[Report This]Date: November 13 2022 2:31 AM Title: Old Habits
The juxtaposition between Carmen backing up the nerds in the meeting and how she treats them later in the chapter is interesting. She doesn't understand that when they say 'no' to her, it's just as earnest as the 'no' they gave to Richard. She thinks about them completely differently.
It totally makes sense why Melinda took risks with who she allowed to get the gene therapy. Being around situations like the Seacourts on a regular basis would make almost anybody want to help if they could. Really sucks about her husband as well, it would be devastating to walk away unscathed from an accident that took a loved one. I think I'd carry a lot of survivor's guilt if something like that happened to me, even though I know it's irrational.
Author's Response:
Carmen is struggling with some different feelings towards our other protags, in some ways she's grown since she last saw them, in other ways she hasn't, or hasn't enough. Melinda was stuck in a difficult position at the beginning of the gene therapy, obviously most people would not want someone like Carmen having superpowers, on the other hand the number of sad stories that can be prevented makes it difficult to turn anyone down, particularly early on when they didn't have as many. Melinda carries a lot of guilt for a lot of things that happened, even with healing powers and all that strength sometimes tragedy still strikes.