T.01.01: First Sight

In Which we meet lotsa people.

First, obviously, is Bella, who gets described as looking very much like her mother, who is not described at all. Bella is moving to Forks, Washington, where it rains a lot. This is emphasized quite a bit in the ensuing chapters, clearly to lend support to SM's redesigned vampires. I imagine they'll have little problem standing outside in Forks, which appears to be a real place.

There's a fashion fetish in the opening travelogue that I'm desperately hoping doesn't continue, but mostly we get Bella's misery. Oh, the humanity of moving from Phoenix (no vampires!) to the corner of Forks and Symbolism, Washington. Bella gets a little backstory as we meet Renee (mom, not named just yet) who is scatterbrained and involved with Phil. The final paternal unit is Chalie, who Bella has summered with and with whom she has a yet-to-be-defined relationship.

In Forks, Bella meets up with POLICE CHIEF Charles, which is precisely where I checked the channel to make sure this wasn't a Lifetime Original Movie. I'm going to put a dollar on this coming into play at some point. Although it could just be a useful tool for having dad show up once in a while. Daddy PI has bought her a truck, which she insists she could have bought herself (is Bella wealthy?) but then falls in love with the mid-century behemoth, sparing us some conflict and interest. Bella's inner monologue calls Dad "Charlie" constantly, which I'll take as characterization of their relationship.

After the truck distribution, Bella gets a description (page 10, not terrible). She's gothy, gothy and slightly more gothy. Pale skin (ivory, translucent, clear) and slender. She's pretty in every way a boring protagonist could be, with the requisite flaw of "tangled hair". She's also very introverted and isolated and cries herself to sleep. We also find out that her name is Isabella Swan. Which I cringed a little at.

Bella goes to school. I'm not going to judge too harshly, but the rainiest town in the country has a high school (one high school, I think) that's made up of seperate buildings. This means lots of wandering around outside to get to class. Fine. There's also an incredibly nice and helpful student body at Forks High (FHS from now on), which wasn't my experience in school, but I'm nitpicking.

Class Schedule:

1. English. Mr. Mason. Bella is already up on the required reading (Shakespeare, Caucer, Faulkner). I'd gripe, but we learn she read it all for her last HS. We'll see more bookworm Bella as we go. Here we meet Eric who's a black-haired kid who helps Bella find her next class.
2. Government. M? Jefferson. Of which we learn nothing.
3. Trig with Mr. Varner.
4. Spanish
5. Lunch
6. Biology II with Mr Banner. She hasn't gotten here yet.
7. Gym with coach Clapp. Wherein Bella's lack of coordination is consistently harped on.

We stop Bella's day at lunch, where we meet (but don't learn the name of) Jessica (tiny, curly hair)  and the Vampire Choir: Edward Cullen, Emmett Cullen, Alice Cullen, Rosalie Hale and Jasper Hale. They sit together apart from the rest of the school and are described using quite a few adjectives that boil down to "pretty". Emmett is lean and tall with honey blond hair. Jasper is lanky. One of the girls is "statuesque" and the other is a "pixie". They are all "inhumanly beautiful" and typically pale in skin. They have strange, archaic names (really, Isabella?).

The tableau is well done... and not so well done. The descriptions are good, we want inhuman ... well, inhumans. Bella noticing the not-eating and not-paying-attention clues is well written and descriptive. They're typically gorgeous, but herein lies part of the problem de Vampire. The quintet is paired up (minus Edward, natch) to avoid entanglement with humans. They're outcasts by design, even to the point of being orphans. But they all live together with a local surgeon (scandalous!) and are somehow weirdly adopted siblings. They're all gorgeous in exactly different ways, they ignore everyone, they're wealthy, they look way too old to be in school. How is Bella the only one to notice? There's talk later about the mind tricks the Vampires can play, but this seems like a lot of effort wasted when they could just tone down the LOOK AT ME vibe. Shouldn't vampires be more subtle? More cunning? Less blatantly in everyone's face? Especially in a small town who might rise up with ye olde pitchforks?

Bella sits through a hate-filled Biology with (joy) Edward as her lab partner, which is honestly a bit of lazy writing, and comes off with the impression that Edward despises her. Then she hits the Gym where Mike flirts with her. She runs into Edward in the main office trying to argue his way out of Biology (oh how much he hates her) and she goes home in tears. All in all a very productive day.

SumUp = B+
For an introverted ghost-skinned new girl, Bella sure hits it off with the lads in super-friendly FHS. It certainly wasn't a terrible read, even with the pile of exposition that SM managed to get on the page. Always a risk in chapter uno. Descriptions were there, non-blood sucking people seemed real enough and I breezed on through. I'm still not that happy with the Vampires. Why are they hanging out at FHS, aside from the romantic connection angle? Why doesn't anyone seem to notice them even with their clear disregard for any sort of low profile?

Edward comes off as a Romance Novel tool, he's perfect looking, clearly designed for the main character and clearly there's a ton of author invented hurdles that stand between them only to be resolved at some point (probably near the climax of this book). I'm not thrilled with the fake hate that will clearly resolve into luv after Edward gets over his blood-lust slash sudden love for Bella (or whatever that is), but I suppose it could have been much worse.

In any case I'm encouraged, maybe they anti-hype is wrong.