Silver Elite: Chapter 28

[penwalla]

We’re jumping out of a plane tonight.

This is amazing.

Not that I’m enjoying myself. I’m really, really trying to remember that the Command is an enemy institution and I’m here to destroy it from the inside.

But…this is fucking amazing.

The night stretches out before me as I stand at the open door of the aircraft. The sound of the engines drowns out the rhythmic thudding of my pulse. Below us, the desert lies bathed in the silvery glow of the moon.

“This is fucking amazing,” Kaine shouts over the wind. His excitement matches my own.

Setting aside that we're read Wren express this same sentiment multiple times in the book already, this is too many uses of the word "amazing".

It's parachute drill time, and after encouraging Lyddie, Wren gets to jump out of a plane. She enjoys it immensely, and we get a Fourth Wing style "I. Love. This." which makes me want to die.

Then we get this very cringe banter between Kaine and Wren.

“I got you, cowgirl,” I hear, and then Kaine’s strong hand is there, steadying me.

“Thanks.”

His gaze fixates on my face, a grin on his lips.

“What?” I say.

“You should see your face right now. Orgasmic.”

Kaine, as you may recall, is the other love interest in this book. He is bland as hell, because let's be honest, Cross is the actual love interest of this book and Kaine is just there because love triangles are a genre staple. 

Next scene. The recruits are camping out in the desert tonight. Wren pauses to tell us she prefers Cross clean-shaven but doesn't mind his stubble. Those are her exact words. Then the recruits have to run an obstacle course. 

If you're wondering why my recaps are so short, it's because Francis spends like three paragraphs total in this chapter on the actual training they are doing. It's all very truncated. This is why the repetition in this book feels so egregious; the balance of stuff happening to internal monologue and dialogue is off.

So if this chapter barely has time for the grueling training the recruits are doing, and we're spending no time on this Kaine/Wren romance, and we're not doing anything with this brief scene after where the recruits talk about Betima...what's the bulk of this chapter?

You guessed it!

It's Wren watching Cross shower.

Wren hears a broadcast of the General announcing that they need to murder every Aberrant, and literally on the same page Wren runs into Cross at the showers and stands there gaping while he strips. And at no point on this page does she think about how Cross is a high ranked officer in the military trying to kill all the Aberrants. We got a scene a couple chapters back where the General berated Cross for not killing Aberrants, but has Wren thought about that even once? No.

Okay, do they not have sex-specific showers? Or at least officer-only showers? How is she able to just stand and watch her commanding officer strip?

Naturally, Wren also showers. They're naked in adjacent stalls. They ask each other about their sex lives. We are 55% through the book, and still, this relationship is nothing but banter and sexual tension. Like, that's it. They have never had even one moment of real vulnerability or connection. 

Nothing in this book ever happens.