Shatter Me- Chapter Ten- Good God, What Did I Sign Up For?!

Before we begin this chapter, there is something that must be said. And yes, I am posting this extra chapter before The Night Circus. Deal.

I have just finished rereading Shatter Me, and I must say: Earthlings, we are in for so much more emotional manipulation than I have said. Tahreh Mafi spends the first book making you join Team Adam and then spends the rest of the trilogy convincing you that you were an idiot for joining Team Adam. There a few chapters in Unravel Me and Ignite Me, two in particular, that I won't even be able to summarize. I'll just have to quote them in their entirety. In Shatter Me, though, during most of the romance between Adam and Juliette, I'll be warning everyone not to get too attached. It's not easy.

With that out of the way...

This chapter begins with Adam leading Juliette away from her future lover. It's obvious him saying her name still greatly affects her, but she refuses to take his hand.

Instead, he puts his hand on her back to guide her, and this also has a pretty serious effect on her. He tells her they're going outside, something she hasn't done for the better part of a year.
She's so amazed by the experience of being outside that she doesn't even get to metaphor.

She's brought back when Adam touches her, and now that there's no one else around, he can finally stop being an ass.

"'Are you okay?' His eyes surprise me. They're the same ones I remember, blue and bottomless like the deepest part of the ocean. His hands are gentle so gentle around me."

She continues lying to him about not wanting him to touch her. They go for a pleasant tank ride, and Juliette continues to silently spout exposition about The Reestablishment like a damn fountain. I'm not gonna bother to go over it. It's a carbon copy of every overpowering government in every dystopian YA novel, so believe me when I say there's no new information.

The tank ride ends at a building much larger than the asylum.
When she gets out of the tank, Adam is holding her waist, and she continues to pretend she doesn't like it that way. This is going to continue for another...nine chapters!? Are you kidding?!

Sigh...this chapter ends with them entering the building, where, after 54 pages I promise she'll stop being so stupid.

The Night Circus Chapter Twenty-Two will be up later today and next chapters of both will be up tomorrow. It's getting more difficult to keep writing on my phone like this. I think my fingers are suffering from cello withdrawals.

Shatter Me- Chapter Nine- Pretty Pretty Please Will You Torture People?

This chapter begins with Warner...well, I'll just quote it.

"'You are kind of a pet project of mine.' Warner smiles to himself. 'I've studied your records for a very long time.'"

Warner, you know I'm rooting for you, but just...

...Anyway, he goes on to explain that he put Adam with her as a cellmate to prove that she was able to interact with people.

He toys with the idea that Adam would be permanently supervising her, an idea she pretends to hate. Of course, Adam's still looking like an idiot in the corner.

Fortunately, he still does care about her, so it's very fortunate...for several reasons, that he's put in charge of her.

I'm skipping some rather useless dialogue, by the way, so if that matters to you, sorry. The main point: Warner wants Juliette to torture people for him, and he threatens to kill her if she doesn't. Not that he would, of course, he's in love with her already.

This chapter ends with him tossing Adam some gloves so he can touch her (even though he doesn't actually need them), touching her face a bit with his own gloves (even though he doesn't need them either), and then telling Admam that she's "his charge now."

I plan to post the next chapters of both this and The Night Circus later today. Enjoy it.

The Night Circus- Part Two (Illumination): Chapter Twenty-One (Chaperoned) - It's Just Magic. No Biggie

Warning: today I return to Las Vegas. Things may fall out of the nice limbo they have been in while I've been in Arizona.

This chapter begins with Celia babysitting Poppet and Widget. Because of their...odd...lifestyle, the twins spend most time running around a massive "backstage", supervised whenever they leave.

She isn't usually assigned to watch them, but like most everyone who visits or is entangled with Les Cirque de Reves, they are fond of her. 

Of course, because she is drawn as much to Marco as he is to her, she spends quite a bit of time in his lovely Ice Garden. By this point, you think she'd at least ask Chandresh whose tent it is, considering she spends the majority of her free time there.

However, she is in charge of two energetic children (which sounds redundant), and they aren't willing to walk as slowly as she is. They ride the Carousel a few times and Widget demands popcorn in that childish way that they thankfully grow out of quite soon.

And then we get a glimpse into some unexplained magic. We never figure out who can and cannot use magic, whether it's genetic or intelligence based or just luck of the draw, etc., etc.

Poppet comments to Celia about not wanting a "nice lady to die," to Celia's justified confusion.

She tells Celia that she saw it in the stars, and that Widget can see things on people.

"'Places they've been,' he says. 'Stuff they've done.'"

Celia, who is taking this well, asks Widget to read her.
He begins, but stops, claiming she "made it go away." 

She has a little mental soliloquy about the bonfire before turning back to the twins. She tells Poppet to tell her if anything important turns up in the stars.

This chapter ends with Celia offering to give them lessons, and thankfully her interpretation of the word "lessons " is very different than her father's.

Shatter Me Chapter Nine will be up later today, and God willing, next chapters of both will be up at a reasonable time tomorrow.

Shatter Me- Chapter Eight- Adam, You Bastard!!!/Enter Guy #2

This chapter begins with more of Juliette glossing over important things. This time? 48 hours of unconsciousness.

She wakes up after two days in a room marginally bigger than her previous hellhole, and doesn't even have time to metaphor before a soldier is forcing her somewhere else.

And then, there's Adam, who's become the devil.

"Adam is pointing a gun at my chest." 

This is a weird bit of plot that I'm not sure is actually going to be resolved, so...

Moving on from...this....Adam the bastard, in a turn of irony, leads her to the person she's going to leave him for: Guy Number Two, whose wonderful name (Warner, not gonna say his first name because it won't come up for a couple hundred pages) is unfortunately associated with hatred for now.

Juliette's reaction to seeing him is decidedly better than her reaction to Adam.

"He's beautiful."

But still, he's the one in charge of all those soldiers.

"I hate him."

The feeling is, for about another book and a half, unfortunately shared by me and most people who didn't read the wiki and ruin it for themselves.

He shames her a bit before turning to Adam, who is quite deferential to him considering how they treat each other in Ignite Me. But we'll get to that later, much, much,  later.  Juliette, though she is hating both of them, is apparently enjoying the eye candy, and I can't say I blame her.

"Adam says nothing. He doesn't look in my direction. His body is erect, 6 feet of gorgeous lean muscle, his profile strong and steady. The same arms that held my body are now holsters for lethal weapons."

Juliette asks if Warner is going to kill her, which of course he isn't because he loves her in the way Marco lobes Celia without knowing her.

This chapter ends with Warner proposing some unintentional torture.

"I manage to lift my head.
'I have a proposition for you.'"

Next chapters of this and The Night Circus will be up tomorrow.

The Night Circus- Part Two (Illumination): Chapter Twenty (Tasting) - Not Enough to Make a Better Title

This chapter begins with the best clockmaker in the damn universe returning. 

On holiday in France, Herr Thiessen is told of a clock at a circus's gates that is reminiscent of his work. I wonder what circus it is?

Upon joining the crowd outside the gates, he is pleased to see that the best clock in the whole damn universe is doing well. 

When he tells the woman at the ticket booth that he made the clock, she gets all jittery and refuses his money, and gives him the circus's business card along with his ticket.

Herr Thiessen, as I forgot to mention earlier, loves fine wine, and a tent he visits called Drinkery is the reason for the name of this chapter. 

He doesn't enter very many tents, but like most people, he absolutely loves the circus by the time he leaves. He returns twice, this time paying. 

Obsessed, he writes a very long letter to Chandresh about how much he loved it, and is disappointed when the letter he receives doesn't include the circus's location. Of course, there won't be Internet for another hundred years or so, so unless the circus decides to come to Germany, he has to fulfill his addiction another way.

His clocks begin to resemble the best clock in the whole damn universe, and according to Morgenstern, the wild cat tamers managed to get their hands on some snow leopards. It's a good thing the EPA won't be founded for a long time, either (about eighty years).

This chapter ends with Thiessen underestimating his ability to make the best clocks in the whole damn universe.

"Though he fears he never does the circus justice in these clockwork tributes."

Shatter Me Chapter Eight should be up before midnight, and next chapters of both will be up tomorrow.