Be NICE

I just finished reading the chapter "rocks" and I gotta say I'm really feeling Jason, and not super feeling anyone else (except maybe Julia a little more than before). Mitchell does a really good job of weaving the scenes back and forth between the war overseas and the war raging in Jason's house. He does a really good job of capturing Jason's frustrations and make the reader really empathetic towards them. Reading about how Jason's mom and dad were being petty and sarcastic and just nasty towards each other made me want to gauge my brain out with a spoon, and part of the reason is because of the background of the war. The community just lost at least one member, a young member, and it feels like Jason's mom and dad don't even flinch. The rocks and stuff feel completely trivial in the light of how close the war is hitting home, and it's like Jason's parents can't get their heads out of their asses. 

Normally, it would be kind of fun to watch the verbal sparring, like with Julia and Uncle Brian in the earlier scene, but it's not. Both Jason's mom and dad are kind of witty, sarcastic, and that would be fun if it wasn't for the war that killed someone's son. Mind you, someone close in age to both of their children. 

Also, it's just frustrating to watch people who could be okay throw everything away just from stubbornness and lack of communication. Michael had a chance when Helena sat him down to talk about the finances, but instead he exploded. Helena had the chance with the mix-up about the delivery date. But instead, they chose to be spiteful and passive aggressive, and that gives me such a gross feeling. The solution to the problem isn't simple, no, but certainly there are better ways to make the situation better. 

To sum it all up, and to quote Jason, "I want to kick this moronic bloody world in the bloody teeth over and over till it bloody understands that not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more bloody important than being right"

So, if you're feeling passive aggressive towards someone or being spiteful or mean or whatever, please take a second to reconsider why you're doing it, if it's the best way to fix the problem, and if you can, just BE NICE for the love of the world. 

Apathy... not

Sylvie's way of life and outlook on life struck me as kind of admirable. Not that I'd like to be a person in her life, but that maybe having a little bit of her outlook in my life would probably relieve some of my stress. She kind of takes things as she goes and accepts whatever life throws at her. Life gives her lemons and she shrugs and eats them and is fine with it. It seems like the ultimate stress-free way to live, and that's super attractive as someone who is plagued by stress. However, there is a problem and I kind of foreshadowed it in the first sentence, as much as a paragraph can have foreshadowing; it's only good for yourself. For the people around you, apathy can become kind of horrible because it feels like you don't care about them. That's Lucille's problem with Sylvie; she thinks that Sylvie is apathetic towards the girls and feels she isn't cared for. Which is one of the worst feelings in the world, like when you're with a group of friends and it feels like it wouldn't matter if you were there or not. Just a really lonely feeling.
However, I don't think Sylvie's outlook on life is actually apathy, or at least not full-blown complete and total apathy. Sylvie is kind of just go-with-the flow taken to an extreme. It's clear that she does care about the girls. Why would she come back to Fingerbone if she was completely apathetic? If she truly didn't care, then she would have just kept moving with her life. It's not like Fingerbone is a big town either, and any harsh words that might be said about Sylvie would almost definitely never have any repercussions for her. She came back because she does care, she just doesn't know how. Why would she stay if she didn't care? Why would she do anything with the girls or try to play nice with them if she didn't care? She really isn't apathetic. She just doesn't know how to show that she cares. Her "go-with-the-flow" way of life and caring for others aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, as we can see at the end when Ruth goes with her.
I'm not saying that Sylvie's not to blame for Lucille leaving, however. Lucille desperately wanted someone stable in her life, and Sylvie definitely did not feel stable. Of course she left. She wanted to be cared for and Sylvie didn't make her feel cared for. This is the product of Sylvie's way of life being her double-edged sword - she clearly did care for Lucille, but the way that she cared for Lucille wasn't enough and it pushed her away.