Zoey Is Too Drunk for This Dystopia (Zoey Ashe #3)

by Jason Pargin

He went into the bathroom and gathered clothes from the floor. “I know more about you than you think,” he said while fishing out his toilet sock. “I don’t mean intel I looked up to pull this job, I mean I know where you’re coming from. I know your mentality.” “I don’t doubt that you think you do.” “How’s this: You hate that men find you most desirable when you’re naked. Because it makes it seem like none of your choices matter, that everything you’ve done to express yourself, the hair, the clothes, the attitude, isn’t enough to drive a man crazy, that the kind of attraction men show you would be the exact same if your personality vanished and you were just a Zoey-shaped sex doll.” “Jaw-dropping.” “But it’s more than that,” he said, stepping into his underwear. “Because it’s really about power. If a woman is hot, I mean the kind where she can walk into a room and instantly change the vibe—” “Like Echo.” “Yeah. Their world is full of men who wish they could have them but can’t. That’s real power, it follows them everywhere. It means that any man who has her, or is just allowed to be around her, instantly has social currency. She’s proof of his success, his worthiness—she dictates status by who she grants her company to. You think what you have just isn’t the same, right? It’s power over guys who want to get with you but it’s the kind of power a cheeseburger has over somebody on a diet, it goes away as soon as it’s sated. I bet you hate how when you’re dating, they always hav...