The Quest for Skye: Chapter 39

Guys, we've made it.

We're on the very last chapter of this atrocity.

Without further ado, let's finish these last few pages.

Last we saw, Skye was dead (yay!) and everybody raved about how awesome she was.

The dedication of the new playground took place on what would have been Skye’s twelfth birthday.

Ya know what would have been nice? Building that instead of a zipline while she was alive. Ya know, giving her something that she actually asked for.

They're also dedicating a wing of the clinic to her, which is actually kind of nice and appropriate. Just before Morgan's about to head off to the dedication, his secretary asks him if he can talk with a couple whose daughter has just been diagnosed with Batten.

“I always have time for families of girls suffering with Batten. The dedication is in thirty minutes, so I’ll have to make it quick.”

These two sentences back-to-back amuse me. "I always have time! Except when I don't! Like thirty minutes from now! But aside from that, or any other time I'm doing anything, I have time for them!"

So she shows the couple in... and it's the reporter who Morgan and Lance the Tennis Player threw in clinic jail, and his wife who hacked their insecure computers and made all the girls with Batten die.

OH THE IRONY

Morgan considers not helping them at first, but then he remembers Skye and how nice she was, and decides he'll allow their daughter to be a patient.

He looked at the adorable child. Her jet-black hair wrapped around her face.

Um... like this?

Her parents followed, holding hands. They smiled at each other, finally having hope. They knew their child would have the best possible care in the world.

Though it is kind of too bad their hacking destroyed the future cure and all the current medication. So they really don't have THAT much more hope.

The Klitous' daughter is named Venus, because apparently all little girls with Batten have to be named after something above the earth. Skye's real name is even the name of a comet, in this book. Maybe Rothdiener is secretly obsessed with space. OH GOSH PLEASE LET HIM WRITE A SCI-FI STORY SOMEDAY THAT WOULD BE RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME AND HORRIBLE

So they go outside to the dedication...

Morgan’s face lit up when he saw Mrs. Scott. “I’m so glad you came, Mrs. Scott.”

Guys, that's Wheelchair Lady.

Morgan urges Skye to steal Mrs. Scott's photos, submit them as her own, and keep the $10,000 prize that Mrs. Scott deserves, and he dares to invite her to this dedication and look her in the eye?

Mrs. Scott smiled. “I was delighted to donate money toward this cause.”

...And he TOOK MONEY FROM HER?

Just one more chapter indicating that Morgan is the worst person on planet earth.

Mrs. Scott asks if she can move to the clinic because she's lonely. She does say she's rich, so I guess we don't have to feel bad about Morgan stealing thousands of dollars from her, but, ya know, Morgan's rich too now that he has all of Skye's money, so he certainly doesn't need it either. Morgan says, sure, she can move to the clinic.

Morgan gives a long speech to the crowd about how awesome Skye was. It's all the same stuff we've heard before, so I'm not going to quote most of it here.

He continued, “Many times Skye would tell me in that cute voice. ‘I think we should have a playground right here.’”

"And so I spent thousands of dollars installing a handicap-accessible zipline instead because I figured that was a smarter use of my daughter's money because I am an idiot."

Morgan went on, “It’s not a coincidence that we had this dedication today, Skye’s twelfth birthday. The ten thousand dollars that Skye won with her photo started this fund.”

UH.

And now he's flaunting it right in Mrs. Scott's FACE that they stole her photo from her.

So all the kids wander around and play in the playground, when this happens.

Their thoughts were interrupted by a small, but sassy voice. “Dude, can you please move... you’re blocking progress.”

Just to remind everyone, THIS is what Skye said when she first met Morgan: "Hey dude, you’re blocking progress. Either go in or step aside, please."

I commented at the time how weird it was that a little kid would phrase things this way. And now, lo and behold, we meet the second little kid who phrases things this way. Skye has clearly been reincarnated. Or maybe, since Skye is essentially Jesus, this new little kid is the equivalent of the antichrist?

The girl introduces herself as Samantha, doesn't have any idea who Morgan is (she asks if he works there), but apparently has Batten. I don't know what she's doing here, since she's clearly not a patient -- Morgan and Tammy don't know her. Did they just send out a worldwide invitation to all little girls with Batten and their families? Also, if this girl has Batten and is the same age as Skye, her disease should be way further progressed than this. The only reason Skye's wasn't was because her parents were giving her secret experimental drugs.

So, essentially, we have a Skye clone for no reason at all.

Or MAYBE Morgan's just hallucinating this little girl. That would be the most awesome answer of all.

Dr. Rozak approaches Tammy and talks vaguely about being shocked by the results of her physical (which she has not seen yet). Although we as the audience all know that, duh, she's pregnant, he decides not to tell her about her shocking results, instead giving a long rambly speech about how he's supposed to play Skye's video when a miracle happened. So he gives her the video camera with Skye's message, and she watches it, while displaying apparently no concern whatsoever about the fact that something about her physical health is shocking a doctor.

Skye essentially reveals Tammy's pregnant and says she prayed for it, and there's a lot of other annoying rambly Skye that I don't have the patience to snark (gosh, I hate this kid) so I'm just going to skip through it and continue on.

Noticing how distraught Tammy was, Morgan rushed to her expecting bad news. All she could do was hand him the doctor’s report, and replay the video. . . . He let out a loud breath, and shot a questioning look at his wife. Tammy nodded, confirming that the report was accurate.

Well, I mean, all they have to go on that the report is accurate is the report itself. It's not like they've done secondary testing or anything. So essentially she's just saying, "Yes, what you read is what I read too." That's fine, that's an appropriate response, but this paragraph makes it sound like Tammy's saying, "Why, yes, I have verified that the report is accurate by, um, feeling pregnant" or something.

Morgan closed his eyes. He could almost hear Skye’s laughter and see her in heaven . She was running through the park, flying her kite with dozens of butterflies following her. Her loving parents looked on.  

Gratefully, he raised his hands toward heaven, reaching for the Skye.

Once again... so much for God. It's not like HE was involved with this miracle or anything like that. Nope, it was all Skye.

And that's the end of this book.

We made it.

I never have to read about bouncy-haired girls ever again.

Although I may be subjecting myself to some more Rothdiener in the near future. His latest book in the series has just been released for Kindle, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to purchase it so I can tear it apart as well. It's not often I find such a treasure trove of awfulness.

I'll be taking a break from snark for a few weeks (probably until June, as I'm going on a long road trip at the end of this month and won't have so much blogging time) but then I have a few possible options for another snarky series. I'll be asking you guys for your opinions on what I should work on next, so keep an eye out here.

Thank you so much for following along with me on my journey of reading this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad book.

In the meantime, I have to figure out how to condense all my disdain for this book into normal-sized reviews for Amazon and Goodreads...