Last time on Brainslugs and the Hosts Who Hate Them, Melanie II has decided to seek the advice of the healer, because all evidence points to her needing to switch hosts as soon as possible, but on the other frond, the seeker told her that and she’d rather die than admit the seeker’s right about anything.

This chapter opens with that seeker boggling at her decision to drive the whole way.

“You’ve traveled through deep space eight times and you’re afraid to take a shuttle to Tucson, Arizona?”
“First of all, I’m not afraid. Second, when I traveled through deep space I wasn’t exactly aware of where I was, what with being stored in a hibernation chamber.

“I’m not afraid, I’m just saying, if I was afraid, there’s the fact the shuttles are way scarier than the other thing. I mean, if they were scary.”

The seeker also doesn’t get why she wants to visit that exact healer, which is because there really is no reason.

“I’m comfortable with Healer Fords. He has experience with this, and I don’t trust that I have all the information I need.” I gave her another significant look.
“You don’t have time to not hurry, Wanderer. I recognize the signs.”
“Forgive me if I don’t consider your information impartial. I know enough of human behavior to recognize the signs of manipulation.”

Hey, remember how souls don’t lie?

She glowered at me.

I… Melanie II, I don’t think that’s what she’s doing. I think she is noticing you are ascribing motives to her that only make sense from a human outlook where people lie all the time. She is recognizing that pointing this out is futile because you’ll just brush off the fact it makes no sense not to believe her with the fact you refuse to believe her on that either.

I imagined her joining me every time I stopped to eat, hovering outside gas station bathrooms, her inexhaustible inquisitions waiting for me whenever my vehicle paused at a light. I shuddered at the thought. If a new body meant freeing myself of the Seeker… well, that was quite an inducement.

Yes, it’s very nice of her to do that for you.

She also considers just giving up and going to another place.

Earth could be just a short blip in my otherwise spotless record.

Hm. And does that have anything to do with qualifying for motherhood? If she screws up, will she have to prove herself over again?

Then she considers what planets to go to. She thinks of the bat planet and the flower planet, but one involves blindness and chlorophyll-based life-forms had so little range of emotion but I thought the see weeds were emotional?

Then she considers a new planet.

There was a recent acquisition–here on Earth, they were calling the new hosts
Dolphins for lack of a better comparison, though they resembled dragonflies more than marine
mammals.

THEN WHY AREN’T THEY CALLED DRAGONFLIES GOD DAMN IT BOOK I GET THAT THEY’RE NOT PERFECT MATCHES BUT IF THEY LOOK LIKE DRAGONFLIES BUT SWIM YOU’D SAY THEY’RE CALLED DRAGONFLIES FOR THEIR LOOKS BUT ACTUALLY THEY’RE MORE LIKE DOLPHINS THIS SHOULD NOT BE HARD.

Anyway, they seem okay but she doesn’t want another water planet after being stuck on one so long. And apparently that’s the only other option, so I guess the only planets she hadn’t been on before were this one and the fire planet.

So, I think she’s been on eight planets, with this her ninth? That would mean the total number of planets the brainslugs control is just eleven. That’s surprisingly restrained and reasonable, book. There might be another one or two in there that she missed out on, because it seems like the planets fill up and then stop being colonized, but I’d think she’d mention those.

Melanie II says Melanie I has been quiet.

Was she trying to seem less dangerous, less of a burden? Was she preparing herself for the invasion of the Seeker? For death? Or was she preparing to fight me? To try to take over? Whatever her plan, she kept herself distant.

She says that she’s only left a brief explanation that she’s had to stop her classes indefinitely.

I felt guilty about not finishing out my commitment to him, almost like I was already skipping. Perhaps this step, this quitting, was the prelude to my next decision, my greater shame.

So skipping is an issue of responsibility? But who’s the responsibility to? At first it seemed like to the host, but they discard damaged ones without any issue and apparently they’re going to keep catching wild humans even though they can’t do anything with them. She’s made one reference to the world being better off with brainslugs involved because they’re not so violent, but she doesn’t seem particularly concerned in convincing her own host that she should be happy like this, just annoyed by the human.

Maybe there really isn’t any underlying reason and it’s just a matter of plot fuckery.

She then tells us that humans are the only host she’s experienced that’s able to experience superstition, something she’s mysteriously positive toward. Yet more evidence for us being unusually primitive. Though I wonder if the fire planet creatures might be similar – failing to realize something else even feels pain and suffering seems like it’s not particularly smart or given to thinking rationally. Even we’ve mostly outgrown that attitude.

I climbed into the car. I hadn’t done much driving, and neither had Melanie, so this made me a bit nervous. But I was sure I would get used to it soon enough.

Um. This seems an awful lot like something there should be laws against.

See, this could easily have been solved by showing her having to go to classes of her own to improve her human host. We skipped over months of acclimation. Maybe the classes are even part of what’s making it difficult, because so much is being learned by the host brain and that’s keeping Melanie engaged. We’d learn about brainslug-human vs original flavor human society and we’d learn how learning is divvied up between the two brains (and if humans are working differently than usual).

Anyway, the seeker says she’ll see her at their destination and Melanie II raises the window on her. I’m betting that at the destination, the seeker’s going to be waiting with a detachment of other seekers to bring her in. You’re not even faking it badly by now, Melanie II.

Melanie II gets on the road. She wishes the trip was even longer, and then considers stopping for the night midway along – not to avoid the seeker, but because it makes her happy to think of the seeker being forced to wait. Why are all YA protagonists raging dicks? You’d think I could get away from this when I’m reading about harmony brainslugs.

She says she finds it surprisingly enjoyable, which she’s worried is a bad sign.

Souls were sociable. We lived and worked and grew together in harmony. We were all the same: peaceful, friendly, honest. Why should I feel better away from my kind? Was it Melanie who made me this way?

Okay, so snapping at your students over nothing isn’t an issue. The fact you’re suspicious and nasty toward another soul isn’t an issue. The fact you hate that soul for trying to do her job and catch humans isn’t an issue. The fact you have zero interest in making friends with anyone and actively avoid the one person you’re supposed to talk to isn’t an issue. The fact you’re lying by omission and trying to edit the truth to mislead to those two (and I’m not really sure letting the host possess you to lie and then doing a fake laugh to pretend it’s you and then discouraging further lies from your host on the basis it would make the seeker realize she’s been lied to counts as anything but an outright lie yourself). The fact you went into a blind rage at the idea of her boyfriend being brought in isn’t an issue. Enjoying being alone is your first clue maybe something’s a bit off?

Melanie I is daydreaming of happier times.

There was a cabin, an ingenious dwelling tucked into a nook in the red sandstone, perilously close to the flash flood line. An unlikely place, far from any trail or path, built in what seemed a senseless location. A rough place, without any of the conveniences of modern technology. She remembered laughing at the sink one had to pump to pull water up from the ground.

Hm, that does sound like a good hiding place. And maybe the brainslugs actually are fixing up the environment a bit if old wells can still access groundwater in desert areas.

(It cannot be said enough how fucked we all are.)

Anyway, she thinks this is so super awesome.

I hear Jamie’s laughter echo through the narrow canyon as he runs ahead of us. His black hair bounces with his body. He bounces all the time now, this thin boy with the sun-darkened skin. I hadn’t realized how much weight those narrow shoulders were carrying. With Jared, he is positively buoyant. The anxious expression has faded, replaced by grins.

I don’t think there’s really any sexism here – the basic trope always plays out where protagonist and company run into someone better prepared and their lives improve for a while – but Jared being their perfect savior just sort of bugs me on a low, nagging level.

Part of why the place is safe is his dad built it without going through any official channels. I would like if there was something in the description acknowledging it’s lacking in certain important requirements as a result – possibly that’s what near the flood line means, but that seems a feature under the circumstances. I don’t even mean this as a pedantic thing about always obeying the law, I’d just really like the place to have slightly more to it than being perfect in every way.

Also, on the nagging sexism level, specifically his dad and brothers built it. If he had sisters, they weren’t involved and neither was his mother, who he definitely had.

She says he touches her a lot, always seeming to need to reassure himself that I am here which is the sort of level of creepy that would have been acceptable in a way the kiss really, really wasn’t.

I’m then reminded that Twilight did have its vaguely sex-positive bits in that it acknowledges women have libidos of any kind by her going on about how Does he realize what it does to me, the simple pressure of his warm palm next to mine? and wondering why he hasn’t kissed her and maybe she should just kiss him. (Words, people. Use your words.) Interestingly, she hesitates for fear he might not like being kissed out of the blue. Acknowledgement such a thing isn’t a good idea or double standard? I can’t say.

They sit together thinking about how beautiful it is and then she looks in to see her brother sleeping on the bed and is so happy he has this. Apparently there’s only a single one despite it being built by a father and his sons. She goes back to discuss how she feels bad taking his bed and maybe he and Jamie should share it while she gets the couch.

He says it’s no big deal and he’ll just get a cot next time he’s out, so then she worries about him leaving and then she says that if he does, he has to take her. And he doesn’t argue.

This book is really meeting my cautious optimism.

“I’ll admit, I prefer it that way. The thought of being separated from you…” He laughs quietly. “Does it sound crazy to say that I’d rather die? Too melodramatic?”
“No, I know what you mean.”

Look at how they appear to be equals, instead of him saying he loves her so much she should stay behind, or that he’d totally love to take her but that’d be selfish, or anything. He feels exactly the same was as she does – going out is scary but being left behind is worse. Jamie, who is an actual kid, might stay behind and be protected, but she isn’t the same.

Anyway, she says that, um, speaking of going out and getting stuff, what if…instead of him getting the cot…they put Jamie on the couch…and the two of them…in bed. Surprisingly good show here, book.

“You don’t owe me that, Melanie. You don’t owe me anything at all.”

He’s actually doing a lot to redeem himself after the whole kiss and tackle and other kiss. And then he says that just because we’re the last man and woman on Earth… and I’m not the kind of man who would expect… You don’t have to…” and wow book, I am really impressed by how you are actually running through all of my initial problems with this. Go you!

Anyway, she manages to awkwardly explain that no she really wants to fuck him, I mean, “be with” him and yeah he feels the same.

Melanie. Right now, if I was given the choice between having the world back and having you, I wouldn’t be able to give you up. Not to save five billion lives.”
“That’s wrong.”
“Very wrong but very true.”

Which bleh, but standard romance. I am disappointed we aren’t getting Melanie II’s thoughts here, though – if she’s so far gone this doesn’t even register, maybe there’s not even that much distinction between the two left.

Anyway, time for him to explain why this is not a thing that can happen. To my knowledge that’s what happened in Twilight too. I don’t know, as messages go, boyfriends telling girls not to have sex with them is not really the worst way to go about it.

Anyway, first off, age difference! He is an ancient twenty-six year old while she is one year under California, porn capital of America,’s age of consent.

Then…he actually mentions the thing that cannot be named.

there are some… practical matters to consider.”

Yes.

“See,” he explains, hesitating. Under the deep golden tan of his skin, it looks like he might be blushing. “When I was stocking this place, I wasn’t much planning for… guests. What I mean is…” The rest comes out in a rush. “Birth control was pretty much the last thing on my mind.”

We have a couple discussing the fact they need to get birth control before fucking.

The only other book that’s mentioned this stuff even exists is Graceling. Battle Royale had it as a background assumption as well, but that’s because Japan’s crazy has never really been about nonreproductive sex the way America’s is.

In fact, let’s list our YA so far:

A Great and Terrible Beauty: Not mentioned but that makes sense for the timeperiod.
Battle Royale: Background assumption.
Darkest Powers trilogy: Not mentioned, not really a core issue.
Eon Rise of the Dragoneye: Not mentioned, does have rapey subplot.
Graceling: OUR WINNER
Hunger Games: can’t marry babies will get me. Catching Fire: Marriage equals babies. Mockingjay: Babies are a thing that happens.
Matched: Not mentioned despite super controlled world and plot revolving around romance.
Seeds of Wither: So much nope.
Unwind: Hope you enjoy being pregnant, whores.
Wither: no anything babies will get me

And the thing is, Graceling had its own host of weird sex issues. Here, her only issue is being embarrassed, which, she’s seventeen and has been on her own for years, that makes perfect sense. It’s not even humiliated to be talking about the stuff so much as the general awkwardness of not knowing how the other person feels – as soon as she knows he likes her, she loses a lot of her discomfort and goes straight to wanting him to stop stalling.

They then further consider that not only do they not want to get pregnant the first time they have sex, but in fact they don’t want to have any babies, ever, because this is a horrible world to have a child in. Wow. So not only will they be having non-reproductive sex, it won’t even be a prelude to reproductive sex.

Anyway, he then gets back to feeling nervous about the sex itself and points out they’ve been together a mere month.

“We’ve got time he says, but instead of reassuring her this just reminds her of how precarious their lives are: “You can’t know how much time we’ll have. You don’t know if we should be counting in months or days or hours.”

But he says he’s sure because finding her was a miracle, so he can’t lose her now.

Her thought sighed faintly in my head: You never know how much time you’ll have.
The tears I was crying belonged to both of us.

So…

I was expecting this to be interesting because it looked not Twilight unreadable and had a good premise, but this was a legitimately great chapter. As much as I am shocked to be saying this, I think this is perhaps the best depiction of a relationship we’ve seen in all this – the idealized male love interest is all concerned about not pressuring her into doing what she doesn’t want, recognizes and fears a power imbalance and makes it clear she shouldn’t feel she has to pay for anything with sex. The age difference at least has a bit about being different when you’re in a post-apocalyptic world (and it makes sense that she wouldn’t stumble on someone who’s also the same age – it’d be nice if for once it wasn’t the younger woman/older man setup, but there’s no chance of that), and their concrete concern is getting their hands on some form of birth control before doing anything.

And then it concludes with the brainslug-personality-overwrite issue coming to a head with the memory repeating without any commentary and both of them feeling the same emotions with it. There are so many things here that our main protagonist would have cared about when she was inserted in the first chapter, and none of them even come up here.