Last time on the Summoning, Rae is really not a good influence.

I’M NOT KEEN ON ROMANTIC comedies. This may be like a guy admitting he doesn’t like car chases

Oh fuck off book.

This would be trite shit if the character wasn’t a film major. And while they’re not my favorite genre either, I do think there’s something sketchy about how female characters will so often go out of their way to say they don’t do some female-stereotyped activity, but male ones never do. Think, when was the last time you heard a male character saying he wasn’t keen on action flicks?

I stayed awake by deconstructing the screenplay, which was so predictable I’d bet my college fund the writer was a student of screenwriting guru Robert McKee.

…okay, so we’re finally getting detail, though it’s the same sort as the brand names, useless unless you already know what it is. And googling the guy suggests recognizing him doesn’t help – the majority of the criticism looks like it boils down to him not selling screenplays of his own, which, while valid, is very different than it being the reason there’s a set romcom formula. There’s a set romcom formula because that’s what the people producing the movies want.

So, I guess what we can take from this is that Chloe’s the sort of sheep that likes to think she’s original. Someone – a teacher, older film student, etc – insulted the guy for being popular while repeating basic advice, and she’s blindly repeating that opinion. This sort of superficial attitude fits well with how Chloe really doesn’t seem to know more than the bare basics of filming. (And book, you have no room to throw stones on the issue of popular hackwork vs real art.)

It’s also really boring.

See, things should be interesting. It’d be better to have Chloe actually have clever insights into movies, because hearing clever insights is interesting. At this point, complaining romcoms are predictable is more predictable than they are. Someone who actually watched a lot of them might have specific opinions about why it was so predictable, like how in this scene it’s like they were trying to pretend she’s going to end up with the other guy, but it’s badly done because of X and Y. Maybe she could talk about the casting choice, or the way the scenes are shot, or how this one part is obviously ripping off another movie. Or maybe Chloe just doesn’t care about romcoms and spends her time rewriting it to have more raptors, I’m not picky. (As a bonus for the author, this wouldn’t require any real knowledge – if Chloe’s not interested in the genre, her lack of specific comments about how the genre worked would then make sense.)

Now, sometimes you might want the point of this to be that the character’s actually not half as sophisticated or knowledgeable as she claims to be. But that still requires the clever insights to be there, because you should be deliberately contrasting how she says things (as if they’re super obscure special knowledge only film students think of) and what she’s actually saying (predictable genre is predictable). No one is reading books for banality. There needs to be something interesting about whatever you’re including.

(There also should be more to examining the movie than just the screenplay, considering she’s more interested in directing.)

Still, Chloe’s feeling better.

Talking to Rae had helped. She’d didn’t think I was crazy. She didn’t even think I was schizophrenic.

I can only assume the only reason Rae’s still allowed at the place when she not only doesn’t think she’s sick but convinces other people of the same thing is that they haven’t even noticed because these are obviously criminally negligent people.

Did the kids at school know what had happened to me? A few saw me run down a hall. More saw me carried out on a stretcher, unconscious. Big deal. I could return in a few weeks and most probably wouldn’t even notice I’d been gone.

Yeah, only two problems there. One, no, kids will be whispering and spreading rumors about that for long after you graduate, it’s how kids are. Two, you said you were screaming as you ran and whatever you did was enough to get three adults in the room with you within minutes, so even if only “a few” saw you, the entire school heard you.

Now, as to the real question of if she can return. I’d say it really, really depends on her school’s climate. Since she apparently goes to an unusually vicious art school, I’d guess no. So does the fact she thinks so badly of everyone else for being mentally ill, since she presumably has the same sort of beliefs as the other students. (That’d be normal for any kid her age, and we know Chloe in particular doesn’t have other adults in her life to be influencing her.)

Chloe’s brilliant plan is to email one of her friends and say she was sick.

That’s probably exactly what she heard, that I had something like mono.

…because adults normally lie about this kind of thing without any provocation? And mono, of all things?

I mean, I realize Chloe’s being hopeful here, but there’s a difference between hoping everyone would forget it and hoping the adults all gave out false information to cover up what happened and none of the parents who were told about Chloe’s breakdown said anything about how mono doesn’t make you sprint up stairs screaming about being chased and no one googled it.

Now, there are timeperiods where this kind of thing would be hushed up, but come on, in a twenty-first century city?

Chloe also reiterates her plan to act sane and lie to convince them she’s fine.

That night, Liz wakes her up. She’s scared, she knows she’ll be sent away. Liz, that’s the best possible outcome. If they put you in a real institution you’ll have actual nurses and doctors who know what they’re doing.

I don’t want to go, Chloe. They’ll lock me up and—

Liz, you’re already locked up. In fact, the average institution is probably bigger than the house you’re stuck in right now.

Anyway, Chloe sleepily agrees to helping Liz. And Liz starts pulling stuff out because she wants a séance.

“I have a poltergeist. It’s so obvious, but they won’t see it. They keep saying it’s me doing all this stuff. But how would I throw a pencil that hard? Did anyone see me throw it? No. I get mad at Ms. Wang and the pencil flies and hits her and everyone says ‘Oh, Liz threw it,’ but I didn’t. I never do.”

…Liz really does need help. I mean, I know that it’s supernatural so maybe there really is a ghost here, but this description is exactly what someone who’s mentally ill would say. One symptom is the sensation of having no control over your actions, and there are disorders can cause blackout periods as well. I’m not quite sure what’s the most likely diagnosis for her acting without realizing she’s doing it, but there are a number of disorders it fits into.

And the fact that, instead of recognizing that she’s obviously really ill, they’re insisting she’s lying, says that this isn’t a place for the mentally ill at all. It’s for troubled kids.

It actually fits quite well. Troubled kids can be treated similarly to mentally ill ones, but often worse, and with the underlying belief that the kids are simply spiteful and acting out for attention, which can be fixed by “tough love”. And it’s more socially acceptable in some circles than a kid being mentally ill, plus, instead of needing to give them consideration and accept they can’t control themselves, you can blame them for all the problems they caused you by not behaving like you wanted!

And that’s what’s happened with Liz.

The idea that it’s supernatural is honestly a really bad way of handling this, because it’s not. The ambiguity with a poltergeist is that it happens when no one’s there to see it. If objects were really moving without Liz touching them, then they wouldn’t think she was doing it. They’d have seen it as well.

Liz thinks the poltergeist is trying to protect her, and she wants to tell it to stop and she thinks the problem is she can’t talk to ghosts, but if Chloe can then she can pass the message along!

Chloe is less convinced.

Liz does not take this well. She starts yelling about how no one believes her.

The room goes nuts. Bottles shoot into the ceiling, pictures are thrown off the wall sending glass spraying everywhere (because when I think “safe environment for mentally ill kids, I think “lots of easily broken glass”). There is absolutely no way anyone could see this and not think it was supernatural.

I had no idea what was going on. Not a poltergeist though—that was nuts—but if she thought it was, then maybe if she thought I’d told it to stop, it really would stop.

…okay, what. Chloe just saw stuff moving around without being touched, but whatever the cause is, it isn’t a poltergeist. It’s probably aliens or fairies, because there are so many rational explanations for stuff moving without anyone touching it, unlike poltergeists, which only crazy people believe in.

The writing of this book is just awful. Given how everyone’s read the script, though, I’m going to guess that this means there’s some other cause than a poltergeist. Perhaps she’s a telekinetic mutant. If comics have taught me nothing else, it’s that women with mental powers go nuts under the strain all the time.

Anyway, that’s when mommy nurse appears. Chloe tries to claim that Liz didn’t do it, which is a lot dumber than what she should have said, which is holy fuck Liz didn’t touch a thing are you people blind hey Liz get mad again and show her.

Instead Liz cowers and says she didn’t mean to. No, Liz, just start getting mad about how it isn’t your fault! Show them! SHOW THEM ALL!

Miss Van Dop strode in, carrying a needle. She sedated Liz

Liz is not putting up a fight. This does not seem like a good idea. You can’t just randomly sedate people, it’s really not healthy. And it’s already clear that Liz’s normal behavior cycle is moment of upset followed by a long period of depression, so she’s not going to swing back into aggression immediately.

As I backed into the hall, a hand walloped me in the back, slamming me into the wall. I turned to see Tori looming over me.
“What did you do to her?” she snarled.
“Nothing.” To my shock, the word came out clear, defiant even. I pulled myself up straight. “I’m not the one who told her I could help.”
“Help?”
“By contacting her poltergeist.”
Her eyes went wide, with that same horrified expression as when Simon told her to stop acting like a bitch. She turned away and stumbled into her room.

Wow.

So I think that yes, the book wants me to see Tori as the evil mean popular girl, but she really doesn’t seem like a bad person. Yes, she shouldn’t be taking it out on Chloe, but she’s seeing her best friend taken away right after a new person appears.

But here Chloe blames Tori even though Liz was already going to leave if she couldn’t get control of whatever thing is doing this, even though she just saw Liz needs supernatural help, even though she did (inadvertently) cause Liz’s outburst, and best of all, even though she knows Tori wasn’t intending to cause trouble but cares about Liz and was honestly trying to help by telling Liz this.