T.04.00 Preface Prologue Prelude Prechapter

The preface for Book 4 is the same as the preface for book 1: Bella being converted to Vampire or dying. It doesn't matter, it's half a page long.

And here we are, Book 4. And it's a monster. I guess Meyer has a lot of threads to pull together and ... no, wait.. not really.

1. Bella becoming a vampire
2. The Voltouri
3. The baby

From the last book we know Bella will get married. We know she's arranged the traditional honeymoon activities, which will lead to baby which will lead to conflict with the Italian royal vampires. Meyer has spelled this out. Why this is going to take 80 chapters (or whatever this monster contains) is a mystery, but that's going to be the plot.

At the start of Book 3 I was depressed about diving in. This time I'm seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel. I also possess a morbid, masochistic curiosity about how Meyer will try and hurt me anymore. Can there really be much left? I'm sure the long pregnancy and whatever suffering will be tiresome, but there has to be something to really kick me in the brain. Yeah, I know there's some kind of weirdism at the birth scene, but I'm guessing it's only disturbing if you overlook the ideas we already take for granted. Vampires eat blood, animal or otherwise, and they're technically dead. I've had enough Biology to not feel squeamish about some medical challenges in birthing baby vampires.

Long, deep breath.

So, how will the Cullens defeat the Italians? Big conflict? Long, rational debate? Winner take all checkers? I'm guessing Bella or baby will be some sort of super vampire. Her mental blockade plus her maternal instinct will let her kill the vamps with abandon.

No, that would be exciting to read about. I'll bet it's a HUGE build up to a giant letdown, just like every other book thus far.

Anyway, no more guessing.
After book 3 I took a long sabbatical into the wilds of decent literature. I read some Pynchon to clear the mind because nothing forces everything out of your brain like trying to get through a sentence written by Thomas Pynchon. I also read "Summerland" by Chabon and the last of the Hitchhiker's guide books by Colfer, which was much better than I hoped it might be. My excuse for all this reading was that "Breaking Dawn" was lingering in my library queue until someone (hey, no judgments from me) returned it. Thankfully, the self-checkout machine at the library was working, so I didn't have to hand the book over to one of the blue-haired volunteers. Now, however, I'm either going to have to work my way into Chapter 1 or give up on this quest.

By the way, given that I'm well ahead of the time curve and looking at the girth of this beast, I'm now posting EVERY SINGLE WEEKDAY. That's right. 5 times a week with wild abandon A New Year of Twilight. Take that.

I will not be defeated.
I have made it this far.
I will survive.
Gods of literature, sustain me.

Twilight Saga: Eclipse SumUp

SumUp Total: F

Three down, one to go.
Really, that effectively sums it all up thus far. I've persevered through 3/4ths of this cluttered mess of literary daydreaming and I count that as an accomplishment. If I slog through the final quarter will I learn anything new? Care about any of these characters? Will I actually be entertained? Can I put this on my resume?

No. But I will read it anyway.

As with the other books, the beginning of the novel manages to almost convince me that there's a story somewhere. The characters hint at growth, the plot peeks in every once in a while to suggest forward progress and there's even a few entertaining moments. That will all be firmly dashed against the rocks of reality when things must happen and Meyer once again destroys everything that she's managed to set up.

The GOOD:
The first half of the book, at least in certain parts. The love triangle is tiresome and drags for an eternity, but it gives Meyer a platform to have interesting conversations, emotional outbursts (not really growth, but still) and some real conflict. There's also the Rosalie backstory, the history of the Werewolves and the Jasper backstory. Yeah, it's BOOK 3, but I'm grasping for anything of interest in the morass of this idiotic love triangle. The Rosalie store especially gives us a tangible reason for the character's actions to this point. Better late than never.

The BAD:
The love triangle has been going on since the beginning of the second book and has been boring since the beginning of this one. Edward left and there was a reason to go on about it up to the end of that book, but we're now at the END of Book 3 and it's still going on. Jacob's first sexual assault was morally repulsive, but it made for realistic drama. The results of that attack, though, are disgusting. Charlie becomes a lecherous old man cheering on the exploits of his preferred son in law. Jacob is smug. Edward is insanely forgiving.

The UGLY
Hang on.

• The "she really wanted it" revelation. Hooooly moley.
• The endless damsel in distress of Bella. For THREE BOOKS.
• The constant undermining of Bella as a protagonist.
• The INFURIATING refusal to SHOW us the climactic battle.
• The manipulative nature of Bella.
• The manipulation of the reader by putting Jacob and Bella into bed together. 
• The ridiculous "dreaming" so Meyer can avoid the rules of first person perspective.

The REPUGNANT
Imprinting as an idea is horrifying enough. Adding toddlers to the mix is sick. There's no other word for it. Gods.

SumUP: F
The book is endless love triangle arguments and negotiation, Jacob vs moron Edward and when we finally get a climax, Meyer just can't resist hamstringing Bella. This was a chore.

T.03.27 Needs AND T.03.28 Epiloge - Choice

T.03.27 In Which We're Nearly Done

Bella leaves La Push and breaks down crying, so Edward drives her home. Charlie is worried, Bella tells him she dumped ol' Jake and heads upstairs. She has a good long girly cry and looks back on her wretched, miserable existence and ... I don't know, reconciles with herself or something.

So that settled, they go see Bella's wedding gown. Alice is all atwitter with wedding plans. They head out to the meadow to discuss the wedding (August 13th, if you care) and they figure out the details and invites.

Edward offers to give her what she wants (the sex) but she backs down. Which is a first, I think. She wants to do things in the "right order", so we don't get any of that naughty premarital stuff.

Then they head off to tell Charlie about the wedding.

SumUp: C

The best part is Bella almost taking responsibility for her horrible life. Baby steps, I guess. The rest is just fluff and the premarital dodge is just annoying, Meyer is changing her character's goals to satisfy her conservative agenda or not offend someone. Lovely.


T.03.27 In Which We Change POV

For the first time in 77 chapters we get to see someone else's point of view. It's still first person (Jacob, this time) and still straightforward narrative. I didn't know what the heck was happening at first, I've become stuck in Bella's brain for so long.

Jacob gets Bella's wedding invitation (actually, Edward sends it) and is quite annoyed. Being a werewolf, he's stuck in the pack mind and has to listen to everybody else if he wants to run as a wolf. It's annoying for him and me. The worst is Leah, who's been torturing the pack with her lovesick adoration of Sam.

There's a nice touch where Sam orders everyone to go human so Jacob can be alone in his misery as a wolf. If I liked Sam or Jacob, that'd have helped, but I'll take what I can get.

SumUp: B

It's good stuff. It's too short. It's Jacob, who I don't really like anymore and it's a new POV. There's all the same flaws as before, and switching first person POVs in a book is rarely a good idea. As an Epilogue, though, I'll let it slide and take it for what it is. The cynic in me wants to say that Meyer couldn't figure out a way to do this without cheating, so she took the only other option. I hope I'm just jaded, though.

I also hope the next book tries something new. I doubt it will, but I'm really tired of seeing the world through Bella's eyes.

T.03.26 Ethics

In Which We Attempt A Denouement

Bella is worried about Jacob. You know, the guy who sexually assaulted her and then lied about committing suicide so he could do it again? Yeah, him. He got all hurt. Luckily he's a werewolf, so he heals quickly. Even more lucky, he's a major character in a book in which no major characters ever die, so he's probably going to make it.

First, Bella gets some info out of Alice about her future vampirism. Alice says it's all green lights.
Then, she visits Charlie who regales her with fishing stories and Jacob's injury alibi: motorcycle accident.
On her way out the door to visit Jacob, Charlie asks her to promise that she won't run off and do anything like get married. Guess he saw the script.

So, Jake, how's it going.
Jacob is wondering how well Edward took to Bella's infidelity and is disappointed to find out that Eddy was just fine with it. Jacob thinks it's part of Edward's game plan, I think Edward is a doormat. Jake feels bad about the whole "suicide" thing, Then they fake fight and make up or something.

I just don't care. I don't like these people and this idiotic resolution to their problems is a pile of dung that I'm not going to pick through and analyze anymore. It boils down to Jacob thinking he's right for Bella and telling her that Edward is like a drug. Then they debate how they'll stay friends when she lacks a pulse.

End Scene.

SumUp: I don't care anymore. This book has broken me. You know what? C

Middle of the road C. There's nothing awful IN this chapter, but it's just trying to drag the characters out of the swamps they've sunk into. There's no quick fix huggy and it all goes away moment that can fix this. Gods, there's still a chapter left. Nothing happens, nothing breaks, this chapter is nothing. Merry Christmas.

T.03.25 Mirror

In Which We Find Out How Much We Missed

Edward talks Bella down, again thinking she's all crazy scared of his battle fury or something. It's really drawn out. Then (as mentioned last chapter) we find out that Sam was just fine, you didn't need to cut yourself to save him, silly girl. You're sooo silly.

Oh, and Jacob got all hurt, so assuming anyone still gives a damn about Jacob, you should be really worried.
OH and the Volturi are here.

Right. So Jake is on his way back to La Push to heal and the werewolves aren't too interesting in meeting Vampire Royalty. It must have been a really awesome battle, though, because Jasper got all bit and there's a pile of dead newborns and they even managed to capture one: Bree. She's actually interesting, don't get attached though.

So it's Jane, Felix and two other unknown vampires along with Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper. They discuss Bella's lack of vampire traits (we're working on it!) and the crazy awesome battle we didn't get to see where they killed 18 newborns. Jane interrogates Bree about Victoria and the rest, then kills her. Carlisle and the others try to talk her out of it, but rules is rules dontcha know.

SumUp D-

Jane is suitably menacing and clearly the villain for the next book. Big yawn until the next book then.
Bree is very interesting and would be a great dramatic arc, but nope she snuffs it.
The drama with Jacob is clearly false, you know he's going to survive.
Crazy awesome battle might as well not have happened, the only Cullen injury is Jasper, who has a new scar. Wow, that was close.

So what we get is yet another anti-climax. None of this feels exciting and everything resolves so simply and cleanly that you hardly notice. You know what would have been dramatic? Keeping Bree alive as a side plot. Having someone in the family actually DIE. Killing a werewolf. ANYTHING but showing up AFTER the battle to see the boring results.

What do we get? An inventory. Imagine a WWII movie where a soldier just tells you how many Nazis his unit killed without taking any real damage. How very exciting.

T.03.24 Snap Decision

In Which I Just Don't Really Understand Anymore Why This Is Happening

Edward returns to find a miserable Bella. He's covered in Jacob's blood and has broken off the engagement so they can figure out what the hell they're...

No. I'm just kidding. Jacob is off wherever and Edward comes back and is calmly reassuring Bella that she didn't do anything wrong.

Really.
No I'm serious this time.

Oh, and Jacob wasn't really going to try and kill himself. That was a lie. To get a kiss from an emotionally fragile and engaged girl. So if you are harboring even the tiniest bit of empathy for Jacob, that should just about do it.

"You're only human", Edward assures her.
"You love him"

Bella gets mad at Edward's insane self-sacrifice and refusal to be bothered by this whole infidelity thing, so she throws herself at him sexually. He refuses, rightly actually, because it would make Jacob the reason for their first time together.

Instead, we get Edward's play-by-play to the fight via his psychic connection.
Yeah, you know, the climax to this book.
We don't get to read about the battle, we get to hear Edward tell Bella about the battle. Which is mostly his reactions to things that happen and him sort-of cheerleading people who can't hear him. It takes 3 pages or so.

Thankfully, we're spared any real excitement because Victoria has actually found Bella's trail and is on her way to them.
Victoria! Remember her? Really? I bet you just think you remember her.
She hasn't appeared in the flesh since Chapter 18 of the first book.
Seriously. That scene after the baseball game? That was it. That was the single time she's appeared in the saga and that was 55 chapters ago.

But she's here now, right? So It's Victoria and some blond newborn named Riley versus Edward (Seth left back in the idiotic understanding section).

Edward starts by trying to undermine Riley, telling him that Victoria is using him. Apparently she has the sex appeal powerup, so that's not going to work. To even the odds, then, Sam the lead Werewolf shows up and tackles Riley to the ground.

The fight is actually rather well done. Sam must gruesomely remove parts from Riley to incapacitate him while Edward is constantly keeping himself between Victoria and Bella. Edward keeps baiting Victoria, Sam keeps shredding Riley until the boy gets in a solid kick and sends the wolf into a rock.

And here, we finally get our third wife foreshadow resolution. Edward is distracting Victoria but Sam is hurt. Riley changes targets and Bella has to act: taking a sharp rock, she cuts herself. Go Bella!

Riley and Victoria are immediately distracted. Edward sends Victoria into a tree and then attacks Riley. Victoria recovers and tries to attack Bella, only to get hit with Riley's severed arm by Edward (nice). Sam has recovered enough to fight and attacks the injured Riley while Edward chases and kills Victoria, who has attempted to escape.

SumUp F-

Wait?! (you scream) Why F-? Well, I'm going to break a longstanding rule of my reviews to tell you something that shows up 6 pages into the next chapter because it directly affects this one.

First, here's the chapter by point:

• Edward and Bella have a fight about how patient and understanding Edward is about Bella's blatant infidelity. (BAD)
• Jacob is revealed to be a horrible, disgusting individual. (BAD)
• The gigantic, exciting fight that we've been building up to happens (again) OFF THE PAGE (REALLY BAD)
• We finally get back to Victoria and have a big battle  (GOOD)
• Bella finally does something useful.

SO of the five things, three are horrible and two are good, right?
And Bella = taking charge of her destiny and helping in the climactic battle = good, right?

No, Bella = not actually helping. We will discover 6 pages into chapter 25 that Sam was faking his injury to get Riley to focus on Bella so he could attack. Sam was just fine, Bella didn't help in the least.

Why, Stephenie Meyer? Seriously, why? What possible reason could you have to undermine your protagonist time and time again? I've accepted that you're going to build up to a climax and then do everything in your literary power to deflate it, you've done that in every book. But this hatred of your heroine... this is truly extraordinary. You took all the time to set up some useful foreshadowing AND gave Bella the idea AND had her boyfriends try to keep her from doing it AND blocked an entire situation where she could finally help AND realistically portrayed the scene. WHY are you going to shatter all that with such a stupid twist? If you wanted to keep from deflating Seth, a FOURTH STRING CHARACTER, just toss in another newborn. Have him injured by Victoria while he's trying to fight two at a time. Why can't Bella be more than a stupid, bumbling damsel for ten seconds in your universe?!? Why do you hate her SO much?

So we get the continued destruction of Edward as a believable character.
We get the final, disturbing destruction of Jacob as a sympathetic character.
We have the ongoing whine-fest and newfound infidelity of Bella
We have yet another climactic event taking place that Meyer can't be bothered to show us
We get Bella growing a spine and then finding out it was a counterproductive waste of energy.

Versus a good fight with Victoria and Riley, neither of whom we have any reason to care about in the least.

I really, really don't understand.

T.03.23 Monster

In Which I Lose All Remaining Respect For Bella, Jacob and Edward

Bella wakes up (take a shot). Edward evicts Jacob about 5 hours too late and they scuffle a bit. Jacob leaves.

So... how to describe this. Edward starts to sweet talk Bella and they discuss their "ten best nights". Why? Because Jacob is still within earshot and Edward is taking off the gloves in this battle for Bella. When Bella mentions the engagement as a winner, Jacob howls in the distance. She didn't know he was there. Edward did. She realizes this.

Now honestly, this is pretty hardcore on Edward's part and I was cheering for him. After the night he stupidly tolerated, though, it makes him look really petulant and vindictive rather than ... whatever he's supposed to be. His argument that Jacob "deserved to know" is pathetic, he wanted to stab Jacob in the heart and he clearly picked the biggest knife he could find.

Bella gets all weepy about "hurting Jacob", which is true, but not for the reasons she goes on and on and on about. You're engaged lady. You're going to marry someone other than Jacob and you know how he feels. You've been teasing and leading him on and dragging this crap out for months! After the forced kiss in chapter 15, you're just downright heartless, stupid and cruel for doing nothing. So congratulations on losing your humanity before losing your humanity.

Bella turns the self-pity up three notches so Edward heads out to recover Jacob. Maybe when he gets back they can take turns kissing her. Maybe they'll figure out her top 10 most manipulative moments. Seth has shown up at some point (I'm not going to reread this crap and figure out when) and starts to get antsy until Jacob finally gets back. Supposedly there's something going on somewhere, but Meyer is determined not to show us what that is.

For unexplained (and likely unexplicable) reasons, Edward takes Seth off into the woods and leaves Jacob and Bella alone.
They argue
Jacob essentially says he's going to kill himself in the battle.
Bella goes all weepy and offers him anything to stay with her.

Really? Seriously, Bella / Meyer? This is where this chapter is going? There's a FIGHT going on between 10 Werewolves and 6 or so Vampires against Twenty newborns and maybe Victoria and this is what we're going to do? We're going to play spin the bottle with Jacob and Bella (the engaged) dozens of miles away? This is a steaming mountain of horse crap.

Jacob wants a kiss.
Bella gives it to him.
It's not good enough.
They kiss some more.

"Jacob was right... I was in love with him, too."
Wow. So cue the romantic music while Bella cheats on her psychic fiancee.

Bella and Jacob make out for a bit and then Jacob heads off to fight.
If you're hearing a rhythmic banging sound, check to see if you're banging your head against a desk and groaning in mental torment.That's what I figured out it was. It didn't relieve the pain.

SumUp F-

It's odd to have no respect left for a book and then to have it surprise you with something done this poorly.

This is obviously supposed to make the love triangle more poignant or get the readers in a Jacob frenzy or some other damn thing. Mission not accomplished. There's a mental movie Bella has of a happy life with Jacob as they make out. This is, of course, after spending the night with him and her boyfriend and while her "best friend" is planning her wedding. Am I supposed to buy any of this? Why wasn't this back in Book 2 when they were actually sort-of-dating? Do you know how great the love triangle might have been THEN? When it, you know, sort of made sense to have your protagonist narrator forming a lifelong relationship with the other dude because the loveofherlife had dumped her for her own good??

But no, Meyer is forcing this to happen at the climax of the next book, which I'll point out again is happening WHERE WE CAN'T SEE IT.

If we can't have Bella figuring out her love for Jacob while they're actually together, wouldn't it make sense to have Bella realizing thes feelings while he is clearly in danger? Like having the fight going on where our CAMERA INTO THIS UNIVERSE is actually standing? Instead, we get yet another sexual assault. Jacob threatens to KILL HIMSELF and Bella desperately tries to stop him. He demands a kiss. So add sexual blackmail and emotional abuse. Wow. Once upon a time I liked Jacob. Now he's a lowlife dirtbag. Well done, Meyer.

Amazingly enough, I don't even know if this horror show of an emotional epiphany would even make my top 10 horrible things in this book. I had a list. It made me angry to look at it so I got rid of it. Maybe I was hasty...

So far, each book has had two utterly reprehensible chapters in a row. In Book 1 it was the climax. In Book 2 it was the return from Italy, although the climax of that book almost got 3 in a row. Maybe we'll have a new record. Stay tuned

T.03.22 Fire and Ice

In Which Bella Sleeps With Jacob


SumUp F-

Yeah, straight to SumUp because this is some hardcore BS manipulation by Meyer to create a situation where Bella and Jacob sleep in the same sleeping bag while Edward the cuckold looks on. This is moronic on every. single. conceivable. LEVEL AAAAGH  @#$%^&

Remember a whole chapter ago when Alice warned them it was snowing in the mountains? Remember the fact that Bella works at a sporting supply store and that the Cullens are stocked to the rafters with camping gear? Because we start the chapter with Bella freezing to death in a tent at two in the morning. Nobody packed a winter sleeping bag or a heater or heat packs or any of the thousands of other items you can buy to camp in the cold. Hey Edward, a propane tent heater costs less than 100 bucks. They also have these little chemical-packs that produce heat for a few hours. They cost a dollar each. Instead of buying that new motorcycle, you could have bought a few thousand and your girlfriend wouldn't be freezing to death in front of you. You could have built a mattress out of them. With barely a hiccup in your family fortune you could have constructed an IGLOO out of heating packs and cans of Sterno.

Oh, and Edward is afraid to breathe on her. You don't breathe, idiot. Maybe if the author was keeping note instead of setting up this ludicrous situation to get Jacob and Bella into bed together.

But the Cullens don't have to worry about the cold, so they'd forget. No, no they wouldn't. They don't take tents on their hunts, I'd wager. They don't sleep, remember? So if they're going to sit down and figure out what Bella needs on Mount Iceberg, the tent is just the first of a dozen things they'd have to remember. Why pack a crap sleeping bag if Alice knew and told them it was going to be freezing? If they're buying camping gear, they at least have to understand the mechanics so they don't buy idiotic gear. These people are supposed to LOVE this girl and they sent her into the snow with flip-flops and silk sheets?

So Jacob shows up with a PARKA and climbs into the tent. Obvious plan A: have him wear the parka for a minute and then put it on her. Problem solved. Plan B: Have him climb into the sleeping bag WITHOUT Bella and warm it up. Plan C: Go werewolf an lay next to her when you're not a shirtless teenager. Or a hundred other ways he could warm the tent without climbing into bed with her.

But that's not what Meyer wants. She wants a shirtless Jacob to climb into bed with Bella so they can cuddle while Edward watches. It's ridiculous in the extreme. Meyer schemed to set this up. Period. This isn't something the characters would have done, Meyer wanted the readers to coo and giggle about Jacob sleeping with Bella, so she constructed a flimsy and transparent plot to make it happen. All respect I might have had for this series has long since left, but I really wasn't that far into outright hatred and loathing. I just moved a few notches in that direction, though.

Once we've established the sex scene, we move on to cheating the narrative. I complained bitterly about Meyer cheating the First Person Narrator with things like Psychic powers, but now we go even further. While Bella is dozing, Edward and Jacob have a long conversation. Meyer wants the reader to hear this conversation, but Jacob and Edward are never going to have it in front of Bella. So what do we get?

"I was too far gone to ask them to stop talkign about me"

"the conversation had taken on a dreamlike quality to me, and I wasn't sure I was really awake"

"What a strange dream it was"

"... this whispered dream"

That, ladies and gents, is cheating. Bald, unrepentant, lazy cheating by Ms. Meyer. She wants her cake (the ease of writing and stylistic immediacy of a first person narrative) and wants to eat it (having a conversation outside the narrator's hearing). Now it's not like it never happens, people eavesdrop or find other ways to hear a conversation about themselves, but Meyer can't be bothered to work this out. After all, she's gone through all the trouble of having the whole sordid love triangle in this tent! Why waste such a perfect opportunity? So we get a whole chapter of not-sleeping Bella hearing intimate details about her boyfriends.

So what topics do Jacob and Edward cover while sitting/laying next to Bella? Bella, of course. They both love her. They don't want to lose her. There's some great character insight, and it's impossible. No teen boys are going to sit around and calmly discuss how much they love a girl with a rival. This is some bizarre, narcissistic fantasy world where hot guys talk frankly about intimate feelings within hearing distance of the girl they both love. Edward describes the blindingly obvious logic of turning Bella into a vampire. Jacob pushes him to see that Bella would be better off with a less immortal boyfriend. They agree to disagree. Riiiiiight.

Edward also give Jacob explicit permission to continue trying to woo Bella. The stalker gets permission from the boyfriend. The FIANCEE no less. Sinclair's garters... the hell... I don't even...

Ugh.

They also realize that Bella is planning to try and help, which of course they won't allow because that would make her something other than a damsel in distress.

I just... whatever.
F-
Zero points.
No, this gets negative points. This is horrible. This is irredeemable tripe.

T.03.21 Trails

In Which Stuff Continues To Not Happen

Alice warns Edward and Bella that it'll be snowing in the mountains, so you know, pack for cold weather and such.

Then we get Alice begging Bella to do her wedding. Clearly the pixie wants a big, fluffy wedding and Bella's more of a sweatpants and plastic flowers kind of girl but Alice wears her down and Bella agrees. Alice also notes the giant rock on Bella's wrist but Edward stops her from making a big deal about it so I guess this either means something or we're just supposed to be in awe of Edward's ability to procure large, precious stones.

B&E call Billy so as to get Jacob moving and they go set the fake trail, leading the newborns and Victoria. Super clumsy girl hurts herself and uses the new cut to lay down some blood on the trail. Good thinking, except we get Edward trying to help clean the cut and Bella stopping him because (as we all know) he can't be near her blood or he'll kill her all kinds of ways. Now having read the first book, we know this is nonsense, Edward is just fine around bleeding Bella. He reinforces this, telling Bella he "got over it". She's surprised for reasons I can't possibly explain.

They reach the clearing and Jacob takes over, picking up Bella and riding her back to the campsite. He, too, notices the big rock on her wrist. Bella still doesn't get it.Yeesh.

Now that he has her alone, Jacob launches into an aggressive campaign to get Bella to admit she loves him and to give him another kiss. Of course by "another" I mean to willingly give a first kiss. Bella tells Jacob that Edward is staying behind and dodges his lovey-stalkey conversation. Jacob also says he'll be sticking around until the Newborns arrive. The conversation shifts to Jacob's rank in the tribe and pack, and he reveals that because of his bloodline, he's essentially on deck to become chief whenever he wants it. Great system, guys.

Edward arrives and I have a very real moment of cognitive dissidence. For the last two books I've enjoyed reading about Jacob and Bella and loathed Edward and Bella. Now, I'm relieved to have Edward return so I don't have to endure Jacob's incessant begging for love and attention.

SumUp D-

Tedious, tedious and more tedious. From Alice's whining about the wedding to Jacob's whining about not being loved to Meyer's constant highlight of a giant rock on Bella's wrist, this chapter is just dull. I was so excited ... somewhere back in the teen chapters? Maybe? Has it been that long? Anyway, somewhere back there we had a plot. Yeah, everyone took forever to figure out the Victoria angle, but Irving's socks it was an actual conflict and we had so much book ahead of us!

Sadly, all that book has been involved in the incredibly longwinded planning of the upcoming battle. Honestly, all they've done is practice fighting and set a false trail. That's it. That's maybe 2 chapters worth of story but here we are in chapter TWENTY ONE. What else did we get? Wedding negotiations. Endless begging from the dog. Endless mopey put-upon Edward trying to get tiny little favors from Bella, who supposedly loves him. There hasn't been an ounce of new characterization beyond third-rung characters at the graduation and party.

T.03.20 Compromise

In Which Bella Wants The Sex

And in which we get YET another negotiation between Bella and Edward. This is turning into a merger meeting between corporations.

So Edward gives Bella a gift, a "hand me down" diamond heart for her bracelet. She calls it "crystal" and Edward calls it a "bauble", but Meyer layers on a heaping pile of clues that it's some kind of monster diamond. I'd just like to point out that a diamond this size (Bella estimates it at 5K later on) would weigh significantly more than a cut crystal, but we're supposed to enjoy her ironic ignorance, apparently.

So the new deal is negotiated. In bed, I might add:

• Bella wants the sexy sex while she's still human. She makes this into a very immediate offer.
• Edward says no.
• Bella feels rejected.
• Edward soothes her feelings
• Bella insists that once she's a vampire, she'll be different. Physically, if nothing else.
• Edward breaks off a metal flower from the bedpost to prove his point.
• Bella points out his ability to resist other urges, and again, pushes the issue by starting to undress him.
• Edward stops her, proposes again.

So in the midst of all this making out, Edward trades sex later for marriage slightly less later. It's not especially well written, Bella doesn't really agree in the text, she just stops negotiating and complains about the new, not really spelled out deal. Edward actually says they're engaged, and Bella gripes about THAT.

The final deal, then is marriage, then sex, then vampirism, then... more sex I guess. I don't know if Meyer is trying to get points from the purity council or something, but that's what we end up with. Edward even complains that he's trying to protect his own virtue and that Bella is making it difficult. They discuss a quicky marriage in Vegas and Bella gripes even more.

Edward then produces a ring (his mother's, naturally) and gets down on one knee.

SumUp D+

Let me just say, Bella's complaining and moping and griping about every single solitary thing is driving me insane. I already don't like her as a character, but I'm starting to outright loathe her.

Still, I don't get Bella's point. I mean, I understand that she's worried about being -different- after the conversion, and that makes sense. Well, she'll be a living moving statue with no pulse or body temperature, but so will Edward. Without getting too graphic, is human + vampire intercourse really even something to be desired? He's rock ... er... his body is a literal statue: devoid of warmth or the elasticity of flesh. It would be like ... well, having sex with a real statue. He doesn't sweat, he doesn't breathe, he doesn't have a pulse.

Actually, how is human + vampire intercourse even possible? Biologically, he lacks some of the vital systems required to.... you know what, nevermind. That isn't the point, here. And I don't want to think about it. Or know the details. Oh gods, I don't want to know.

The point is that Edward is right. Bella's problem with being "different afterward" is ammunition for Edward, not her. She'd be, as he puts it "less breakable" and ... OK, I'm done with this. It's going to happen and..


OH Crap.

She gets knocked up, doesn't she? Somebody must've spoiled that for me. This is why she gets preggors, which has GOT to be the point of the next book. Oh... crap... Huxley's thumbnails, that's the whole plot of the next book, isn't it? The Volturi is mad because preggo Bella hasn't been turned into a vampire because she's all knocked up with Ed's vampy baby. Wait... wouldn't a vampire baby be eternally a newborn? Holy... No, not even Meyer is going to try and pull that off. It must be human... well mostly. Ow my head.

Wait... wouldn't Alice know some of this already? Is this what she held back at the end of the last chapter? Does Edward know that she's seen this? Then he HAS to know the outcome... which is... You know what, nevermind. I'm not going to try and put that puzzle together. It's insane.

Look, the chapter is fine from a fluffy, not-paying attention reading standpoint. The attraction between Bella and Edward works sometimes and fails sometimes and it's all described with details that MIGHT work if this wasn't Bella wrestling with a statue in a big, giant bed. Edward's white-knight fascade is ludicrous and boring. Bella is at least a little realistic, minus the endless negotiating. My real problem is that this is YET another tiresome argument about the future that amounts to  having the same discussion over and over. It's old hat. It's boring. It only gets a low passing score because it was easy to read and had a few nice moments where I wasn't clutching my head between my hands and moaning in mental anguish.

T.03.19 Selfish

In Which Bella Is Super Manipulative

After the long night of practice, Edward takes Bella home. She wakes up the next afternoon.

Edward notes her new bracelet and tells Bella she has to accept some gifts. Apparently her tastes run homemade or hand-me-downs, so Edward begins to plot on that front.

The aregue about Jasper & Jakes idea about being bait. Edward is having none of it and reveals that Jacob is second in command to Sam, so Edward can just tell Jacob to order the Werewolves not to help Bella do anything stupid.

Note: The Werewolf mind control is yet another literary cheat. The fact that they're also psychic is annoying, but Meyer takes the time to go over some of the downsides. I think that there'd be quite a few more, but whatever. Mind control = GIANT CHEAT.

Edward also reveals just how much eavesdropping he got in during practice. Lots of infidelity, hostility, broken hearts and so forth. This is psychic voyeurism, and it's rather disturbing. I guess it pales in comparison to all the other nonsense, though.

Bella tops this with some over-the-top manipulation, though. She's determined to keep Edward nearby, so she pulls out the "I can't be away from you because you left me" card. She's very clear in her mind that this is an exaggeration, but she's determined to get what she wants, regardless of consequence. Edward, having no defense against her accusations of abandonment, still tries to placate her. She refuses, and gives him an ultimatum: Either the werewolves and vampires need you in the clearing because it IS dangerous, in which case I should be there OR they don't need you and you can go camping with me.

Just to point out, the third option is that the Cullens and Wolves need Edward to make sure everyone stays safe, and that by being there or taking Edward she's jeopardizing everyone else (a fact that Bella admits internally). Edward can't make that call because she's backed him into a corner, so he contacts Jasper to tell him.

Alice comes by for dinner and plays Charlie like a fiddle. The Cullens are going "backpacking" and she'll be all alone. Charlie offers to let her stay (creepy) but Bella gets herself invited to go with Alice "shopping" plus staying the weekend at Vampire Manor while Charlie fishes with Billy. That way she can escape early Charlie isn't worried where she is for the weekend.

Edward takes Bella back to the clearing to set the false trail, then heads off to practice some more. Jacob keeps Bella company. In the cold she uses him for heat and strokes his fur, which is really weird. I get he's a big dog physically, but she knows he's Jacob inside and she's sprawled over him and rubbing him. Tell you what, Bella, stop being a tease and everyone will be much happier.


SumUp D

Bella is pretty well off the charts for manipulative girlfriend and tease. There's just nothing left to like about her. Add to the fact that all this is just slow, boring buildup to the big fight and I'm getting extremely bored. There are nice details here and there: Bella pulls out hair and cuts herself to drip blood on the trail, but it all could have been done pages and pages ago! It's just yet another chapter of moaning about love triangles and fretting about how much danger is allegedly looming just over the horizon.

T.03.18 Instruction

In Which We Revisit Wahmpire Stadium

Edward takes Bella home and reassures her that killing the newborn vamps won't be hard.

The next day they go to Wahmpire Stadium. All of the Cullens are there and ten Werewolves show up, which is two more than we're used two (turns out to be Leah and Seth). Edward translates via mind-reading while Carlisle explains what they're fighting.

Note: They STILL think this has something to do with the Volturi. Argh.

Since Newborn Vamps are very dimwitted but very strong, they tend to stick to frontal assaults. The trick then is to dodge & counter. The Wolves watch the Vamps work through some tactics.

Jacob and Edward start to discuss where to store Bella during the fight. Jacob suggests carrying her, since his scent will cover hers and the Newborns won't sniff too hard on his stank. Alternately, Jacob and Jasper also figure it might be useful to have Bella front and center as bait since the newborns won't be able to resist a lone human snack. Edward vetoes this and they decide to stick Bella up in the mountains with Seth as her bodyguard.


SumUp: C+

The descriptions are fine. Edward's mind-reading trick makes a little sense, but it's still annoying. Bella is useless and in the way. Nobody has put Victoria into the puzzle STILL. It's taking for-ev-er to get to the big climax, which is where I HOPE we'll finally resolve this incessant love triangle.

We know Bella is going to do the third-wife act.
We know Jacob is going to get hurt.
We know nobody important is going to die.

Well, OK we don't know that, but I'd lay money on it. Maybe one of the werewolves will snuffit to demonstrate how powerful the Vampires are. Maybe a Cullen bites it, but I seriously doubt it. No, I think there'll just be wounds to treat and maybe a new treaty or something. Still, nothing significant will come of this, I assure you.

T.03.17 Alliance

In Which We Get An ALLIANCE

So Party. Bella. Etc.

Ugh. Fine, Alice throws huge party. Bella hates. Everybody from FHS shows up. They love it. Bella hates. Seriously, this is dreary stuff. I'd list who comes and tag them, but just assume everybody who isn't Volturi or evil Vampire is here.

Including the Werewolves. Apparently Jacob took her invitation to heart and brought Quil and Embry.

Dear Abby,

     My friend who I am romantically attracted to but has a steady boyfriend invited me to a party.

After the invitation I physically forced a kiss on her and she punched me.

Also, her boyfriend is an undead creature of the night and I'm a werewolf and we're mortal enemies.

Should I assume the invitation stands?

Sincerely, 

A Freak in Forks

Itsa OK, though, because Jacob brought a present. Aw, that'll make it all better. It's a silver bracelet with a handcarved wolf on it. Silver? Get it? Never mind, I don't think Meyer got it either.

Alice has fainted and Jacob realizes Bella is acting funny... really? After you assaulted her and showed up at a party thrown by Vampires? Weird, right?

Anyway, Bella is acting weird, Jacob asks why, she reveals the PLOT to him and Alice has seen the Newborns attacking Forks. So the Werewolves toss their lot in with the Cullens so they can get some killing done and Alice's vision goes blank, because the werewolves will be helping the Wahmpires kill the Vampires. Or the Werewolves could be plotting to kill all these troublesome vampires at the same time, not like it would change her nullified vision powers. Whatever.

So they plan to meet in the woods to discuss the killing, Bella is ascared and everybody else isn't. Good Times.

SumUp C-

Another party Bella doesn't want to be at, another tedious description of just how much she doesn't want to be at it. Jacob is a lunatic. Edward is a doormat. Bella is annoying. The only reason this creeps up to C status is because SOMETHING IS HAPPENING. Joy. I wonder how Bella will be carried around this time. Since she's going to be the third wife from the werewolf legend, she'll be hanging around Edward and probably Jacob when the vamps arrive. She'll decide it's time to DO SOMETHING and she'll stab herself. At least she'll have a positive effect on the plot instead of being baggage.

Oh, and I'm only tagging people who do something. Showing up is not doing something.

T.03.16 Epoch

In Which Bella Graduates

So Bella is graduating. While trying to figure out clothes to wear, she has an epiphany. Victoria + newborns + stolen clothes + Seattle is all realated. Thank goodness, we're finally all on the same page. She tells Alice, who decides to hide it for some reason.

There's a lot of graduation stuff, but it's essentially pointless. Nobody gets any characterization. Bella moves the plot an inch forward by telling Edward her big puzzle piece and there the plot stalls again. They all go to dinner at the Lodge.

After dinner, Charlie tries to reclaim some fatherhood and humanity with a "if someone kisses you without your permission..." speech. A nice start, but it turns into a lecture on how to throw a punch. That's great dad, it's Bella's fault for getting attacked because she lacks self-defense skills. Well played. Then he moves on to "don't be too hard on the kid" nonsense. Wow, father of the year honors were sooo close.

Back at Vampire Manor, the party is starting.


SumUp F

Why is Alice hiding the Victoria connection from Edward? No idea. Why is Charlie such a horrible father? I think it's genetic. What do we learn from this chapter? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

T.03.15 Wager

In Which We Get A Sexual Assault

Was I right? Yep. Jake's love lingers in the air and Bella dodges it.

"He was right. If I wasn't mean... I would walk away".

Kind of an ultimatum from Jake, take him as a boor and a lovestruck sidekick with constant need for attention or bail. I'd be jumping out of this relationship, but I'm feeling rational and so forth.

So they debate the nature of their relationship for a bit until Jake grabs Bella by the face and kisses her. Using his monster strength, he holds Bella's head still so he can assault her for a few seconds. She tries to fight but can't, so she waits him out and then punches him. I rather liked this exchange. Add to it the fact that Edward should be along to break Jake's arm, let it heal and break it again and it means something might actually happen. True, it's not the central plot, but it's something.

Bella's hand is broken or something and she starts to walk home. Jacob tries to give her a ride and apparently can't understand why she'd bu upset with his third degree sexual assault.

For some reason, Bella accepts his ride and they argue about it. Jake takes the logical position that he's better for her, which would be a solid foundation if he hadn't just assaulted her. Bella fights him with words, but they don't work. So it's at this point that Jake falls of the very short "characters I like" list.

When they get home, Charlie is amused by Bella's injury.
"Why did she hit you?"
"Because I kissed her".
"Good for you kid".

WHAT? Really, what? Seriously?

Edward comes and get's her, there's a growling contest in the foyer with Charlie keeping peace and Bella starts to leave. Jacob follows.

Here, Edward does the normal thing and threatens to kill Jacob. I would have preferred some actual action from our patient boyfriend of stone, but instead we get a flat threat. When Jacob asks what Edward will do if Bella wants  the next kiss, Edward essentially gives him permission. Then, they essentially spar over Bella, fighting for her like some kind of prize. I'm not sure why Bella is idly sitting by while they write "first prize" on her forehead, but I'm not an eighteen year old girl.

Carlisle puts her hand in a brace and Bella worries about killing people when she's a newborn.

SumUp F-

I'm not going to rage about Jacob kissing Bella. The act itself is wrong, but this is supposed to be dramatic. The situation presented is Jacob being teased by Bella time and time again, led along to believe he means more than she's saying. That doesn't excuse the kiss, it's assault and unwanted and wrong, but it does provide a framework and is in character. Her first reaction is believable, Edward's first reaction is believable and right up to the point where Bella gets home I was in a forgiving mood.

I'm not sure when Charlie stopped being Bella's father and became her pimp, though. I must have missed that chapter. I don't have any daughters, but if someone told me my son forced a kiss out of a girl, I'd be livid. I can't imagine if a kid walked into my house and admitted assaulting my daughter. I guarantee my reaction wouldn't have been to high-five him, instead his safety would be in question. So add that to my list of disgusting concepts Meyer has inflicted upon me.

As for Edward, I don't understand him at all. Why is he competing for Bella? Why is this even a question? She's not up for trade. She's not a prize. She's not dating Jacob and Edward at the same time and now they're trying to out-do each other. What possible motivation could he have for this idiocy? Grow a spine! Why are you even allowing this?

But I know why, because Edward isn't real. Edward isn't human (and I don't mean he's a vampire). Edward is a character in a romance novel and this is Meyer's trying to drag this relationship down so she can build it back up at some point. The fact that it doesn't make sense for Edward to cuckold himself doesn't matter to her. The fact that it all but forgives Jacob is irrelevant to her plan to have a repeat of the big romantic reunion, this time after some manufactured emotional division. Instead of building tension it ends the illusion that these are real people and you're suddenly aware that you're reading a book about people who are doing things not because they want to but because Meyer insists that they're doing them. It's bad writing, period.

T.03.14 Declaration

In Which We Learn Nothing And Do Nothing

Alice is planning a big graduation party, Bella doesn't want it. How does this affect the plot? It doesn't.

Bella has finals. Plot? No. Characterization? Nope. It moves the calendar forward, I guess.

Edward and the Wahmpires are going hunting to power up on blood. 

Bella goes to La Push the next day to stay safe, which is silly since Vampire Manor has nearly indesctructable guards who don't sleep. Of course they're all going hunting, which they could do in turns or whatever. Instead we get Jacob, who sleeps. She manages to invite him to the vampire graduation party, which is a great idea.

Bella takes the opportunity to monologue about everything we already know. Jake wakes up and in a panic tells Bella that he loves her. It's pretty upfront and in response, the chapter ends.

SumUp D-

A graduation party that has nothing to do with anything and Jacob telling Bella things everybody already knows. Great. It's more non-suspense to build the non-tension toward a finale that we know is going to happen but which Meyer insists on holding off for 8 more chapters at least. This chapter is more about Bella's graduation party than anything. The final point, and the one that readers might actually care about, is Bella's reaction to Jake spelling it all out for her. That reaction? Guess we'll find out next chapter. In a book that wanted to build up suspense, it wouldn't be the first thing we learn in the next chapter, but since we're stuck in first-person constant narration land, I'm going to be we open with Bella being shocked and telling Jacob it isn't mutual. Because we needed a chapter break for that.

T.03.13 Newborn

In Which Jasper Gets A Story!

So the wheel of backstory finally lands on Jasper and we get a full chapter. Sadly for you it has nothing to do with the plot of the book except in one area, so I'm not obliged to pass any of it along.

Important point #1: Newborn vampires are frantic, near-mindless killing machines. They're also stronger than mature vampires.
Important point #2: In the past, vampire lords used them as disposable armies to carve out human-hunting territory.
Important point #3: The Volturi are not fans of this practice and will rain down on you with furious anger if you try it.

So Jasper, Civil War soldier becomes Jasper, newborn fighter becomes Jasper, vampire Lieutenant. He works for a trio of vampires named Maria, Nettie and Lucie until he makes friends with peacenik vampires Peter and Charlotte. I only mention these 5 in case they come up again. He is eventually rescued by Alice and joins Carlisle's merry band.

And for some reason, Carlisle is still yakking about the Volturi. I don't get it.

Carlisle tries to recruit help from the Vampires in Alaska, but they're peeved over Laurent's death and want to trade their help for taking out the Werewolves. Carlisle refuses.

SumUp B

It's a nice little ditty, if a little late. Which really highlights a problem I have with these books. Meyer introduced a pile of characters early on and gave us such pathetic outlines of them, leaving everything to come much later. It's taken over sixty chapters to work our way through the list (remember Rosalie just a few chapters back?) to get Jasper's story. We still have no history of Esme, barely anything for Alice, and nothing for Emmett. Meyer also seems stuck in the late 19th or early 20th centuries for her creations. This means that Jasper has sort of been loitering in the shadows with motivations that we didn't understand until now. If history is any clue, we also won't see anything else of Jasper's story for the rest of the book, either.

So, here's the Alaska connection. This crew in Alaska has been described (and is described here) as near family. At the Wahmpireball game we're introduced to James, Victoria and Laurent. James breaks off to hunt Bella. Victoria goes AWOL and Laurent goes north to hide. He apparently ends up at the Alaska camp and joins in with Tanya. Apparently he hooks up with Irina (who is, if I remember correctly and would bother to check if I cared enough) Tanya's sister. Irina is now the reason behind the Alaska revenge problem. Werewolves killed her squeeze, we hate the werewolves even more.  Now I don't think Carlisle mentioned the werewolves to Tanya, but I guess she's aware of them and you'd think that would be enough to prevent assistance.

There's still the elephant in the room = Victoria. Why couldn't she make newborns? She's been lurking as a risk since late in the FIRST BOOK. Why is everyone so fixated on the Volturi? Victoria comes up from time to time, but it seems impossible that nobody has seriously considered that an army of newborns is within her capabilities or an obvious tactic to adopt since she clearly knows about Edward and Alice's powers. The clothes for scent? That's pretty obvious, why would the Volturi need that? The newborns? Carlisle has made some gymnsatic logical leap about covering their tracks, but why would the Volturi care? Do they answer to anyone? If they wiped out a clan out of sheer spite, who's going to stop them? Is there a Vampire UN to sanction them? A Vampire Court for War Crimes? Anything? Seems like the Volturi have the run of it, why would they be subtle at all? It's all so we can have some big reveal where all the characters can be newly shocked about the threat and worry about Bella's well-being. It's PADDING and it's BORING.

T.03.12 Time

In Which We Have YET ANOTHER Debate About Bella

So after all the earlier debate, proposals, wheeling and dealing and eventual horse-wrangling, I'm low on synonyms for yet another discussion between Bella and Edward about her conversion.

• Edward is worried about Bella's soul and feels selfish.
• Bella worries she'll be different physically when she's a statue. Which seems obvious.
• Edward wants to know why she hesitated when he proposed.

Ok, woah. Take a break here. Edward didn't propose he tossed marriage onto the table while haggling with Bella back at the end of Book 2 after the silly vote. Worse, he did so with no apparent understanding of how Bella would react to this new bid. She was standing firm on vampirization after graduation, he raised it to vampire now + marriage. That's not a "proposal", that's a counter-offer. And really, what did he expect? If Bella was half as gung-ho about marriage as she is about dying, they'd already be wed and she'd be drinking raccoons for lunch. Edward seems totally against her vampireism, so he either already knew that Bella was anti-marriage or he was just trying to bowl her over with something out of nowhere. Ignoring the fact that he shouldn't have known how she'd react, NONE of this gives him any leverage in this debate. It's like tossing "let's move to New York" in and seeing how she'll respond.

Gah. Anywho, Bella is anti-marriage because of her parents. They were living in the promised land of 60's love until a ring entered the picture and as we all know that's bogus. Plus Bells doesn't want to be the straight-outta-Forks and married girl that is so socially ... something-something. I don't know if she's railing against the establishment of Forks and it's under-20 marriage rate or if she feels like a modern woman should be dodging proposals until she's post-menopausal. Guessing I haven't watched enough Sex In The City. Regardless, I guess Meyer has at least established that Bella's wonky family structure might have caused her to frown on the big ring thing, but that's pretty thin when the magic-love-of-yer-life is making you an offer that would give you the one thing you've advertised .you want more than anything else. Maybe Vampires have crazy divorce laws.

The morning news has more Seattle killings and so they leave this discussion and head to Vampire Manor. There they meet up with Carlisle, Jasper, Esme, Alice, Rosalie and Emmett. Jasper has a story to tell that requires him to disrobe and show off his many vampire bite marks.

SumUp D-

So sick of this debate. Didn't we resolve this with the big Alice wedding + Vampire switch after graduation thing a few chapters ago? Every three or four chapters it comes up again, starting in chapter 24 of the last book! Does Edward have some new bid? Is he going to raise Bella with a Porsche or big Harley or something? It's boring. It's annoying. It's trod ground. At some point we're supposed to have Vampires and Werewolves killing Vampires! Instead, it's more debate about a closed topic!

Honestly, I griped about the first two books having plots that exploded out of the last dozen chapters. As much as that sucked, this is even worse. Meyer is trying to build tension and it would be working if it wasn't taking so long. She broke away with the history of Werewolves, which was OK, but then we come back to more of the same: talking about things that we KNOW are going to happen and worrying about battles that should have already started. This isn't suspense, it's dragging things out.

T.03.11 Legends

In Which We Get Scary Stories II

Bella and Jacob go to La Push and hang out at a bonfire with the rest of the Werewolf Nation: Billy, Paul, Embry, Quil, Emily, Sam, Sue, Jared, Leah, Seth and so forth.

Billy tells the history of the Quileute Tribe: at one point they were spirit walkers, essentially leaving their bodies and walking around like ghosts. Then an evil Quileute took over the body of the chief while they were in spirit form and trapped him as a ghost. Eventually, the chief had to take up residence inside a wolf to return to the real world and save his tribe from the false chief. This led to the his offspring becoming Werewolves. Later, the tribe would meed Vampires and fight them, learning ways to destroy them in combat. Later still, they'd meet the Cullens and figure out the whole truce thing.

Yeah, it's longer than that, but you can buy the book if you want to read it. This has almost nothing whatsoever to do with the current plot and is just filling in the gaps in the last  Scary Stories chapter.  The lone connection to the present was the story of the "third wife", who cuts herself during a werewolf v. vampire battle to distract the vampire. So that's foreshadowing. Get it? Bella is going to cut herself. In about... 13 chapters, by my calculations. Yeesh, what are we doing for 13 more chapters?

Jacob takes Bella home. Edward is waiting. She falls asleep and has nightmares. He's reading Wuthering Heights.

SumUp A-

Aside from this ongoing lack of plot progression, this chapter holds up. The story is interesting and well written, the foreshadowing is a little obvious, but it at least gives Bella a chance to DO SOMETHING in the final chapters other than stand around while things fight over her. She will, of course, survive, unlike the third wife who snuffed it in her overzealous bloodletting.

T.03.10 Scent

In Which Bella Finally Gets A Helmet

Edward leaves Bella alone at Charlie's so that Jacob can come check out the house. A nice touch: Jacob has to drag his clothing around with him as a werewolf or he'd be naked. At least Meyer paid some attention to that little detail of her borrowed monster mythos. Must be hell on the shirt budget, though.

So Jacob checks out the house, manages to cut himself and do the fast heal thing again. I'll spare you the tedious details, Meyer clearly doesn't want us forgetting this key point, so I'm betting Jacob will get hurt in the climactic battle with Victoria and her newly created army of vampires. Sorry to spoil that for you, Meyer is painting by numbers, here.

Jacob finishes his sweep, invites Bella to a bonfire and leaves.
Edward returns with the mail (she got into Dartmouth).

Bella and Edward realize that the missing stuff was for her scent. I was actually shocked, because I thought for sure they'd already come to this conclusion way back when Bella first noticed it missing. I guess I'm a few steps ahead. Edward calls Carlisle and the two put together the fact that the Seattle crew is composed of new vampires (told you). Now at this point the Victoria connection is obvious, but Edward keeps thinking the Volturri are involved. I find it hard to believe the average reader is going to buy that for a second, but whatever.

Bella and Edward go back to Vampire Manor so she can get her motorcycle. She plans to give it back to Jacob to sell, but Edward has bought her a helmet and a jacket. He's also bought himself a big motorcycle, but we don't really get much of a description. All I have to say is good grief, the girl really has been tooling around with no helmet or jacket. Does Washington NOT have a helmet law? Actually, I don't think Bella has a motorcycle license anyway, so she's all kinds of illegal. Good going, Meyer.

Instead of riding, Edward stuffs Bella's bike into the back of the Volvo (what?!?) and drives her to meet Jacob.

SumUp C-

This is really getting tedious. Jacob and Edward together are ludicrous and this ponderous trudge to some kind of action is boring. I don't understand why they haven't made the Victoria connection. I don't understand why Edward is playing this disinterested, patient boyfriend routine. I actually understand Jacob, but it's been drawn so thin that I don't really care anymore. Somebody DO something!

T.03.09 Target

In Which Necessary Plot Develops

Bella returns home to a phone message from Jake begging forgiveness. Charlie is all for Bella forgiving and seems to be back on his matchmaker kick. Bella grumbles this off and starts laundry and discovers some of her clothes are missing. She assumes it was Alice, per one of her kidnapping plots until Edward shows up and reveals there is/was a vampire lurking about.

Hey, chapter 9 and we have a plot. I bet Bella becomes the Damsel in Distress.

Edward gets Emmett and Jasper to come by and search the house while he takes Bella back to the Vampire Manor. Alice insists it's not Volturi or Victoria near the house. Emmett and Jasper return and announce the all clear. Seems whoever came by snuck past their defenses, stole some of Bella's clothing and left without doing anything else.

Edward takes Bella home and they set watches.The next day Charlie goes fishing and Bella calls Jacob to forgive his outburst. Jacob and Edward work out the details of a new truce to protect Bella over the phone: The werewolves will start to patrol Charlie's house while Bella works to get Charlie to spend more time at Billy's for their own safety.

SumUp: C+

The chapter is fine, but it's short and exists solely to introduce the new threat and have some kind of setup between Jacob and Edward. I'm not sure why Bella/Meyer is dragging this out, we know how it ends and it makes Bella into a really manipulative, cold-hearted person.

Charlie has just about lost all his paternal points with this constant Jacob cheerleading.
Edward is still driving the perfectly patient boyfriend bus.
Am I the only one who's figured out that Victoria is sending vampires to test the werewolf / Cullen border? Or that the clothing will have Bella's scent on it? Doesn't that seem like an obvious sort of set up?

T.03.08 Temper

In Which I Do Three Reviews In One

Chapter 8 has three main sections

1. There's a conversation between Jacob and Bella on the beach at La Push (where else?)
2. A conversation between Jacob and Bella at Billy's about Bella's plans
3. Time with Edward and Bella back and the Vampire Manor.

I'm separating these because the grades I'd like to give to each section range so widely.

T.03.08.01 Perversion

Bella and Jacob are where Bella and Jacob always are, on the beach at La Push. Must be the hip thing to do in La Push.
Quill has converted to werewolf. So that's nice. Ends that little bit of drama.
Quill has also imprinted, which is crap.
His soul-mate imprintee is two years old.

Go ahead. I'll give you a moment. It took me a few.
Two. Two Years Old.
No, I'm not kidding in the least. Eclipse. Chapter 8. Page 175 of the hardcover edition. Most of the bottom of the page.
Go on. Go check.
Two.

"It happens", Jacob helpfully notes.
"Sounds really creepy", Bella understates by a million.
"There's nothing romantic about it", Jacob argues.

Really? Because that's not the song you were singing two chapters ago when this horrible abomination was first introduced. It was "love at first sight, only more absolute" and a "soul-mate" thing. Now it's all big brother and friend and buddy system when a toddler is suddenly involved.

"Doesn't Claire get a choice?", Bella asks. Finally pointing out one tiny facet of the nightmare we're now immersed in.
"Why wouldn't she choose (Quil)?"

Why? WHY? Because she's TWO. Maybe because she the parts of her brain that involve romantic love won't develop by one neuron for another DECADE! Maybe because you've introduced two characters and destroyed their emotional free-will!

Why, Stephenie Meyer? WHY? Why are you doing this? What possible reason could you have for defecating this concept into your story? This is the ugliest, creepiest, most offensive idea I have ever encountered in a mainstream "romance" novel. I'm struggling to find anything in my reading that comes close, and I have to stretch out into some weird manga or slash-horror movies to even approach this idea. I was convinced back in chapter 5 that this was ugly, did you really need to bring it back up and make it WORSE?

This is, by far, worse than the sleep-watching Edward.
This is, by far, worse than Charlie's crush on Alice
This is, by far, worse than the anti-climax of the first book.
This is, by far, worse than the idiotic "for-your-own-good" break up in the second book.
This is, by far, worse than the anti-climax of the second book.
This is, by far, worse than the endless comedy of errors of the funeral/fake suicide in the last book
This is, by far, worse than Edward's emotional abuse of Bella at the end of the last book
This is, by far, worse than all the plot cheating Meyer has been doing with telepathy and precognition.

SumUp: F------

I cannot grade this low enough to truly express my horror. There aren't even words. There is no defense of this, no possible way to claim this isn't awful in the extreme. It's sickening.


T.03.08.02 Break Up

That out of the way, we move on to Bella and Jacob essentially breaking up.

Back at Billy's house, Bella and Jacob discuss her plans to become a Vampire. Jacob wants to talk her out of it, but when Bella tells him that graduation is essentially the deadline, he freaks out. Bella insists they can still be friends but Jacob is having none of it. He thought he had more time to convince her to stay alive and stay with him, now he's down to weeks. He angrily points out that the treaty isn't limited to Washington State, so if Bella goes to Vamp U, the Werewolves might go to war. In anger, Bella hops on her motorcycle and leaves.

SumUp: B

Once again, Bella and Jacob work. I don't mean "ooh, I'm team Jacob, he lubs her". I mean Meyer can actually write scenes with these two characters in which you might actually forget you're reading a book and might, to one degree or another, believe that these two are real people having a real conversation. It's amazing how rarely this happens with Bella and Edward.


T.03.08.03 Treaty

Bella returns to Vampire Manor and talks to Alice and agrees to stay. She crashes on Edward's couch, but wakes up on his bed with Edward alongside. They get a little freaky and it's rather believable. Edward backs down, of course, and they start to discuss the Switzerland situation. Edward is retreating from his anti-Jacob position, but Bella tells him about the fight. So that might sort-of be resolved. Edward tells her a little of his backstory, something that ties back to Rosalie's midnight storytime that involves other, female vampires. Bella gets a little jealous, despite Edward's protests.

SumUp: B+

I'm almost going to back down from my position (stated above) that Edward and Bella rarely have good conversation because here they have a very good conversation. The sexual tension, even with the stupid safety net, builds and bubbles. Edward shows some real emotion, Bella gets jealous. It's believable and effective and even amusing.

SumUp SumUp: F+

I will not touch on the horrors of this chapter. I won't. It's done. I will say that without them, this would have been a chapter of interesting conversations, full of emotional moments and engaging discussion. It's not perfect, Jacob is getting a tad annoying and Edward's perfect boyfriend facade might turn out to be real. Still, when I reread the chapter (skipping a certain section), it was solid stuff. Sadly, the average is still below a D.

T.03.07 Unhappy Ending

In Which We Finally Meet Rosalie

Rosalie has been background noise for two and a half books, stepping into the spotlight only briefly at the end of each book to do something anti-Bella and then fading out again. Here, we have a whole chapter on Ms. Rosalie Hale's life.

Rosalie tells Bella about her life in 1923. She was a fluffy, beautiful daughter of a banker who was admittedly quite shallow. She desired only one thing: a family. Her arranged fiance crosses paths with her while drinking with his buddies and they take liberties, leaving her for dead. Carlisle finds her and tries to rescue her, then converts her.

Rosalie tells Bella that she's never fed on humans. She did, however, get revenge on her rapists. So she's killed 7 people.

The point of all this backstory (aside from finally getting some backstory) is to explain Rosalie's dislike of Bella. Rosalie is used to getting what she wants, and at one point she wanted Edward. Now, Rosalie's still jealous, but only because (she admits) she's very vain and wants everyone to want her. But that isn't the big pole in the tent. Rosalie is angry that Bella has the chance for all the things that Rosalie had stolen from her, family, children, life, and is choosing to become a vampire. In short, Bella is willingly following the path Rosalie was forced to take and never wanted.

The next day, Bella is leaving school when she hears a motorcycle. Jacob has come to take her since his plans are outside Alice's radar and since Bella didn't know beforehand, That way Edward and Alice can't interfere fast enough.

SumUp B

So Rosalie is now more human than most of the other vampires. She has clear flaws, clear problems and a story that supports it. Yeah, it's thin and somewhat cliche and I knew exactly what was going to happen, BUT there are touches of real writing here. Rosalie refuses to feed from her rapists because it would be a mirror of her own rape. She didn't, as she puts it, want anything of theirs inside her. THAT is good stuff.

Sadly, we're 1/3 of the way through the third book in the series and we're finally finding out information about a character that's been wearing the evil stepsister hat since the very beginning of the first book. Meyer is slowly going through the Cullen siblings and giving us history in giant bites. You know what would have been nice? A morsel of this back when Rosalie was dazzling Bella at the lunch table. "Why doesn't she like me?" she could have asked. Edward grimaces and shakes his head. "You're giving up something she's always wanted. I can't tell you..." sort of deal. Instead we had ONE moment during the vote chapter at the end of the last book and nothing else.

T.03.06 Switzerland

In Which We don't actually go to Switzerland

Bella leaves La Push and heads up to Angela's house. The Vampire Volvo, no doubt with angry boyfriend driving, follows. Bella ignores it.

Bella has a very human and very character-building afternoon with Angela doing announcements. It's all normal and all pleasantly written. Many plans and discussions, Angela is curious, Bella is friendly, good times.

Bella goes home and she and Edward argue.

• Edward nearly invaded La Push, truce be damned.
• Bella insists Jacob isn't dangerous.
• Edward puts his foot down.
• Bella does the same
• Edward insists he isn't jealous, which is idiotic
• Bella declares that she's Switzerland-style neutral in this whole debate. She more or less insists that she is, in fact, the country in question. We don't learn who represents the Axis powers in her analogy.

Edward leaves and has to go hunting again, so Bella plans to head back to La Push. Alice shows up to give her a ride home from work and reveals that it's a conspiracy to kidnap her and take her back to the Vampire Manor to keep her from visiting Jacob. And he said he wasn't jealous. This will, Alice tells Bella, be the standard operating procedure for any hunting trips. He paid her in Porsche, don't you know. Bella isn't happy.

Bella calls Jacob to cancel and leaves Edward a tense message. Alice paints Bella's toes (horror!) Bella heads off to sleep in Edward's room, now with an additional bed. And by additional, of course, I mean one more than zero.

Rosalie knocks.
Scene.

SumUp:B

Solid and despite my rage at the previous nonsense there's nothing here to hate. Alice is becoming a bit one-dimensional in her big-fluffy-pink-sister role. Edward's "not jealous" claims are either stupid or lies, and I'm hoping for the latter. The new bed is interesting, as it raises some old issues about vampire sex. Rosalie might actually have a chance to grow some dimensions.

T.03.05 Imprint

In Which Imprinting is a Nightmare

SumUp: F-

Yeah, I'm summing it up immediately. Normally, I try to describe the plot and editorialize slightly, then rant at the end.
Not here. Oh no.

The chapter is the end of a continued conversation between Bella and Jacob. During which they go over the history of Sam and Emily and Jacob describes Emily's injury and how Sam left Leah for Emily, turned into a werewolf and hurt Emily. Leah still loves him. It would be a decent conversation about a painful love triangle, except...

The reason for this love triangle is a newly introduced concept called imprinting. Imprinting is a lazy way for Meyer to introduce true-love without any basis other than magic that is never to be described or expanded on. It's bad enough that we're dealing with main characters whose love is entirely based on some undefined true-love magic wand, but now the werewolves have their own version. And it's ugly. Essentially Sam sees Emily for the first time and Sam = super in love and vice versa. It's absolute, unquestionable and eternal. And that's bull. Imprinting is a horrible concept in a litany of ways:

• Imprinting cheapens the very idea of love. The great love of Sam and Emily goes from beautiful and dramatic to a simple magic fact with no history or basis. Actual love requires effort, dedication, even sacrifice. True relationships involve a construction of trust and support to succeed, and even then they sometimes fail. This is dramatic; every hurdle, every victory, every disagreement, every possible ounce of drama and value that love involves produces drama. Imprinting is a cheap facsimile requiring no effort on the character or author's part. This is the instant-pudding version of love compared to a chocolate mousse souffle and romantically it is, in equal measure, horrifying and empty.
• It's lazy on an epic scale. Now Sam and Emily's relationship can be defined without bothering with the difficulties of background and characterization. His abandonment of Leah is forgivable, not because he's a real person who deserves a second chance or who is trying to redeem himself in a new loving relationship, but because he had no choice. Just toss "imprint" out there and you're all done with the mucky details of feelings and motivations and life.
• It destroys characterization via mind control. It robs characters of choice, of decisions, of (again) drama. You never have to wonder what a character will do if their loved one is involved, because they are defined by their magical compass of love. There can be no betrayal, no hidden motives, no affairs, no weakness and that creates flat, lifeless, dull characters.
• The real complexity of the spell Meyer is describing is astonishing but she never bothers to delve into it. Imagine you love someone and will do anything for them. They require both your kidneys to live. We don't have the rules of imprinting spelled out, but I'm guessing this is an impasse that is impossible to resolve. Even the simplest ideas of this ultra-love go beyond not cheating or not loving other people. Every need, every true desire of your imprint partner becomes an explicit order to you, one that you will carry out happily. How do you resolve any conflicts in the needs of two people? It happens. Life is never fair and relationships are never truly equal every moment of every day. 
• It establishes an ugly choice in your character's actions. Imprinted characters must either be paragons of virtue or eternal fountains of forgiveness.  How could one half love the other if, while separated, their lover was a murderer or a rapist or something equally horrible? Sam is therefore locked into the role of white knight or Emily becomes impossibly joined to a monster she can never not forgive, never deny, never escape. This takes the idea of abused spouse to a horrifying logical extreme.
• Ultimately, it's a wholly repugnant concept. Yes, they're characters in a book, but we're supposed to be imagining these existing in some kind of reality. Imagine for a moment that you or someone you love could be linked like this to a person you/they've never met without any consent, without any foreknowledge. This is mental hijacking, emotional robbery, the destruction of any and every other relationship you have at the drop of a hat combined with an eternity of mental servitude to another person. Their reciprocation is irrelevant. Your bliss is imaginary because you've been given an emotional lobotomy. In any reality other than Meyers', this would be treated as a scourge to be wiped out utterly. A mental defect of the worst kind. It's absolutely sickening in design.

There is no forgiveness possible for an author creating something this repulsive, this ill-conceived. 
Any value in the Jacob & Bella conversation is a tiny buoy dragged under by the weight of the Titanic cancer of this chapter.

This... bewildering need Meyer has to cheapen romance in a ROMANCE NOVEL seems pathological. It rivals her similar need to undermine every ounce of climactic tension. I can't begin to understand why she refuses again and again to describe actual relationships, despite clear evidence that she has some ability to do so. I'm literally shaking with anger at how stupid this concept is and I don't know why she insists on adding it. Why can't Sam just have a flaw? He liked Leah, but he -loves- Emily? Why is it necessary to introduce something so ugly and flimsy instead of doing the homework to make something dramatic and realistic? Irving's kidneys, I'm sick of this.

T.03.04 Nature

In Which Bella and Jacob are Reunited

Bella wants to wahmpirize even more now that Victoria is back in the picture, but the rest of the Cullens remind her that the process isn't short and she won't be any more of a help than she is now.

Which is zero. And has been for the last 2 books. Soory, venting.

Edward goes hunting. There's a good scene of Bella being the frantic, nervous junkie while she tries to kill time while Ed is gone. She even goes to work early, but they don't need her. Bella is starting to leave when she realizes that Alice couldn't have foreseen this change in plans, which means Bella can make the sudden decision to run off to La Push and visit Jacob. So she does.

Billy and Jacob are thrilled to see her. Bella and Jacob hit the beach (which is all they ever do) and she fills Jacob in on the last book: Ed left for her own good, though she snuffed it and then tried to off himself. Things are all better.

Jacob fills Bella in on the whole Victoria problem. The big issue is that the Werewolves and Vampires are pretty much getting in each other's way whenever Victoria crosses the boundary. She's clearly figured this out. The whole conversation is really well written, Jacob is boyish and excited about the chase and gets annoyed when Bella insists on giving each Vampire a name. He finally snamps "I don't really care what their names are". That's worth points, right there.

Jacob tries to grasp the whole Bella and Edward relationship (we're with you, man) and given the chance, Bella tries to explain. As usual, she doesn't. Her reasons: he's decent, he's loving, really don't add anything to Edward that helps us grapple with your head-over-heels love and honestly apply equally well to numerous other people. Like Jacob, Mike, and probably Tyler. Who knows? The chapter ends with Jacob upset and confused and Bella, as usual, leading him on.

SumUp: C+

The escape from Alice's magic is a good touch, but it demonstrates (again) just how much of a cheat this ability is. Meyer is having to write around Alice's abilities. Even if this gives us a good narrative, it's still a gigantic flaw in a central part of the plot.

Jacob and Bell's conversation is lively and visceral. Jacob is especially good at telling his story with little touches of his werewolf point of view tossed in.

Bella is turning the manipulative dial up. I don't know if Meyer realizes just what a colossal tease her main character is becoming. I suspect she has to by this point and is either doing this intentionally or feels like she has no choice but run the path she's put Bella in. Either way, it's not endearing me to the protagonist at all.

The worst of all is, again, Bella and Edward's mysterious relationship.  Meyer finally hands the opportunity to Bella to  go into her personal feelings and explain the deep connection she has with Edward and what do we get? It's a mystery. He's a nice guy. He loves me a lot. In other words, she doesn't know either. I guess it's better than her diving into the drug addict concept again. I just don't know why Meyer put this in here and then didn't use it for more than rehashing what we've already been told.

T.03.03 Motives

In Which Meyer Almost Becomes A Writer To Me

For the first time in the entire series we get a chapter that isn't presented directly in first-person reflective narrative. Instead, we get Bella's memories framed in a flashback while on the plane home from Florida. More on this later, but I was rather surprised.

So Renee is worried about Bella and Edward. She doesn't share Charlie's fear of grandchildren, she's actually more worried about the nature of their relationship and the odd intensity they share. I was going to elaborate more on this in the SumUp, but it's honestly worth going into here for just a second. Meyer has presented B&E in numerous ways but the most common is as an addiction. Their constant and poorly defined mystical need to be around each other has been dumped on us from their first meeting with almost no structure to support it. Here, amazingly, we get an external description of the pair that's interesting, enlightening and well defined. I can't stress this enough. Renee talks about Bella moving unconsciously when Edward changes orientation and talks about the strange way Bella visibly reacts to Edward's presence. This page of narration, this memory Renee is worth ten times what the last thousand pages of goofy looks and longing stares and irrational need that Meyer, via Bella, has been feeding us. THIS gives us a tangible hold on their annoying mystical connection and could have been a glorious light in the darkness of the first book.

Moving on, the homefront is quite abuzz. Charlie seems happy, Jacob wants to talk. The phone rings  and it's Jacob (speak of the Werewolf) who asks Bella if she'll be going to school the next day,. As soon as she says yes, he hangs up. Bella tries to figure out this mystery and decides Jacob was worried that her trip out of town = her conversion to Vampirism. Personally, I assumed this had to do with Victoria.

Alice is at FHS and I was right and Bella was wrong. Jacob arrives via motorcycle and wants to talk to Edward. They have an annoying "conversation" where Edward mind-reads Jacob and they growl and pose a lot. Mucho Testosterone. It seems Paul (Werewolf) and Emmett (Vampire) got into a near-tussle because of problems with the border between Werewolf patrols and Vampire patrols. Seems Edward wasn't entirely forthcoming about the vampires in the bushes and blah-blah took Bella to Florida for her own good when Alice had some vision.

They all argue in the parking lot. In a great touch, Jacob starts slamming Edward with memories to punish him for his mind-reading. When the principle arrives, everybody goes their seperate ways.

Edward & Bella pass notes in class rather than have an actual conversation and Bella + we learn that the Cullens and Werewolves have been hunting Victoria in the woods and stepping on each others' toes. Seems Victoria is aware of the problems the two have in working together and is using this to test for openings.

All that out in the open, they have a brief but very amusing conversation about Bella's horrible luck and how it would have destroyed the plane to Florida. I actually laughed at this. Bella goes to math and overhears a debate about Jacob and Edward's upcoming fight over Bella.

SumUp A

That's right, an A
It's a solid A., too.

Meyer manages to find an actual literary tool in her bag with the extended flashback sequence. Renee gives us some powerful and useful insight on Bella and Edward's relationship from a slightly objective viewpoint. The threat of the book is introduced (in chapter THREE!). Jacob uses Edward's abilities against him. Bella and Edward have an actual argument. Then they have a truly amusing conversation (well, note-passing session). Then we get information from the other students in reaction to Jacob and Edward's argument.

It's almost too much to bear.

I really can't express how much I liked Renee's descriptions and insights. I still don't buy into this magical love-of-the-ages connection between Bella and Edward, it's trite and there hasn't been one ounce of reasoning or support in the text. However, and it's a big however, a solid bit of THIS early in the relationship would have made all that staring and drug-addiction terminology a lot easier to choke down.

We also have an actual threat presented. There's conflict in Bella's ring of protective super-monsters. There's conflict between her boyfriend and not-boyfriend. There's turmoil at home. There is, and I almost hesitate to say it, actual drama going on.

T.03.02 Evasion

In Which There's Normal Plot Development

Bella is approaching graduation and her Freshman Year at Vampire University. Meyer describes the air around FHS as the senior class inches toward the big day and hits the jackpot of well-imagined and presented scenery. Signs in the school about end of year activities, fliers on the wall, class elections for the upcoming year. I'd have to guess she hit a local HS and put her best descriptive cap on, because I enjoyed every moment of it.

Angela needs help with graduation announcements and Bella uses the opportunity to both feed Charlie some normal-teenager vibes and reconnect with one of her old human friends. Alice, meanwhile, is plotting a graduation party that Bella, being some kind of anti-celebration mopey-dope, is all harsh on. In the middle of all this pleasantly paced and effectively described character development, Alice falls into a plot-related trance so we can move forward with whatever series of events will make Bella don her Damsel in Distress hat.

Edward and Alice become evasive (hey, a plot event that matches the chapter title) and do whatever it takes to not tell Bella that she's somehow in danger. Bella heads home with Edward and emails Renee while Edward investigates her room. He notices the radio that Emmett and Japser put in her truck on her last birthday (6 months prior or so). Why is he just noticing this now? He's been prowling her room nightly for months and he's just now spotting the broken radio? Edward also remembers the plane tickets and pushes Bella to go visit her mom or really disappoint Esme & Carlisle.

Bella finally turns the conversation to Alice's vision (something I think I'd ask about every hour on the hour) and Edward convinces her it was about Jasper.

Charlie comes home, Bella makes din-din, Charlie wants to visit Billy next weekend. Edward tells Charlie that Bella has tickets and there's a big discussion since she has 2 tickets and Edward would be traveling with her. Much chance for the grandkinds, Charlie reasons. Bella asks if he thinks Renee is such a terrible parent (ouch) and eventually Bella bails to Vampire Manor.

When she gets home, Charlie tries to have the sexxors talk and Bela gets embarrassed & annoyed. She finally manages to stop Charlie from showing her how contraceptives work and bails for La Push to visit Jacob. When she gets to the truck, however, she finds Edward has disabled it. No Werewolf friends for you.

SumUp A-

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this chapter that I haven't already complained about, and really there isn't too much of THAT anyway. The FHS descriptions are great, Edward and Alice's evasive vision-nonsense is old hat by now, although Meyer does a fair job making it all seem as realistic as it's likely to get. I realize that Edward is trying to get Bella to leave town for some "for her own good" reason to be revealed shortly, but we at least have the tickets from the previous book as leverage. So credit for either setting this all up beforehand or at least working the tickets into the story. The bizarre father-daughter relationship doesn't always feel right, but they're somewhat estranged anyway and I'm no expert on what this type of strained relationship.

My main complaint is that Edward is just now noticing the radio. He's really behind on his normal boundary-free exploration of Bella's room and has taken numerous trips in her truck. How has this only now become interesting to him? Minor quibble, Meyer is putting it in the "hey, remember your plane tickets" chapter as a tool to get Bella to safety (or whatever), which is a million times better than the last plan Edward devised for Bella's own good.

So we're two chapters in and I'm not nearly as horrified or depressed. Yeah, it all started so optimistically last time... and the time before that... I'll take what I can get, though.

T.03.01 Ultimatum

In Which We Don't Really Have an Ultimatum

Jacob is writing passive-aggressive notes to Bella. He writes what he means (you're really mean, what part of "mortal enemy" is confusing) then strikes it out and writes something else. Why send the strike-out parts at all? Oh, because you mean it. Why strike it out then? Oh, so the author can sell the reader on the story while still being stuck in this first-person narrative she's chosen.

Bella knows Jacob is hurt (which he has every right to be) and knows that she manipulated his emotions and so forth for half the last book. Her feeling bad about it doesn't really change much, though.

Charlie is acting weird and reveals that he's going to let Bella off easy on her grounding. New curfew, new arrangements. He also seems keen on Bella patching things up with Jacob, which doesn't really jive with the overprotective dad mantle he's been trying to earn.

"The afternoon was the only time I spent away from Edward, and it made me restless"
So nothing new there.

Not sure how far forward of Book 2 we've jumped. Not very far, maybe a few weeks. Graduation is a bit aways.

Murders in Seattle, which makes sense. If Victoria has moved off to remain a "threat" (cough) then it helps to keep some kind of reminder that she's around.

Bella mentions that her fave book is Wuthering Heights. I know it's a classic something of something literature, but really? Wuthering Heights? I'm not a fan and I have to wonder why Meyer picked that one. My jaded, cynical side says she dropped it in because it's not Shakespeare and she wanted something classic. My more optimistic side thinks maybe it's Meyer's fave and she wanted to put it out there. Honestly I don't see this becoming the horrid, strained analogy that Romeo and Juliet was, but maybe I'm not creative enough to put that much abuse and spite into a romance novel. And again, Wuthering Heights?

In a side thought,  Bella spells out the new cliques at FHS: Angela and Ben, Mike, Alice, Edward and herself form one group. Lauren and Jessica another.

Bella gets an acceptance letter from Alaska SEU and Edward arrives with more applications. Oh how I've missed his absence. His touch is cold but relieves her pain. Like Menthol. Or Crack. Plus we drag the smell + eat her conflict back up. Charlie is cold toward Edward, Edward sets up a shopping trip with Bella and Alice to make Charlie feel better. Charlie vetoes Seattle and heads off to watch TV Sports. Take a shot. New book, new rules man.

Edward has an application for Dartmouth. Bella argues, Edward collects the paperwork and tells her he'll just forge it. Solid descriptive touch when he clears the paperwork faster than she can see. Yeah, it's excessive, but it made me happy. Bella reminds Edward that she's planning to attend Vampire University (go fighting leeches!) and that all this applying is just a cover story for her immortal life of undergraduate studies. To sidetrack, we get a recap of the lingering Volturi threat and Edward mentions that the Seattle killing resembles newly created Vampires in their lack of skill. Another nice touch: the names of those killed bothers Bella.

Edward doesn't like the heights of Wuthering either, which is an annoying similarity we share. He's also going to put his footy down on visiting the phone-phobic Jacob.

SumUp B+

Nothing awful. A few nice touches of descriptive prowess, a decent summation of the outstanding untied threads and even a bit of characterization for my least favorite boyfriend. Things are looking up.

Clearly the Seattle stuff means something and one assumes that it's Victoria making baby vampires to fight alongside her to finish her weird revenge arc. Hopefully not in the same, awful late 18th chapter sort of plot explosion that we've seen in the other books.

The other books started well, too. So I'm not counting any chickens.