a stigma attached to having to take mood altering drugs for any damn reason at all, or for having an atypical brain. I know way too many people who feel they have to be secretive and ashamed for taking anti-anxiety medication or antidepressants or anything else.
Now, I have to take a synthetic hormone because my thyroid doesn't work correctly. I have an autoimmune disorder and it messes up a lot of stuff in my body and sometimes my brain. But there's no shame to me telling people, 'oh, yeah, I have Hashimoto's, I have to take this little pill or my body starts trying to slowly kill itself'. But people say, 'Yes, I have depression, I take this pill to help me live the life I want to live' and people want to say, 'You just need more sun! Be happier! JUST STOP BEING SO SAD!' or anti-anxiety, 'JUST STOP BEING SO WORRIED!' or anti-psychotics or any of the other pills and medicines and therapies that we have scienced in order to make our lives better and let people who have mental illness live their fucking lives. AND THIS IS DUMB.
Mind you, I'm sure there's people out there who think if I just did XYZ then my thyroid would heal itself, but they're far less open about telling that to my face than people are dismissing treatment for any level of mental illness.
Now, this would be the part in a different book where we get Lo doubting herself and/or the dark back story that explains why she has depression, why she's anxious. You know, she saw her father murdered by a clown or she was abused, or something. Any of the million reasons that we know must cause people to be 'different' in every fictional story.
Except that what we get is Lo telling us that her childhood was good, that there's no 'on paper' reason for her 'problems'.
"The depression I fell into after university wasn't about exams and self-worth, it was something stranger, more chemical, something that no talking cure was going to fix."
People who have 'normal' brains and 'normal' bodies don't always get that. Mind, I don't understand on a personal level how someone with depression or anxiety or anything else feels and how they live their lives. But I do know what it's like to have your body just turn against you one day and it's nothing that 'happened' it's just something that happens and then that's your life and you have to deal with it the best way that you can.
And there's no shame to that and it doesn't automatically make you more or less reliable than the next person.
Okay, okay, back to the book.
More Ben, though I appreciate that it's Lo chewing him out but then she turns around and forgives him and takes him into her confidence about the whole thing? Listen, I know you used to date but he has proven to be a dick and an unhelpful one at that. Maybe stop telling him all the things?
Lo is thinking about going over Nilsson's head thanks to Ben's suggestion that she just talk to the billionaire owner Lord Bullmer who is a 'real down to earth guy' since he played cards with Ben and Co into the early hours but she can't remember if she let the mascara thing slip while she was talking to the crew so it could be someone else who slipped in and made off with the mascara. Because if she didn't, then Nilsson is the only person who knows.
Unless there was someone else in the cabin with Mystery Dead Girl - after all, Lo didn't see into the cabin when she was talking to her.
Please hold.
Okay, flipped back through the parts of her talking to the crew and I might have missed it, but I don't see her mentioning the mascara to the crew. So unless Nilsson mentioned it to someone while he was poking around, he's on a list of 'People Who Know the Mascara is a THING' which is a short list consisting of Lo, the Woman, and him. And maybe someone else in the cabin.
I mean okay, I know these aren't deep thinky movies, but good lord, this was ridiculous. Even watching Henry Cavill run around beating people up didn't make up for this thing.
ANYWAY.
Chapter 13 starts off with Lo still at breakfast, contemplating whether or not she's losing her shit. Which she, and we, must be pretty sure she's note. One, there's the mascara, and two, she has a very distinct memory of the woman and the impression of her having been doing *something* which Lo knocked on the door. She's just...very real to Lo even though she can't prove to anyone else that she was real.
I like Lo's thought process, considering the reasons why it doesn't fit (on top of the fact that none of the staff look like the woman) for her to be a cleaner. Her clothes, her attitude, etc. why would she even be carrying around mascara if she was a cleaning woman? I mean I could argue with Lo that a cleaning woman would still take time and pride in her appearance - her hair, makeup, etc. but it's not important that Lo is wrong, just that these are the reasons that *she* doesn't think the woman was a member of the staff.
There's a good consideration of why Nilsson would like this whole problem to go away, but I think it's also important to appreciate that from his point of view there's no proof that anything has happened. Lo was, by her own admission, asleep and had been drinking. She *thinks* that she heard something like a scream and she saw something smeared on the glass. But there's no one missing from the ship and when they go into the room in question there's no evidence that anyone has been living in it and there's no evidence of a struggle or anything else.
At the same time, I like that Lo is very certain in what she heard.
"I knew what it was like to be that girl - to realize, in an instant, how incredibly fragile your hold on life could be, how paper-thin the walls of security really were."
Still, she knows that she has no proof for anyone else. All she has is the mascara - which I assume is also easy enough to get in Europe so it's not as if its some super rare item that can be traced down to a single store that only sells ten of them a year. Lo has this wacky thought about getting it DNA tested which...I mean sure? But like she realizes, it's not going to do her any good even if she can get it tested somewhere.
'Here's some random DNA.'
'Great. I'll put it with the rest.'
It's not like we have DNA databanks of everyone on the planet or anything. Not that the government will admit anyway. *shifty eyes* Not sure what it's like in Europe, or England in particular, but DNA testing is not done to every single person on the planet. I know that it's been in the news lately, what with the Golden State Killer being caught, and people are always dropping their DNA to Ancestry or 23 and Me (me too! listen, my family knows if they murder someone I am abandoning them - they got caught all on their own) but there are plenty of unsolved murders or crimes and they have DNA from the crimes, but they don't have a match in a suspect. You have to have the two things to have it make sense. A sample and something to compare the sample with.
Also, it's expensive.
The backlog of rape kits that haven't been processed in the US is just....*screams into the void* Which is not all about money, I know, there's a lot of factors that go into it, but it is a factor. Real world, police level processing is expensive.
Back to the fictional murder and violence.
Oh look, whoever went over board was definitely not Ben.
I'm so thrilled.
We also run back into Tina who I am not sure of. I like her one minute, when she's talking to Lo like a reasonable human being and then she's threatening her so clearly she was up to something the night before since she's so touchy about the whole thing.
Lo makes it back to her room to find that it's been cleaned.
And the mascara is gone.
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUNNNNNN
We get another one of the inserts, this time dated September 26th to tell us that Lo has been reported missing.
I like these little interjections from the outside world and the glimpses we get of what it looks like to people who aren't trapped in this little boat world. Now, the article mentions that Lo hasn't been seen according to the people on the Aurora since a stop at Trondheim which Ben mentions in the chapter won't be for another day.
So there's a narrow window for whatever is about to go down to go down.
Lo is panicking because the mascara is gone and that means that someone has been in her room, someone who knows that she knows there was some sort of crime on the boat and she is trapped on this ship with a killer. I like that she doesn't even consider that maybe the mascara was never real at all. Like...okay I know that seems insane but a lot of times in mystery books like this the woman gets gaslighted and she honestly falls for it - doubts her own sanity, thinks that she's hallucinating or dreaming or whatever.
Whatever Lo has going on, claustrophobia and anxiety and all, she knows that there was a woman in the next cabin, she definitely interacted with her and something super shady is going down.
Go Lo!
She does check with a cleaning woman in the hallway, but of course she didn't take it even though Lo probably looks like she's accusing the poor woman of stealing this cheap little makeup doohickey.
Lo calls Nilsson and he shows up, and is SUPER HELPFUL.
I mentioned gas lighting, right? Right.
Now here's where it would start to happen in many another book.
Nilsson pops in, all big and gruff and manly and listens to Lo talk about a missing mascara for like 2 seconds before he's telling her that what she says happened could definitely not have happened. And he does it so politely, so calmly, like he's dealing with a person on the edge.
"No. No, you don't get to do this......Call me 'Miss Blacklock' one minute, tell me you respect my concerns and I'm a valued passenger blah blah blah, and then the next minute brush me off like a hysterical female who didn't see what she saw!"
And I'm not blaming Nilsson for having doubts. It sounds like he went through as much of an investigation as he could. Like I said, there's no signs of a crime, no one is missing. But he is handling it as well as he can, I'm just saying that in another book Lo would fall for this line. 'oh, I must have been mistaken, I must have lost the mascara, maybe it was someone that got off the boat somehow, teehee' but no.
Lo Blacklock knows what she fucking saw and heard.
And then Nilsson tells her that he talked to Ben Fucking Howard that big mouthed little asshat why didn't he get thrown overboard? Why do I hate him so much?!?! Maybe because he can't stop talking! Did he tell Nilsson about how he groped Lo in the hallway?!?!?! I bet he fucking didn't! But he tells Nilsson all about her having been attacked and being on antidepressants and whoooo boy!
And Lo is on antidepressants and she's been drinking and of COURSE that means she can't be trusted!!!!
Woman! Mental Illness! Pills and Booze! SHE CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO KNOW THINGS!!!
I read on a kindle a lot and even when I read hard copy books, I do not throw them because I love my books too much to hurt them like that. So I keep a squishy brain and a squishy hulk nearby to throw in rage. The bounce and amuse the cats when I toss them.
I definitely threw squishy hulk.
So.
Okay.
Look.
My rage here is less about the existence of this moment in the book than it is about the way that it is handled in 10,000 other books and also in real life. There is a stigma attached to having to take mood altering drugs for any damn reason at all, or for having an atypical brain. I know way too many people who feel they have to be secretive and ashamed for taking anti-anxiety medication or antidepressants or anything else.
Now, I have to take a synthetic hormone because my thyroid doesn't work correctly. I have an autoimmune disorder and it messes up a lot of stuff in my body and sometimes my brain. But there's no shame to me telling people, 'oh, yeah, I have Hashimoto's, I have to take this little pill or my body starts trying to slowly kill itself'. But people say, 'Yes, I have depression, I take this pill to help me live the life I want to live' and people want to say, 'You just need more sun! Be happier! JUST STOP BEING SO SAD!' or anti-anxiety, 'JUST STOP BEING SO WORRIED!' or anti-psychotics or any of the other pills and medicines and therapies that we have scienced in order to make our lives better and let people who have mental illness live their fucking lives. AND THIS IS DUMB.
Mind you, I'm sure there's people out there who think if I just did XYZ then my thyroid would heal itself, but they're far less open about telling that to my face than people are dismissing treatment for any level of mental illness.
Now, this would be the part in a different book where we get Lo doubting herself and/or the dark back story that explains why she has depression, why she's anxious. You know, she saw her father murdered by a clown or she was abused, or something. Any of the million reasons that we know must cause people to be 'different' in every fictional story.
Except that what we get is Lo telling us that her childhood was good, that there's no 'on paper' reason for her 'problems'.
"The depression I fell into after university wasn't about exams and self-worth, it was something stranger, more chemical, something that no talking cure was going to fix."
People who have 'normal' brains and 'normal' bodies don't always get that. Mind, I don't understand on a personal level how someone with depression or anxiety or anything else feels and how they live their lives. But I do know what it's like to have your body just turn against you one day and it's nothing that 'happened' it's just something that happens and then that's your life and you have to deal with it the best way that you can.
And there's no shame to that and it doesn't automatically make you more or less reliable than the next person.
Okay, okay, back to the book.
More Ben, though I appreciate that it's Lo chewing him out but then she turns around and forgives him and takes him into her confidence about the whole thing? Listen, I know you used to date but he has proven to be a dick and an unhelpful one at that. Maybe stop telling him all the things?
Lo is thinking about going over Nilsson's head thanks to Ben's suggestion that she just talk to the billionaire owner Lord Bullmer who is a 'real down to earth guy' since he played cards with Ben and Co into the early hours but she can't remember if she let the mascara thing slip while she was talking to the crew so it could be someone else who slipped in and made off with the mascara. Because if she didn't, then Nilsson is the only person who knows.
Unless there was someone else in the cabin with Mystery Dead Girl - after all, Lo didn't see into the cabin when she was talking to her.
Please hold.
Okay, flipped back through the parts of her talking to the crew and I might have missed it, but I don't see her mentioning the mascara to the crew. So unless Nilsson mentioned it to someone while he was poking around, he's on a list of 'People Who Know the Mascara is a THING' which is a short list consisting of Lo, the Woman, and him. And maybe someone else in the cabin.
Sunday, July 22, 2018
The Woman in Cabin 10 Ch 10 - 12
You know, I'm thinking that three chapters was too few.
It's really slowing down the plot and possibly stabbing me in the sanity.
Next week I'll do four.
Anyway.
Today begins the second most sacred week of the year, SHARK WEEK!!!
This has nothing to do with the book, I just want you all to know.
SHARKS.
Smooth ocean puppies!
Okay. Book.
Lo rushes to the balcony, making a ton of noise as she slams through her sliding door and she can't see anything in the water except maybe a hand sinking? That could just be her mind playing tricks on her - I can vouch for how hard it can be to make things out in the dark ocean especially in rough seas.
What she definitely sees is the smear of something on the glass partition. Something that might be blood, but certainly doesn't bode well for Cabin 10's occupant.
Lo understandably freaks, especially as she realizes that whoever was over in the next cabin definitely heard her and maybe even saw her face. She scoots back into her cabin and double checks the door and makes sure that the veranda doors are as secure as she can make them.
Then she calls boat 911.
I appreciate this line, 'This was it. This was real danger, and I was coping.'
Lo is traumatized, drunk, and she has an anxiety disorder going on in the background somewhere. And she's always worried about looking weird or frightened of things and not sure that she's reacting appropriately to the situation. But this, this here, there is definite danger and she is not freezing, she is doing the right things. Making sure she is as safe as she can be and then calling for help.
Karla, her own personal cabin slave #2, checks that Lo is safe and then says that she's sending someone up to Lo.
Lo, waiting, realizes that someone has been in her cabin and touched all of her things. Not in the weird, someone broke into your house way, but in the housekeeping way. Though I'll be honest, I haven't been home invaded or burgled or anything like that and I still find the idea of someone unpacking my things or going through my laundry and cleaning up after me weird and invasive. I'm with Lo - it kind of makes me want to cry.
I could never make it as the idle rich.
I'd have to at least do my own laundry.
Sorry.
So head of security Johann Nilsson shows up and Lo gives him the run down.
Only when they go out onto the balcony to check on the blood smear, it's gone.
Nothing.
There's a clear turn in the tone, Lo goes from seeing Nilsson to being on her side to feeling disbelieved and judged. And that's before they actually go next door to discover that the room is entirely empty. No signs of a struggle, no sign that anyone has been living there at all.
Which is what Nilsson claims is fact. That there is no one in cabin 10. The guest who was supposed to be staying in it cancelled - whoever the woman was Lo met earlier, she did not belong there.
I kind of love and feel awful for Lo that she tries to show Nilsson the mascara like it's existence proves that she borrowed it from someone. All it proves is that you have mascara, darling. And also that the bottles in your trash from the minibar have been noted and you're drunk.
Nilsson agrees to come to Lo at 8 the next morning, to take her around and see if she can identify the woman among the staff. He obviously believes that she's drunk and having some sort of episode. After all, there's no sign of anything having gone wrong in the cabin. There's no one being reported missing among the guests or the crew and it's a small vessel so someone missing would be noticed.
Though I'd argue with that, if someone wasn't where they were meant to be for even an innocuous reason, but the rest of the crew thought they were somewhere else, someone could go missing really fast. Enough people go missing off of cruises and those things have security cameras.
It's obvious that Nilsson doesn't believe her and I can't really entirely blame him. He came up, obviously was woken up, and checked out the report. There's no evidence, other than Lo's word and she's drunk and was asleep when she heard whatever it was that she heard.
I can vouch for having sworn that I saw or heard things while awake only to wake up and find out that I was asleep the whole time. Dreams are weird.
Chapter 12 starts up with Lo, hungover, getting the 8 am Nilsson wake up call that she demanded.
By the time she cleans herself up, Nilsson is waiting patiently for her in the hall.
A good chunk of the chapter is taken up with Lo being taken below decks and in the private crew areas to meet everyone and find out that 1) no one is missing and 2) no one matches her description of the woman. I might regret not naming everyone later, but I doubt it. Suffice to say that even when Lo admits that in the more sober light of day she's maybe not sure of what she heard, Nilsson insists that she meet every member of the crew that could possibly be Cabin Girl. I'm guessing to put Lo's mind at ease - she can't claim that it was that one crew member she didn't meet if she meets them all.
Lo remains certain that the woman was real, however, because of the mascara.
And the fact that if she wasn't real, if she's not dead, some sort of stow away that's been murdered, that means Lo is losing her mind.
It's really slowing down the plot and possibly stabbing me in the sanity.
Next week I'll do four.
Anyway.
Today begins the second most sacred week of the year, SHARK WEEK!!!
This has nothing to do with the book, I just want you all to know.
SHARKS.
Smooth ocean puppies!
Okay. Book.
Lo rushes to the balcony, making a ton of noise as she slams through her sliding door and she can't see anything in the water except maybe a hand sinking? That could just be her mind playing tricks on her - I can vouch for how hard it can be to make things out in the dark ocean especially in rough seas.
What she definitely sees is the smear of something on the glass partition. Something that might be blood, but certainly doesn't bode well for Cabin 10's occupant.
Lo understandably freaks, especially as she realizes that whoever was over in the next cabin definitely heard her and maybe even saw her face. She scoots back into her cabin and double checks the door and makes sure that the veranda doors are as secure as she can make them.
Then she calls boat 911.
I appreciate this line, 'This was it. This was real danger, and I was coping.'
Lo is traumatized, drunk, and she has an anxiety disorder going on in the background somewhere. And she's always worried about looking weird or frightened of things and not sure that she's reacting appropriately to the situation. But this, this here, there is definite danger and she is not freezing, she is doing the right things. Making sure she is as safe as she can be and then calling for help.
Karla, her own personal cabin slave #2, checks that Lo is safe and then says that she's sending someone up to Lo.
Lo, waiting, realizes that someone has been in her cabin and touched all of her things. Not in the weird, someone broke into your house way, but in the housekeeping way. Though I'll be honest, I haven't been home invaded or burgled or anything like that and I still find the idea of someone unpacking my things or going through my laundry and cleaning up after me weird and invasive. I'm with Lo - it kind of makes me want to cry.
I could never make it as the idle rich.
I'd have to at least do my own laundry.
Sorry.
So head of security Johann Nilsson shows up and Lo gives him the run down.
Only when they go out onto the balcony to check on the blood smear, it's gone.
Nothing.
There's a clear turn in the tone, Lo goes from seeing Nilsson to being on her side to feeling disbelieved and judged. And that's before they actually go next door to discover that the room is entirely empty. No signs of a struggle, no sign that anyone has been living there at all.
Which is what Nilsson claims is fact. That there is no one in cabin 10. The guest who was supposed to be staying in it cancelled - whoever the woman was Lo met earlier, she did not belong there.
I kind of love and feel awful for Lo that she tries to show Nilsson the mascara like it's existence proves that she borrowed it from someone. All it proves is that you have mascara, darling. And also that the bottles in your trash from the minibar have been noted and you're drunk.
Nilsson agrees to come to Lo at 8 the next morning, to take her around and see if she can identify the woman among the staff. He obviously believes that she's drunk and having some sort of episode. After all, there's no sign of anything having gone wrong in the cabin. There's no one being reported missing among the guests or the crew and it's a small vessel so someone missing would be noticed.
Though I'd argue with that, if someone wasn't where they were meant to be for even an innocuous reason, but the rest of the crew thought they were somewhere else, someone could go missing really fast. Enough people go missing off of cruises and those things have security cameras.
It's obvious that Nilsson doesn't believe her and I can't really entirely blame him. He came up, obviously was woken up, and checked out the report. There's no evidence, other than Lo's word and she's drunk and was asleep when she heard whatever it was that she heard.
I can vouch for having sworn that I saw or heard things while awake only to wake up and find out that I was asleep the whole time. Dreams are weird.
Chapter 12 starts up with Lo, hungover, getting the 8 am Nilsson wake up call that she demanded.
By the time she cleans herself up, Nilsson is waiting patiently for her in the hall.
A good chunk of the chapter is taken up with Lo being taken below decks and in the private crew areas to meet everyone and find out that 1) no one is missing and 2) no one matches her description of the woman. I might regret not naming everyone later, but I doubt it. Suffice to say that even when Lo admits that in the more sober light of day she's maybe not sure of what she heard, Nilsson insists that she meet every member of the crew that could possibly be Cabin Girl. I'm guessing to put Lo's mind at ease - she can't claim that it was that one crew member she didn't meet if she meets them all.
Lo remains certain that the woman was real, however, because of the mascara.
And the fact that if she wasn't real, if she's not dead, some sort of stow away that's been murdered, that means Lo is losing her mind.
Sunday, July 15, 2018
The Woman in Cabin 10 Ch. 7 - 9
Okay, Chapter 7.
Apparently being silly rich also means making impractical design choices?
The dining/drawing/meeting room on the Aurora is all white. Even Lo calls this out as impractical and you know that some poor members of the cleaning crew have to go over this place any time someone so much as breathes in its general vicinity.
But I guess it's just a symbol of wealth and power. 'This is ridiculous but I can afford to have a ridiculous room/thing/outfit that cannot possibly be used in a regular manner.' *waves fancy baton*
We get to meet Mr. Lederer properly this time - turns out he's a photo journalist of the kind that normally does endangered species and at-risk environments. But he took the invitation to do this job for reasons that do not get disclosed. Cole. Cole Lederer.
It's all just a meet and greet and we get some more characters. Tina West, a writer for Vernean Times (not gonna lie, I like the name); Alexander Belhomme who does foodie related travel apparently and Archer Fenlan representing the 'extreme travel' grouping.
We also meet Ben Howard who I believe is a dick and would like to push over board. He used to work with Lo, but has moved on to other magazines. He is also, seemingly, rather good at his job. Still want to push him overboard.
Anyway. It seems like a good chunk of the guests are travel writers of one flavor or another, which makes sense as a publicity tour. The rest are Lord Bullmer level rich people and Lord Bullmer and Lady Bullmer herself. It seems as though Lady Bullmer is very ill, however, breast cancer from what Ben says. Turns out one of the two of them did their research and it was not Lo.
I'm going to not accept judgment on Lo since she has been having a very harsh couple of days. Though maybe research should have been done before the last minute? But maybe she did and it just slipped her mind. Not just because of stress but because Lo is back to drinking to medicate her anxiety and I'm just going to sit here and breathe calmly for her, okay?
Lo gets propositioned by a drunk Cole who would like to get revenge on his cheating wife by also cheating. I like to think that Lo wouldn't have taken him up on it, she doesn't seem like she's into it, but luckily we're interrupted by the call to dinner so that'll be a problem for later Lo, maybe.
Dinner is in another tiny yet super impractical room.
Alright, so there are two tables set up for 6 people each but both tables have an empty setting when everyone is seated. The one at Lo's table is for Mrs. Lederer who will most definitely not be joining them and the assumption is that the one at the other table is for Lady Bullmer who was not feeling well and decided to eat in her room. So we get a final passenger count at 11 people - not counting however many crew there are supposed to be. Two reserved attendants per passenger, so 24 of them and then the rest of the crew? We're already at 35 people - I still don't think the ship is as small as Lo thinks it is.
And Madam Cabin 10 is not among the guests.
Lo is having a nice little chit chat with the people at her table, Chloe who is a model and maybe actually in love with her husband, given them holding hands beneath the table when Chloe asks about the bruise on Lo's face. She tells them the story rather than have them think she's in an abusive relationship and Archer McWilderness Man decides that dinner is a great place to show off some self defense techniques. He gets Lo to stand up and before she can do anything he grabs her.
Chloe calls him off and of course he tries to play it off like 'ha ha hope I didn't scare you little lady' and Lo is very much trying to play it off too but I think Chloe sees through it. I like Chloe. I hope you're not murdered, or the killer, Chloe.
Apparently they rotate seats after the different courses which is a good way to get the guests to talk to one another I think. Lo never seems to be near Lord Bullmer, who is sort of her reason for being there but after dinner Cole startles Lo and then tries to get her some time with Bullmer to make up for her spilling her coffee because of him.
Doesn't quite work but Bullmer agrees to talk to her tomorrow and we find out that he and Cole went to school together so Cole is doing this photo shoot thing as a favor to a friend.
Lo heads back to her cabin, so very, very drunk around 11 pm. And Ben Fucking Howard comes up and gropes her and she knees him in the balls. Overboard with this asshole!
Please just imagine me rage screaming a while here for this next part.
Ben Fucking Howard and Lo used to date, a million years ago, and he left and somehow he regrets this and so drunk gropes her like it's a romantic fucking gesture?!?!! And then she tells him he doesn't need to apologize because it's her stress, not the fact that she told him to go away and then he reached into her dress and grabbed a boob that is the problem here?!?!?!
And then she tells Ben Fucking Howard about the robbery and things she didn't tell Judah and I WANT TO STAB HIM.
He doesn't need to know these things. He doesn't deserve to know shit.
He deserves to get that knee to the balls and then to be chucked into the ocean.
It would be one thing if Lo was inviting his attention and was willingly participating and then freaked out because of a flashback. No one to blame there, both of them thought it was okay until it wasn't. But she told him to go away. She did not say 'hey, Ben, Ben old buddy old pal you know what would be great? If you could grab my breast!' No. She told him to go away and he SHOVED HIS HAND DOWN HER DRESS!!!
He gets no sympathy.
He gets an anchor to the face.
UGH.
We hates him, precious.
He leaves, eventually, with Lo having flashes of fear about 'what if he doesn't leave what if he turns around and I can't fight him off' and have I mentioned wanting to throw him overboard? And Lo goes to sleep eventually.
She wakes, later, shocked out of sleep.
At first she decides that it's just her paranoia, she talks herself down but then as she's trying to read or do anything to try and fall back asleep she keeps going over the awakening in her mind, wondering why it felt like she'd woken up to a scream.
Then, laying there, she hears to door to the veranda in cabin 10 slide open.
And then she hears the splash.
Like a body hitting the water.
Maybe it's Ben.
We could only be so lucky.
There's a bit of Facebook style comment/posts with Judah asking if anyone has heard from Lo. The date stamp is September 24, and people who reply say they haven't heard from her since the 20th so that's four days with her not reaching out to anyone.
And that's three days after she just heard a body go overboard by my estimation.
No reason for concern at all...
Sunday, July 8, 2018
The Woman in Cabin 10 Ch. 4-6
Staying on schedule, come hell or high water.
*eyes baby nephew Who Does Not Sleep* You know what you've done.
*cracks knuckles*
I think we're still pretty firmly in the set up portions of the novel here, and let me say that sticking to three chapters a week is killing me. I could be done with this book by now people.
But rules is rules.
Chapter 4 picks up the next morning, with Lo and Judah having gotten a little bit of sleep and Lo needing to get her ass in gear so she can get to her new assignment.
The whole, 'I turned down a job in America for you' thing does not just go away, no, it does not. Lo seems to be in the middle of stabbing her relationship in the throat so that she can continue to maybe not deal with things having to change. Which I kind of get.
Not the relationship thing because I don't date, no, thank you, but the sabotaging (not that she's entirely wrong) things so that I don't have to do CHANGE because it is scary and uncertain.
Lo and Judah have it out, and there's a valid point when Lo throws out that she never asked Judah to *not* take the job for her, that that was totally his decision. Which is true, but it's also pretty clear that they are not on the same page of their relationship - Judah seems to be further ahead in the 'move in with me and make a life' and maybe babies? Babies have not been mentioned but I do assume that babies could be a thing.
Of course that could just be the constant baby smell that has permeated my life.
Babies smell. Not the bad, 'oh shit that diaper is destroyed' smell but a smell. Of baby. I cannot explain but it is a thing.
Also, I stand corrected. Babies are mentioned but it's not a solid YES baby or NO baby. More about how Lo does not want to be Little Susie Homemaker while Judah is out being a Dangerous Photographer.
Lo, running on, as she points out, 'two hours of sleep in the last three nights' and traumatized and guilty for hitting Judah in the face (which he does throw at her a little - no one here is perfect) and again sabotaging the shit out of change, breaks up with Judah? I (and they both) think?
"'Bye, Judah."
"'Bye? What do you mean, 'bye?"
"Whatever you want."
"What I want is for you to stop acting like a goddamn drama queen and move into my flat. I love you, Lo!"
And Lo nopes the fuck out because she's exhausted and having flashbacks (or just really heavy memories) of the break in and she's gone, with a 'I can't do this' and not much else.
I think, I hope, that the 'drama queen' comment is actually a long running frustration and not Judah being pissy about Lo's behavior post robbery/attack. Because one is understandable and the other is shitty and Judah I do not want you to be shitty.
'I love Ports. I love the smell of tar and sea air, and the scream of the gulls....Airports say work and security checks and delays. Ports say...I don't know. Something completely different. Escape, maybe.'
The Aurora is much smaller than Lo thought, which does not help with the claustrophobia. Though, to be honest, my sense of size and such things is not great so I'm not sure how big the ship is supposed to be. Smaller than a giant cruise liner, but larger than a regular sailing ship since it has a butt ton of amenities and ten cabins. So that seems pretty big to me, but maybe this is really a factor of Lo's own issues? It seems smaller in her description than it could possibly be with everything that's listed on it.
We meet Camilla the stewardess (I think she's probably not a stewardess but maybe the head of 'housekeeping' or whatever its called on a ship) whose job is currently to greet every guest and give them champagne as their stuff is whisked away.
We also meet another guest, Mr. Lederer, whose wife will very explicitly not be joining him. She's apparently having an affair.
Lo is in Cabin 9 (the Linnaeus Suite) and there's apparently a theme to the naming of rooms on the ship and if I knew anything at all about Scandinavian scientists this might be something that meant something to me.
But I don't.
The 'Nobel' suite is being occupied by Lord and Lady Bullmer who own the company that owns the ship. Lord Bullmer was the sort of noble whose family ran out of money and Lady Bullmer is apparently the actress who marries into nobility and brings along the money.
I'm sure their love is pure.
Jesus, every cabin has two stewards so they have around the clock service. Lo gets Josef and Karla.
I might murder someone to live on this boat.
Cabin 9 is lovely and light and appealing and all Lo wants to do is sleep so of course Josef spends a million years explaining all the amenities.
Also, formal dining every night?
NO. I would be in my pjs in the cabin just lolling about in luxury. Fancy dress.
NOPE.
Lo watches the ship cast off and watches the shore line retreat.
She checks her phone one last time, sort of hoping for a message from Judah because she's maybe not broken up with him (she definitely loves him too, she just has issues stemming from I know not what).
But of course there's nothing and then the signal drops and she's on her own.
"But there was nothing. The signal dropped by one bar, and then another, and the phone in my hand was silent. As the coast of England disappeared from view, the only noise was the crashing of the waves."
You know, so far this is a pretty basic book but some of the lines are just very lovely.
Okay, so going by Lo's count this is September 20. The attack was on the early morning of the 18th and she's been going for three days.
Which makes the date stamping on the end of this chapter concerning. We get an email from Judah dated September 22 asking if Lo is okay, he hasn't heard from her for a couple of days. And also him telling her that he loves her and misses her and basically just that he is waiting for her when she gets back.
We also get an email from Lo's boss dated September 23 asking for an update since no one from work has heard from her either and she hasn't turned in anything for her story. So we've got....three days of silence.
I'm sure this is fine.
Chapter 6 actually rolls us back to immediately after the last chapter ends, so we're back to the 20th of September.
Lo goes to take a shower and she's considering how expensive this whole damn everything is and how much she would have to work to actually pay for the week she's experiencing and there's a weird sound outside the shower in her room.
She *basically* doesn't freak out too badly for someone in her situation and scoots out of the shower to try and figure out what's going on.
'Was this what it was going to be like? Was I turning into someone who had panic attacks about walking home from the tube or staying the night alone in the house without their boyfriend?
'No, fuck that. I would not be that person.'
She maintains her cool while also maybe panicking a little on the inside, but she doesn't cower in the bathroom. She keeps telling herself not to be that person which is harsh. She had a frightening thing happen to her. She was in danger and she was hurt and she is not dealing with it at all and her telling herself not to be afraid is maybe what she needs to do to get through this but it is also, I think, not super helpful in the long run.
'I imagine burying my face in Judah's shoulder and for a second I nearly burst into tears, but I clenched my teeth and swallowed them back down. Judah was not the answer to all this. The problem was me and my weak-ass panic attacks.'
I don't have panic attacks. I just don't have that kind of brain chemistry. Which is not to say that I don't panic, but I just mean that I don't have personal experience of this kind of feeling. But I can't imagine that a therapist would be thrilled with Lo's self hate/degradation on this point.
Sure, 'nothing bad happened' could be said except that it's a lie. No, Lo wasn't raped. She wasn't beaten or murdered or a thousand other things that could have happened. But she was victimized. She was robbed and threatened and terrified for her life with no resolution and no time to deal with what it has done to her.
I don't think her being on edge is an overreaction.
Sure, she clearly has some sort of anxiety disorder already but that doesn't invalidate the anxiety causing things that are going on in her life.
There's no one in the room, her cabin door is double locked and it was probably just the motion of the ship that made the bathroom door move. So Lo empties a couple of the little mini bottles from the minibar.
I want to shake her.
Lo emails her mom, tries to write an email to Judah a couple of times, and FB messages a friend of hers.
She does eventually email Judah, and tells him that she loves him but it's certainly not the same as saying it to his face.
Lo starts to get all fancy for dinner and realizes that she's lost her mascara - it was in the purse that was stolen. So, after hearing a toilet flush in Cabin 10 (which is right next to hers in the butt end of the ship) she scoots over there to see if she can borrow some.
Which is...I also don't really wear makeup. Too many allergies so I don't bother. But please let me tell you how wigged out I am at the thought of using another woman's eye make up.
SO WIGGED.
NO.
NO.
Eye diseases!!! I don't know which ones, but EYE DISEASES.
Anyway.
Pretty, relaxed woman eventually opens the door and after being confused as to who the hell Lo is and what the hell she wants, gives her some mascara that she very specifically does not want back.
Me too, mystery lady. Me too.
And off we go, very fancy, to fancy ass dinner.
Next week.
Sunday, July 1, 2018
The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ch. 1-3
First book is going to be The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware.
I've read it before, but it's one that I enjoyed a lot. I loaned it to a co-worker recently and she loved it too. But she also talked about a couple of things that I couldn't recall happening, so I thought this would be a good candidate for the start of this.
Also, fair warning, this is never going to be a spoiler free blog. I'm talking about the book as I read it, so there will be spoilers as I go.
First line of the book:
"In my dream, the girl was drifting, far, far below the crashing waves and the cries of the gulls in the cold, sunless depths of the North Sea."
Lots of people say that the first line of a book sets the tone, and that's probably true but they don't tend to stick out or at least stick in my memory. I mean one exception is 'The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault.' from The Dresden Files but that involves magic and flying monkeys that fling fiery poo so...
Anyway.
We'll see if the first line suits the rest of the book.
There's a bit of a prologue? Maybe? Is one italicized page a prologue? IDK. Anyway.
Romantic description of a rotting dead body floating around in the ocean that turns out to be the dream referenced in the first line and then our POV wakes up to find that someone has broken(? - I mean I'm assuming here) into their room and written 'STOP DIGGING' on the bathroom mirror.
And then the book starts.
Chapter One starts by date stamping us - September 19.
We start with waking up and knowing that something is Not Right. I think that's something we all know, right? Maybe not the waking up, but we all have a very good sense of our space, of our territory and if someone has been in our shit we know it. I know I annoyed the shit out of family for years by knowing any time they came in and touched my books. Because it's my territory and I know when you've been at it, don't lie.
Something's off, the cat (Delilah) is in the bedroom and she should not be but maybe just drinks based forgetfulness? There's an instinct here that is telling the protagonist that Shit is Happening but she's hung over and sleepy and she's not sure so she rationalizes it all away and in spite of the fact that the Cat is Not Where She Should Be and the Bedroom Door is Magically Closed, she decides that this is all fine.
It is not, in fact, all fine.
"But when I opened the bedroom door, there was a man standing there."
Which is 100% terrifying - never mind that he's covered head to toe and wearing latex gloves - you open up a door in your house or turn the corner and someone who should not be there is there - or hell, you're just not expecting them to be there even if they're harmless and they belong, is wet your pants surprise territory.
But this dude does not belong.
He and Protag stare for a few minutes, and she wants to do a lot of stuff but us frozen in fear and then, when she realizes he has her purse which has her cell phone - a common problem now that didn't used to exist - we all rely so much on cellphones. And he comes towards her. There's a second where you think, and so does she, that maybe he's going to assault her - rape and murder is a real big and rational fear - but thankfully all he does is slam the door in her face.
The cat has peaced out into the rest of the apartment and with Protag trying to hold the door shut in case the guy should circle back around she can hear him trashing her apartment.
It's only when she can hear Delilah purring outside the bedroom door that she gets up the nerve to try and see if he's left - only to discover he's broken the door handle off? Or maybe just removed it somehow - this is set in Britain somewhere and maybe doors are different there? I'd think you'd hear the guy hammering off the other side of the door handle and would the inside bit stay on? I have not tested this to find out.
Two hours later, Protag has managed to McGuyver her way out of her locked bedroom - because it's an underground apartment there's no damn window without a security bar set up and here we run into my theory that rooms do not belong under ground. They are creepy and extra dangerous and unnecessary. That just seems like a damn fire hazard, to be honest.
Anyway.
Delilah is fine (thank you, no unnecessary animal deaths in my murders please) and Protag scoots her way over to the neighbor who, once awoken because this is all happening in the ass crack of the morning, gets her some tea (checks to ask if he...'hurt' Protag) and then gets her a phone to call the police.
We don't call British 911 because it's no longer an emergency since the guy is gone? Not sure if that's the right way to go, but I know I damn well would be calling 911 at least in part because it's the only number that would come to mind!
There's a good deal of men thinking that the poor little lady victim is just helpless and being condescending to her here. I mean maybe the locksmith means well, but he keeps asking if she can remember things to tell her husband to get fixed - hint, she's not married and she can remember a couple of numbers, thanks - and then once she tells him she's not married there's a reaction like, 'HUH. That makes sense then.' As if, had there been a man about, she would not have been robbed.
And THEN the weasely little officer who comes to take her statement just bangs away at her door like she hasn't just been traumatized in her own home and when she drops her tea cup makes a comment about whether or not there's a second robbery going on! I know that dark/gallows humor is a thing, but there's also being aware and considerate of the victim who cut herself getting out of her room and also has a cut on her face from being assaulted during the robbery - the door caught her in the face when he slammed it shut.
We find out that Protag's name is Lo and that she works for a travel magazine. A travel magazine she forgot to tell she wouldn't be in because of the robbery. There's bits about the big break assignment she's going on for this new luxury private ship (which might be important, given the title of the book) and there's some hints about how much this story is going to do for Lo's career.
She also, in these pages, decides to not mention the robbery to her boyfriend Judah - she just emails him to tell him that she lost her phone. He is currently out of town for work.
I'm sure this won't backfire on anyone at all.
There's hints that Lo might have some anxiety - not just from the attack but an anxiety disorder and maybe some claustrophobia given her stressing between closing the bathroom door to feel secure and her not wanting to feel trapped in a small space. There was also mention, earlier, of her medicine having been in the purse that the robber took but no exact prescription or diagnosis is given.
This is important because when Lo tries to get some sleep, she's unable to and turns to alcohol in an attempt to self medicate into something like rest. She drinks what seem like some pretty damn stiff gin and tonics and passes out - until Delilah wakes her up two hours later.
Tick through Saturday and Lo trying to get some prep done for the trip and then we're at Saturday night and sleep is not a thing that is happening. She decides that the best thing to do - no, she's not drinking again which is probably a good choice - is to randomly wander about the city in the middle of the night.
Seems legit.
"I should have felt afraid - a thirty-two-year-old woman, clearly wearing pajamas, wandering the streets in the small hours. But I felt safer out here than I did in my flat. Out here, someone would hear you cry."
Listen, this woman is so freaked out that she is wandering the streets of London in her pajamas in the RAIN. Rain that she didn't even notice until she was soaked through. This is a problem. There is some rough stuff going on in her brain right now and she does not have a safe space to just feel safe and not lose her shit even though she is trying damn hard to hold it together.
She is trusting random strangers in the middle of the night in a big city to keep her safer than she feels in her own home.
Girl.
Lo winds up in Judah's empty apartment, in his empty bed. She has stripped off her wet clothes in a rose petal like trail to the bedroom because she is just DONE and finally manages to get some sleep. Sleep that ends with screaming and someone on top of Lo and she brains them with a lamp.
Turns out 'someone' is Judah who came home to a trail of manky wet pjs and his girlfriend naked and screaming bloody murder in his bed. He tried to wake her up and well. It goes poorly for him.
One hospital trip later and he's got his lip stitched up, probably a decent shiner, and the hopes that the tooth the emergency dentist jammed back into his jaw will take root again.
Lo has to explain the whole thing, which maybe she could have just mentioned in an email or with the cell phone that she picked up in the mean time so he didn't just try to wake her the fuck up!
Okay, okay, I know, Lo is traumatized and she's just holding on to normal with her fingertips here but poor Judah had no idea because I feel like he would not have just hopped into the bed and then tried to grab her when she started having her nightmare if he'd had a clue.
So many things could be solved if people just talked and did what I told them to do.
Little bit of 'Hey, welcome home, sorry I brained you with your own lamp!' sex and then there's some tiny relationship drama where we find out that Jude (Judah's nick name) has asked Lo to move in with him before and he has actually turned down a job in America (he's American) to stay in the UK with Lo but that Lo keeps telling him she needs more time.
And this might, MIGHT, be putting a strain on their relationship.
And that's the end of the first three chapters. Mostly set up, giving us some info on Lo and what's going on with her in her 'normal' setting. It seems like we might also be getting some hints that Lo is not 'typical' so we'll see if that comes back into play later.
So far no murders!
Hopefully I'll be earlier in the day next week for the next three chapters. I'm sort of coming in under the wire with this one, but I made it and that's all that matters!
I've read it before, but it's one that I enjoyed a lot. I loaned it to a co-worker recently and she loved it too. But she also talked about a couple of things that I couldn't recall happening, so I thought this would be a good candidate for the start of this.
Also, fair warning, this is never going to be a spoiler free blog. I'm talking about the book as I read it, so there will be spoilers as I go.
First line of the book:
"In my dream, the girl was drifting, far, far below the crashing waves and the cries of the gulls in the cold, sunless depths of the North Sea."
Lots of people say that the first line of a book sets the tone, and that's probably true but they don't tend to stick out or at least stick in my memory. I mean one exception is 'The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault.' from The Dresden Files but that involves magic and flying monkeys that fling fiery poo so...
Anyway.
We'll see if the first line suits the rest of the book.
There's a bit of a prologue? Maybe? Is one italicized page a prologue? IDK. Anyway.
Romantic description of a rotting dead body floating around in the ocean that turns out to be the dream referenced in the first line and then our POV wakes up to find that someone has broken(? - I mean I'm assuming here) into their room and written 'STOP DIGGING' on the bathroom mirror.
And then the book starts.
Chapter One starts by date stamping us - September 19.
We start with waking up and knowing that something is Not Right. I think that's something we all know, right? Maybe not the waking up, but we all have a very good sense of our space, of our territory and if someone has been in our shit we know it. I know I annoyed the shit out of family for years by knowing any time they came in and touched my books. Because it's my territory and I know when you've been at it, don't lie.
Something's off, the cat (Delilah) is in the bedroom and she should not be but maybe just drinks based forgetfulness? There's an instinct here that is telling the protagonist that Shit is Happening but she's hung over and sleepy and she's not sure so she rationalizes it all away and in spite of the fact that the Cat is Not Where She Should Be and the Bedroom Door is Magically Closed, she decides that this is all fine.
It is not, in fact, all fine.
"But when I opened the bedroom door, there was a man standing there."
Which is 100% terrifying - never mind that he's covered head to toe and wearing latex gloves - you open up a door in your house or turn the corner and someone who should not be there is there - or hell, you're just not expecting them to be there even if they're harmless and they belong, is wet your pants surprise territory.
But this dude does not belong.
He and Protag stare for a few minutes, and she wants to do a lot of stuff but us frozen in fear and then, when she realizes he has her purse which has her cell phone - a common problem now that didn't used to exist - we all rely so much on cellphones. And he comes towards her. There's a second where you think, and so does she, that maybe he's going to assault her - rape and murder is a real big and rational fear - but thankfully all he does is slam the door in her face.
The cat has peaced out into the rest of the apartment and with Protag trying to hold the door shut in case the guy should circle back around she can hear him trashing her apartment.
It's only when she can hear Delilah purring outside the bedroom door that she gets up the nerve to try and see if he's left - only to discover he's broken the door handle off? Or maybe just removed it somehow - this is set in Britain somewhere and maybe doors are different there? I'd think you'd hear the guy hammering off the other side of the door handle and would the inside bit stay on? I have not tested this to find out.
Two hours later, Protag has managed to McGuyver her way out of her locked bedroom - because it's an underground apartment there's no damn window without a security bar set up and here we run into my theory that rooms do not belong under ground. They are creepy and extra dangerous and unnecessary. That just seems like a damn fire hazard, to be honest.
Anyway.
Delilah is fine (thank you, no unnecessary animal deaths in my murders please) and Protag scoots her way over to the neighbor who, once awoken because this is all happening in the ass crack of the morning, gets her some tea (checks to ask if he...'hurt' Protag) and then gets her a phone to call the police.
We don't call British 911 because it's no longer an emergency since the guy is gone? Not sure if that's the right way to go, but I know I damn well would be calling 911 at least in part because it's the only number that would come to mind!
There's a good deal of men thinking that the poor little lady victim is just helpless and being condescending to her here. I mean maybe the locksmith means well, but he keeps asking if she can remember things to tell her husband to get fixed - hint, she's not married and she can remember a couple of numbers, thanks - and then once she tells him she's not married there's a reaction like, 'HUH. That makes sense then.' As if, had there been a man about, she would not have been robbed.
And THEN the weasely little officer who comes to take her statement just bangs away at her door like she hasn't just been traumatized in her own home and when she drops her tea cup makes a comment about whether or not there's a second robbery going on! I know that dark/gallows humor is a thing, but there's also being aware and considerate of the victim who cut herself getting out of her room and also has a cut on her face from being assaulted during the robbery - the door caught her in the face when he slammed it shut.
We find out that Protag's name is Lo and that she works for a travel magazine. A travel magazine she forgot to tell she wouldn't be in because of the robbery. There's bits about the big break assignment she's going on for this new luxury private ship (which might be important, given the title of the book) and there's some hints about how much this story is going to do for Lo's career.
She also, in these pages, decides to not mention the robbery to her boyfriend Judah - she just emails him to tell him that she lost her phone. He is currently out of town for work.
I'm sure this won't backfire on anyone at all.
There's hints that Lo might have some anxiety - not just from the attack but an anxiety disorder and maybe some claustrophobia given her stressing between closing the bathroom door to feel secure and her not wanting to feel trapped in a small space. There was also mention, earlier, of her medicine having been in the purse that the robber took but no exact prescription or diagnosis is given.
This is important because when Lo tries to get some sleep, she's unable to and turns to alcohol in an attempt to self medicate into something like rest. She drinks what seem like some pretty damn stiff gin and tonics and passes out - until Delilah wakes her up two hours later.
Tick through Saturday and Lo trying to get some prep done for the trip and then we're at Saturday night and sleep is not a thing that is happening. She decides that the best thing to do - no, she's not drinking again which is probably a good choice - is to randomly wander about the city in the middle of the night.
Seems legit.
"I should have felt afraid - a thirty-two-year-old woman, clearly wearing pajamas, wandering the streets in the small hours. But I felt safer out here than I did in my flat. Out here, someone would hear you cry."
Listen, this woman is so freaked out that she is wandering the streets of London in her pajamas in the RAIN. Rain that she didn't even notice until she was soaked through. This is a problem. There is some rough stuff going on in her brain right now and she does not have a safe space to just feel safe and not lose her shit even though she is trying damn hard to hold it together.
She is trusting random strangers in the middle of the night in a big city to keep her safer than she feels in her own home.
Girl.
Lo winds up in Judah's empty apartment, in his empty bed. She has stripped off her wet clothes in a rose petal like trail to the bedroom because she is just DONE and finally manages to get some sleep. Sleep that ends with screaming and someone on top of Lo and she brains them with a lamp.
Turns out 'someone' is Judah who came home to a trail of manky wet pjs and his girlfriend naked and screaming bloody murder in his bed. He tried to wake her up and well. It goes poorly for him.
One hospital trip later and he's got his lip stitched up, probably a decent shiner, and the hopes that the tooth the emergency dentist jammed back into his jaw will take root again.
Lo has to explain the whole thing, which maybe she could have just mentioned in an email or with the cell phone that she picked up in the mean time so he didn't just try to wake her the fuck up!
Okay, okay, I know, Lo is traumatized and she's just holding on to normal with her fingertips here but poor Judah had no idea because I feel like he would not have just hopped into the bed and then tried to grab her when she started having her nightmare if he'd had a clue.
So many things could be solved if people just talked and did what I told them to do.
Little bit of 'Hey, welcome home, sorry I brained you with your own lamp!' sex and then there's some tiny relationship drama where we find out that Jude (Judah's nick name) has asked Lo to move in with him before and he has actually turned down a job in America (he's American) to stay in the UK with Lo but that Lo keeps telling him she needs more time.
And this might, MIGHT, be putting a strain on their relationship.
And that's the end of the first three chapters. Mostly set up, giving us some info on Lo and what's going on with her in her 'normal' setting. It seems like we might also be getting some hints that Lo is not 'typical' so we'll see if that comes back into play later.
So far no murders!
Hopefully I'll be earlier in the day next week for the next three chapters. I'm sort of coming in under the wire with this one, but I made it and that's all that matters!
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