Eduardo has finally moved in with Mark and everyone else in California. He notices computers everywhere in the room. When he finally gets back to Harvard, it is his final year in university so he reduces his class in order to focus on Facebook. Mark seems a bit angry with Eduardo because of the fact that Eduardo froze the bank account. Mark then retaliates by proceeding with the investor meetings that were against Eduardo's wishes. Right now, Facebook is at almost a million users (750, 000 specifically) and Mark thinks that Eduardo should back off a little while he also contributes to the business aspect of Facebook. While Eduardo was in New York and Mark in California (Mark has dropped out of Harvard and now lives in California), Eduardo had added some special features like a "wall" where people would communicate with one another. There were also groups for people to join and create, an idea suggested to Mark by Eduardo.
Eduardo is in front of Facebook's lawyers who have presented him a deal that they wish for him to sign. The document supposedly curtailed Mark's ownership of Facebook, down to 51% while Eduardo owns 34% and Sean Park would have 6.47% while Dustin would have 6.81%. Eduardo thinks that he is being included especially when Mark invites him to a party that will be held in California when Facebook has reached a million users. Soon after, Eduardo receives an email from Mark requesting for him to come down to California for an important meeting and to train someone who would help with the business aspect of the company. In the email, it states that Dustin is selling a part of his share and Sean Parker had received 2 million dollars profit from Facebook. Bewildered, Eduardo goes to California with the intentions to ask Mark how it's possible Dustin and Sean are doing all of this when they are not a big part of the company. When he comes, he meets with Mark and lawyers. The lawyer basically tell him that he would be expunged from Facebook and he has almost no shares. He feels extremely betrayed by Mark as he is also told that Sean is now the new vice president of Facebook.
Meanwhile, Sean Parker takes Mark to an important meeting but requests that he acts like a "diva". He tells Mark to show up to the meeting 15 minutes late while wearing pajamas and to act like he doesn't care because he runs the show and everyone wants to be a part of it. Eduardo is back at Harvard - graduating and he could not be more proud of all of success both in high school and at the university. After graduation day, Eduardo begins planning out where to go from there/what to do with his life. First, he starts off by hiring lawyers, sending out letters, and making his intentions clear to Mark that he wanted to sue them for depriving him of what rightfully is also his. He hated the fact that he will go against his friend in court but he felt that he needed to do what he needed to do.
Sean is at an undergraduate party where there is drinking and tons of craziness and illegal acts going on. The police come to stop the party then they arrest him. He is not sure if he has been set-up or simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time but he knows that Mark will get very angry with him. Likewise, Mark fires him from being a part of Facebook because it will give the company a bad reputation/name to say that their vice president, who is 26 was at an undergraduate party flirting with girls and drinking with people who are underage. Back in Boston, the bacchanalian Eduardo sees one of the twins at a party. He simply approaches him and the book ends with him telling the twin that Mark had betrayed and screwed him up, too.
"Then full realization hit him like a gunshot to the chest, shattering him from the inside out, destroying a part of him that he knew he'd never get back." (Mezrich 239)
"To Eduardo, this was betrayal, pure and simple. Mark had betrayed him, destroyed him, taking it all away. It was all right there, in the papers in his hands, as clear as the pitch-black letters imprinted on those ivory-white pages." (Mezrich 239)
I love the imagery that Mezrich used to describe the sensation that was going through Eduardo's mind as he just realizes that he has been betrayed by his best friend. The imagery used is that of a gunshot and he also uses simile to compare the realization to the gunshot at the chest. Gunshots are meant to destroy/injure and likewise, betrayal serves the same purpose. In this first quote, he makes the use of "showing, not telling" which I like because I can picture it more while in the second quote on the same page, he sort-of explains it by saying that Mark had betrayed him and destroyed him. I then admire and love when he said the "pitch-black letters imprinted on those ivory-white pages." I mean, can he truly get more descriptive than that? I love the description of the ivory-white pages, it's not often that I see paper being described that way especially the pitch-black letters that are striking out to him. In addition, he once again makes use of simile with the use of "as". One technique that I think Mezrich used to make it even more descriptive is the fact that he described the adjective. He says "pitch-black". Most people would just say black but he added the pitch to make it clear that it's extremely dark. Besides, there are more than one shades of black...the pitch/really dark black, off-black, etc. Then with the white page description, he says "ivory-white". To me, that makes it more fun to read and adds more details to description.
For me, I felt the emotion Mezrich was evoking as he stated Eduardo's state of mind as he is being betrayed. Therefore, the quote serves its purpose to me by reaching out to me - the reader, and forcing an emotion out of me as I am reading. I feel that it was very malicious of Mark to do that to his friend but then again, there must have been a misunderstanding somewhere. I'm sure if one was to ask the two of them, they would both tell their tale of the story and it may very well be two opposite things. Eduardo felt that he contributed to the making of Facebook, he did, at least financially, while Mark felt that Eduardo betrayed/was seeking to destroy Facebook by freezing the account and a few other things. To me, Eduardo cared about Facebook, about Mark, and about everyone's well-being. It is truly a shame that their friendship had to be destroyed and Eduardo cannot share in the jubilation of Facebook.
I very much enjoyed reading this book. I don't believe that I was ever bored or found myself sleeping to the book. It is a melodramatic book so there was always excitement that I was eager to continue reading. Prior to reading it, I watched the Social Network which I later on discovered after some chapters that the movie is based off on it, as there are several striking similarities. It was definitely a fun read and I was not expecting a "history" book to be like that. Usually, I envisage history books to be those that you would just have to force me to read and one that I would simply fall asleep to. However, this was not the case. I have witnessed other people say the book was boring at parts but I really liked it. For a history book especially, I would have to say that it was pretty darn good :)
****I absolutely loveeee and admire Ben Mezrich's rich grammar and vocabulary in the novel. Omg, I learned countless numbers of new words and techniques in my writing so I have to give him tremendous props for that. I'm a big fan.
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