Status Updates From Lightening Strikes

All this shit with her brother wanting to fuck her is just annoying. It's not tragic or creepy like a VC Andrews incest plot line SHOULD be. It's at best kinda icky.

Ok, I know some crazy bullshit is happening to Rain, so it is not entirely untrue that she might have been better off in the projects than where she is, but Roy doesn't yet know that. He is saying that because her room is small. It seems insane to say that she'd be better off two doors down from the guys that killed her sister because her room is small.

Do you think Neiderman realizes that the girl he wrote to be smart comes off quite stupid?

I swear to god, NOTHING affects this girl for more than 8 seconds. She just found out her coworker was impregnated by their boss who forced her to do creepy age play of his dead daughter, and that same boss is now forcing her to play act as his dead daughter and tonguing her. And she's like, "I'm such a silly worry wart 🤪 Time to go audition for the play! I'm going to have fun 😊"

"Wasn't that the same dream Boggs had for Mary Margaret" sure but what you're forgetting is that your mother did not force you to do creepy age play with the man who employed you both so that you would get pregnant.
Like there WERE other options here. And Mrs. Chester said she was making decent money, so how the hell is Boggs not making decent money if he's above her?

"Give him the same moment of pause you'd give a struggling man back home." None? None at all? Why are we acting like Rain was so kind and empathetic to the others in the projects? Not that she SHOULD give a moment of pause to someone selling his daughter. I'm just saying. Pointing out that Boggs is like the men back home doesn't make sense here because she never had a kind word for them.

Fucking A, was the entire first book just dumb bullshit? I can't even call it exposition for this book, because almost nothing that happened in the last book is relevant to this one. He shouldn't have written it; he should have just jumped straight to this one. THIS is what I'm talking about! We're in "bad, but enjoyable" territory!

See we're getting the creepy depravity that the last book lacked. I'm into it. But the thing stopping me from being really into it is that literally all she has to do is call up granny and say please pay for me to live in the dorms your BIL is a freak. She would do it so fast and Rain knows that.

IDK if it's Rain suddenly lauding America is the greatest country on earth and acting mad that other countries have different customs, the fact that some of her comebacks make no sense and are response to something that wasn't an insult, the fact that she's way too hard on her parents, or the fact that more time is spent on the pettiness than on the actual creepiness, but I'm starting to enjoy her new spine less.

Ok, am I really expected to believe that the rich English woman who regularly attends plays somehow has never heard "all the world's a stage?" *Mean Girls voice* everybody in the English speaking world knows that quote.

"I don't believe in my fairy godmother anymore. Some gang member in my old neighborhood mugged her." Ok I haven't to admit that was almost funny. But it's so clunky. He keeps writing "gang member" in a way I've never heard spoken. Like doesn't this girl know the names of the gangs in her old hood?

So in an effort to not be racist, our boy Andy has decided that when black girls from the ghetto sleep around, it's because they're evil sluts, but when wealthy white girls from Paris do it, it's because they're sophisticated.

So first of all, am I expected to believe these girls have never seen an alcoholic homeless person before? Second, girl just say "no thanks" next time all right don't kill everybody's vibe trauma bragging.

So I know au pairs aren't supposed to work crazy long hours because the whole idea is for them to go to school and experience a new country. But Boggs is supposed to be defying that rule and working her to the bone. How does she have so much time to galavant around London on top of her rigorous studies and white glove cleaning.

Ok. So.
I do like that unlike with the last book, we appear to actually be building towards a climax in which a secret is revealed. With the last book it was "here are 80 bad things happening to Rain. None of them get more than 5 sentences of explanation and absolutely no emotional toll. Now here are 300 pages of her living with her grandma and dusting. Ok one more bad thing." So this is progress.

Hold up.
Some guys were singing a pub song, bro joined in, and not only could they hear and differentiate his angelic voice from the others despite the nature of pub songs being notoriously loud and raucous, but they actually cared that his voice was angelic.
It's a pub song, Neiderman. If anything, having proper vocal training is a detriment to pub songs.

MIDDLE CLASS?????? THIS RICH KID'S MOM THINKS THEY'RE MIDDLE CLASS???????

Once again, I am glad Rain is standing up for herself, however, she seems to have no sense of priority. She barely responds to vile insults and gets enraged over like... normal questions. Also her enraged comments sometimes make no sense. It'll be some shit like "How was your day?" said Girl. "Just fine!" I said, really getting in her rude, snobby face. Like girl that was a normal interaction. Calmate.

"...if it wasn't for his lover, this might not be here...thank heavens for little girls, eh?" What a creepy thing to say about a grown woman who was MARRIED to the man the man they're calling her a lover of.

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad Rain is standing up for herself. But I don't get why she doesn't pull the ultimate power move and just like...quit. Like she can call up her granny and say, "Your sister's head servant acts like a slave driver. The school you're sending me to has dorms. I want to just live in the dorms." Granny would either set that up or find a way to kill Boggs. Problem done.

Girl who spent the majority of her life in DC "wow it's so weird to see foreign dignitaries!"

Love how she says the guy next to her is reserved because he doesn't talk to her much but she is also not talking to him much. In fact he initiates the only (two sentence) conversation that they have.

Didn't she fly to see her mom before she died? Or am I tripping?