T.01.15 The Cullens

In Which We Meet The Wahmpires

Edward stays the night, but since he's a 100year old wahmpire who loves/is addicted to Bella but can't have sex with her it's not creepy or ridiculous at all. Yeah, I'm dropping that now, but just in case anyone didn't get it.

Dad/Charlie is gone and they have the house to themselves. There's a brief mention of his having disabled Bella's truck so she wouldn't sneak out, which is extremely frustrating because it proves that SM is capable of a nice, subtle touches of characterization so long as it doesn't involve wahmpires or Bella the eternal damsel in distress. We move to more nuzzling and expressing love in simplistic and addictive terms and naturally, they have breakfast.

Well, Bella does and Edward watches like he's never seen such a thing before. SM, meanwhile, dishes out a meal of statuary terms:

• Statue of Adonnis
• Stone shoulder
• Marble brow puckered

So what we have is a neutered, perfectly sculpted statue who can save Bella from all the problems of the universe and fill the reader in on events beyond her field of view. He also has plenty of teen/wahmpire angst to share with the readers and with all the dangers of a real, sexual relationship converted into physical dangers to make him a bad boy. Gotta keep the adrenaline flowing, after all. Going to actually let this go now. Very difficult. Very difficult. Warm safe place. Happy thoughts.

Edward is taking Bella to meet the family, which I'll predict will go well. We also get a to smell Edward's breath, which raises the wahmpire breathing question to pile atop our body odor mystery. We already know Edward uses smell, so there's some kind of breathing going on. We also get "breath coming more quickly", so he has some involuntary breathing. I'm curious how a diet of only animal blood becomes a nice scent. He must use a special toothpaste.

On the way out the door Edward kisses Bella and she literally faints. SM wants this to be some super-romantic effect of their unbound love being expressed, but it sure ain't working. At worst it's comedic. At best it sounds like a serious medical problem. Medical problems are rarely romantic. Maybe Edward took some first responder courses in this last century. Well, hopefully late in the last century, what with modern medicine and all.

Wahmpire manor is nice. Jokes about the decor are well done and amusing. SM has her description hat back on and things run smoothly until we meet the Cleavers... er Cullens. Mom (Esme) is Snow White, Dad (Carlisle) is Dr. Hottie. Pixie sort-of-sister Alice arrives in a swirl and kisses Bella on the cheek. "You smell nice" says the spider to the fly. But we know these are fairy-tale predators, only eating bambie and not the main cast. More statues to look at that can't really hurt you.

And Edward plays the piano. Of course he does. I guess he's had time to learn, so I was about to forgive this little cliche when he reveals he's written a song for Bella. He plays it as a background to the ongoing conversation, which involves Mom & Dad vanishing into the woodwork. Ed is now free to go down the list of family members and where they fall on the rainbow of love/hate:

• Esme & Carlisle love her
• Alice likes her but harbors some secret (she can see the FUTURE)
• Emmett is somewhat neutral/perplexed by it.
• Jasper is acting vampirish instead of wahmpirish
• Rosalie no like. 

So that's out in the open and we know who be worried about coming by and being mean and maybe dazzling Bella. They certainly won't be physical threats. We also learn some visiting vampires are on the way.  Which is actually interesting! Sadly that's all we learn. So, that seems like it would come into play... might have been nice to get a bit of detail. Maybe warn the townfolk. Get Bella out of harm's way. Or we could just mosey upstairs.

So that over we move on to the ginormous cross in the hall which serves as a spark to discuss Carlisle in the next chapter. He's 300 years old and was a son of a vicar and a vampire hunter. Sure, sure. Of course he was.

SumUp B-
Per my rules, stuff from previous chapters doesn't get scored so the breakfast scene boils down to some iffy conversation and the kiss of fainting. The house & contents get the small paintbrush of details rather than the giant roller of dumb cliche, so things go well. The siblings are (again) a spectrum of good to bad simplistic adjectives and emotions,, which is annoying. Yet somehow this chapter comes off with a passable score. There's less moping, very little fake-sex-caressing and no sparkling or wahmpire idiocy.

T.01.14 Mind over Matter

Where "Insanely Creepy" is bewilderingly confused with "Sweet"

More driving = more Q&A, it seems. Edward was born in 1901 and wahpirized in 1918. They return to Charlie's house and sneak upstairs for more conversation and teasing. By the way, he watches her when she sleeps.

He watches her when she sleeps.
He watches her when she sleeps.
He watches her when she sleeps

Bella is worried about talking in her sleep and not the unbelievably creepy fact that he's breaking into her home, breaking into her ROOM and watching her while she's most vulnerable. To anyone who thinks this is even slightly romantic: I think you're insane. This is abnormal, psychopathic behavior. There is zero normal about this and zero romantic about this. If you think for one second that this is romantic, seek counseling.

Why does he do it? Because wahmpires don't sleep and he was curious. Maybe he also reads her diary, rearranges her underwear drawer and checks out the medicine cabinet for her prescriptions. Don't want her forgetting to take her pills!

Without invitation, Edward is laying on her bed.  Do I need to explore the sex-kill conflict and creepy boundary breaking going on here? Wow. Just... wow.

Bella takes a shower. She's slightly hot and bothered and has a brief, impressive narrative moment where she wishes for hot underwear and/or nicer pajamas to wear for Edward. Not that she could use them. And it does sort of re-highlight some issues, but all that aside it was a brief moment of hormonal reality in an ongoing emotional void. Honestly, this might be the best, most realistic, most immersing moment of text in the entire novel to this point. It was in this moment that I can see Bella as a person and not a character in a book. In Chapter 14. I cannot express just how wonderful this touch of literary water was after so long in the desert of this book. Bella gets a character trait that isn't bookworm or domestic via description. It is joy.

Then they go back to the no-sex game and face touch and caress a lot, which ruins everything.

Just as things are getting unbearable (for me, at least) they start wrestling and have an actual conversation about jealousy. A real, human conversation about emotions. Even the wrestling is good minus the stupid sex safety net. Everything is tethered, everything is held up by them being "safe" in this unsafe environment. Even Charlie (downstairs, allegedly) doesn't hear anything and interrupt the statue molesting his daughter. We know that these main characters are ultimately sexless and all this foreplay is doomed to crash as soon as Edward's safety valve whistles. For a few moments, though, you can look past the high-wire act and see them as teenagers goofing off. Between this and the bit about Bella's undies, I'm going to go weep over here for a few seconds.

Then they lie down together and cuddle in Bella's bed.

Wait... lying in bed involves them being close to each other in the dark, which was explained to us earlier to be an unbearable torture that would occur anytime there were no lights and close proximity because they couldn't stand it and Edward would something-something. I guess we've worked through that little problem. Maybe it's fixed if they actually touch, which means holding hands under the desk would have saved us all from those two chapters. Or maybe it's the witnesses... which there aren't any of here... I don't know.

The conversation shifts to the other vampires and things get worse. They're like the X-Men. Some of them have a unique super power and we learn of two: Alice can see the future. SHE CAN SEE THE FUTURE. I could rant about how this is an awful cheat for an author, but I'll assume anyone reading this has at least the 4 functioning brain cells required work that out. And Emmett can sway people's emotions. Sigh. Long, frustrated sigh.

Astonishingly, Bella brings up sex. Edward lets her down easy. No es possible, hot mama. He'd get all crazy and crush your skull (actual example given) or something. Super bummer. Also, Bella is a virgin, so that's out in the open. As if you doubted. Moment of possible real conversation and we race by with barely a nod. Then, Charlie checks in. Bella pretends to sleep, the conversation lags and Bella actually falls asleep.

Technically she "drifted off to sleep in his cold arms".
It's like a stone body pillow. Just try and imagine how comfy that would be. Or go sleep next to a curb.

SumUp: D+
The moaning continues, but big points to SM for broaching some real subjects here. Bella wants the sexorz! She's human! Edward.. well, isn't, but he seems interested in a cold, detached wahmpire way. There's so much potential conversation and conflict here that's just tossed out as bland conversation. Jealousy is skimmed over with a sour face and a shrug. Sex is brought out and instantly shelved as a topic. It's everything you don't expect to happen in a teenager's bedroom because it never does. The conversation is so unbelievably frustrating to read because every upswing in my interest, every moment of real emotion or real discussion is followed by idiocy and wahmpire rules.

Oh, how I wanted to give this chapter a good score. It's close, so horribly, painfully close to being good stuff.

Moment of creepy: they're now sleeping together in the literal sense. Well, she's sleeping, he's lurking in the corners and watching.
Remember, she's 17. He's almost 6 times her age. And he's watching her sleep.
*shiver*

T.01.13 Confessions

In Which Everything SPARKLES

Oh how I would love to have revealed this to the world, but clearly a million other media outlets have ruined the surprise. Edward steps into the light and he... well, sparkles. That's the first adjective that SM pulls out to describe it. He's also "covered in diamonds", he's "incandescent", which is actually an entirely different sort of luminescent quality, but mostly he sparkles. He's also shirtless, per usual, so there's quite a lot of text lovingly describing his muscles and chest (drink up). It's pages of stonework and glitter. Of course two teenagers alone miles from anyone would normally be the setting for a different kind of story.

Honestly, is this really some kind of fantasy for girls? I'm already having a tough time getting over the endless literal references to Edward being stonework and statuary. But sparkles? Has the diamond industry so brainwashed young ladies to the point where they now fantasize about a living diamond as a boyfriend? What on earth would he get her if he proposes? And honestly, it's just so pathetic. THIS is the great shocking truth about wahmpires and sunlight? They light up like Liberace's capes? They look like Chippendale dancers who got overenthusiastic with the body glitter? This is the fantasy?!? Normally, romance novels are keen to go on about our human fascination with physical contact: the warmth of flesh, the supple or giving sensations of pressing against someone, how skin feels when it's slick with sweat. Edward can never have any of those qualities and it baffles me how that's romantic or erotic or exciting in the least.

Now that Edward has revealed (literally, remember he's shirtless) his dark/bright secret, we get quite a long episode of the two simulating sex. On the one hand, there's some really good work done to make Edward seem interesting early on. He sings to himself out of Bella's audible range because he's (I assume) nervous. That's a fantastic little touch of humanity and inhumanity. They lay down and Bella gently explores his hands and arms. It's sensual and very well described, minus the idiotic references to stone and sparkles.

So herein lies the big problem. It's normal stuff for seventeen year olds to be doing... sort of, and the vampire ("V") stuff is applied lightly and effectively. The WAHmpire stuff is, however, ridiculous. Ignoring the sparkles and the stonework, Edward is unable to control himself around Bella, he even goes nuts at one point and starts smashing things (good thing they didn't just hang out at the house) and it's just angst piled on top of melodrama piled on top of fake sexual tension. Why is this his outlet? Will this be a theme? Why isn't Bella shaken by this? Why would you do this way out in the middle of nowhere? We don't know.

And the false sexual tension is the real root of all this, isn't it? I gave credit to critics for coming up with the "safe, sex-free romance" concept for this book and having read it I have to withdraw all that credit. Not because they're wrong, but because it's SO Unbelievably OBVIOUS. I can't give credit to Roger Ebert telling me the main actor's gender in a movie, it's blindingly obvious. At this point, SM couldn't ladle the sexual tension on any thicker or have the clear "no touchy" rule any  more in effect. All the normal sexual tension is handed off and locked behind Edward's blood lust. He can't have sex with her because he'd go crazy and kill her. So he's both SAFE (in a sexual way) and DANGEROUS (in a bestial way). The question now becomes: how long does this fake tension get dragged out for? 2 chapters? 10 chapters? The next 2 books? Up to the point where Edward makes Bella a wahmpire?

Wait. Wait, wait wait. Oh wow. I'll take it all back. EVERY WORD if Edward  goes bazonkers on Bella while they're actually having sex, then has to make her into a wahmpire to save her in the afterglow. I'll even stop calling them wahmpires. By Roget and Webster's toes, I swear this. By every vowel in Shakespeare I swear this. I will wear a Twilight T-shirt to my next family outing and even to WORK if that happens.

• eyes = bugtterscotch
• eyes = brighter
• eyes = warmer
• angel face

These may not all be shot-worthy since they're not emotes, but it does speak to a pattern. Best line in the chapter from Edward

"I don't scare you"

Not so much at this moment, Mr. Discoball. 

So it's pages and pages of this: they caress. They talk about fear (without any idea what it means) and love (also without any idea) and finally Edward tries to demonstrate how dangerous he is. Bella is slightly put off, but recovers quickly. Then it's side B of their life: codependent discussions of how terrible they feel when they're not together. Edward even brings up heroin, which I honestly thought was downright daring for SM to admit, even in jest by a character.

Edward retells the first few chapters (which I now refer to as "the good old days") and why he did the things he did around Bella. There's some magical connection that Wahmpires feel only once in a [insert long length of time] and it's special-special. I think it's lazy writing and they could just be really hot for each other, but I'm living on another planet in a universe called reality.

Gods they're drawing this out.

So Edward bailed to Alaska to escape Bella's super-hot goth babe magnetism. On a side tangent the receptionist at school is named Ms. Cope. Seriously? Cope? In a conversation about co-dependence and references to them being junkies for each other? Insert sad chuckle here. Edward follows up this smart plan (avoid killing new girl and getting found out by townfolk) by returning to see if he can stand up to her magical, author-imbued irresistibly and they have nice conversations in Bio and he's all hot for her. They discuss, at enormous length, how unfair and strange and hopeless it all is. On and on and on. For every statement that rings true, that holds depth, that doesn't come off as hokey or impossible or nonsense there are three times as many that do. It's a rollercoaster of nonsense about how much they want to just have some kind of normal relationship/life.

But no sex, cuz he'd totally kill her.

I'm just going to put in two cents about "love" here. Edward and Bella have known each other for about a month, minus the escape to Alaska. They're unnaturally attracted to each other, have some strange infatuation and share some weird addictive need to be in each others' presence. This isn't "love". I don't know that there is a word for this. Maybe pheromone-intoxication addiction or something. Aside from the touching and some part of their conversation, there's almost nothing that spells out a real relationship arc or the trust and shared interests and goals that form a basis for love. It's one part teenage crush mixed with a ton of wahmpire nonsense mixed with the author insisting it's true love at first sight without once telling us why. As with the plot issues and self-preservation, I'm going to let it drop until it becomes unbearable, but right now it's just horrid.

Bella and Edward move on to a sadomasochistic game of chicken involving each doing things to push Edward beyond the point of self control. Again, by themselves in the woods where no-one will ever find them. It's supposed to be romantic, but it reads like teenagers racing cars toward the cliff to see who jumps out last. They might as well be playing with knives or waving their hands over a flame or taunting a lion with a sirloin. A pattern emerges: the sexual tension starts to bubble, the emergency-vent of Edward's blood lust kicks in and everybody feels teased or coos at the melodrama. Eventually she exposes her neck to him and leans on his chest and they have to stop because the next logical thing to do would be for Bella to cut open an artery and shove it directly into Edward's mouth.

All that sexual teasing done with, Edward flies her back to the truck. Yeah, flies. It's described as some sort of fast-walking, tree jumping Tarzan act, but it's effectively flying. When they get there he leans in and kisses her.It's actually rather sweet until

"Blood boiled under my skin, burned in my skin"

Holy crap! Second degree burns on the lips if they kiss! That's.. No, she's fine, it's just hyperbole. Or something. Edward, of course, locks down. Actually, Bella seems to be going into diabetic shock after the kiss. Seriously, this isn't normal no matter how hot he is or where he kisses you, those symptoms aren't good. Maybe if they'd brought cheese. Edward insists on driving home and kisses her on the neck to show how easily he could snuff out her life, so Bella agrees.

No, it's not written that way. But it works better if you read it that way.

SumUp F
There are some very tender moments between B&E.
There's some nice descriptions during the hike.
There's decent dialogue when they aren't whining and whinging and moping.
And this doesn't get an F for the sparkles. Although that didn't help.
Or the stone-stuff. Or the eyes. Which I didn't list all of.
Or the fact that nobody actually -confesses- anything, unless SM is talking about Edward's retelling of the first few chapters.

No, it's everything else. The moronic plan to go hiking in the woods alone. The endless pity party. The sexual tease, lock down, sexual tease, lock down game. The "lets make Edward kill Bella" game.  A definition for love lifted from a guide to setting up addict interventions. All of this is presented as some kind of perfect, eternal and star-crossed love affair between Bella and Edward and it fails, utterly and completely.

But oh god, the sparkles...

T.01.12 Balancing

In Which Disconnected Stuff Happens

Billy and Jacob come by (they actually show up at the very end of the last chapter) and Jacob confronts Bella about her relationship with Edward. She admits to it and Jacob laughs. Then tells her that Billy isn't happy about it. Then they watch the game with Charlie and they leave.

Wait, what? I'm still not sure what's going on with Jacob. He cannot possibly be a Werewolf. Plus this whole section of the chapter is oddly disconnected from the previous chapter.Was there some other reason to have the two show up? Is there some Tribal link? Will this actually go anywhere? Can I just keep asking questions or do I have to continue reading?

The next day Ed picks Bella up for school and grills her about more boring factoids. They rearrange their Saturday plans because... well, there really weren't any plans except to not be in Forks on dance day and Edward surely has a whole universe of banal facts to pry out of her.

Nice Note: They finally get around to talking about the rest of the Cullens.

Bad Note: It's been 245 pages and we finally get around to talking about the four other vampires sitting in the cafeteria. As this goes on, Rosalie puts the dazzle on Bella until Edward stops her. Then Alice comes over (when it rains vampires...) and she's super hottie and somewhat nice and full of life... or whatever and boom, she's gone. So them's the sisters, I guess. Oh, and Rosalie is the supermodel, Alice is the pixie. Now we've got everyone situated in their unique descriptive box.

Bella monologues about the relationship being "poised on the edge of a knife" and I monologue about "what are you talking about?".

Here's what we know so far:

• Bella has gone all-in with Edward. All the angst and kvetching changes nothing. She made that decision on page 141 in Chapter SEVEN and hasn't moved one inch from it and doesn't look like she's going to try.
• Edward seems unable or unwilling to put an end (my way or not) to the relationship.
• Edward's family has ignored the relationship completely with the exception of an attempted dazzling by one sibling. This implied consent doesn't make survival sense, but it all but ensures they won't get in the way.
• The town is blind to anything wahmpire or werewolf related, so safety isn't an issue.
• SM keeps assuring us that this is a love for the ages, so we don't have to worry about it.

Seeing how Edward is perpetually 17 and Bella isn't, the only way this works is to make her a wahmpire. That's just basic math. Edward won't do this casually, of course, because it takes crazy control (described earlier in the book and later on in more detail and it will be repeated ad nauseum). That leads up to my prediction involving the next big thing in the books: Bella will get hurt and Edward will only be able to save her by turning her and he'll have to super-crazy fight the blood lust that ensues but he will and that'll solve everyone's problems. Horray, they can stop going on about it and live foreverafter as dual statues of love. Maybe on a nice fountain.

I don't know if this will happen in this book. I'm guessing they'll make it through the rest of the  book with some kind of Werewolf problem or other non-biting Bella sort of issue that Edward will have to save Bella from. If history is an indicator, Bella's problems will be solved with absolutely zero input from her.

Tolkien's Trousers, there's a chapter going on without me. Bela does laundry (not very interesting this time) and dopes herself up on cold meds to get some sleep with the big Saturday Date tomorrow. There's an annoying amount of "don't try this at home" tacked on to this section of the chapter, guess Ms. Meyer doesn't want to get SUED.

Bella acts like a junkie in need of a fix until Edward arrives, then they pack up and leave. Edward's surprise? Hiking. Cue the "clumsy" adjective, it resurfaces repeatedly. Amazingly, despite Edward's suggestion and the blindingly obvious logic of it Bella has refused to update Dad/Charlie on her new plans, so he's still under the impression Bella is en route to Seattle by herself in the supertruck. So once again Edward has Bella all to himself in a remote area with no one to help her or stop him and a pretty good alibi. Which is idiotic from both MY perspective: she's made it easy for him to remove her as a threat, AND from Edward's perspective: there's no safety net and they're out in sharp, pointy nature with the clumsiest girl in the history of the universe. Even swallowing all the nonsense thus far, this is Edward rolling the dice on his yet-to-be-tested self control around a bleeding Bella. I hope that Edward at least told his family where he was going in case the one person on earth he can't ensure via telepathy isn't plotting to kill him doesn't have a gravedigger's shovel and a wooden stake in the truck bed. I know, dare to dream. So... idiocy points for everyone!

Hope you brought a flask for this hike:

• eyes = annoyed
• chest = chiseled
• Godlike & angel. Same sentence, so you can double up if you feel like playing hardcore mode.

Several hours and zero turned ankles later, they reach a meadow of wildflowers, which I admit would be pretty romantic stuff. It'd have been even better with a trail or path or road, and I'm not sure why Edward has this romantic card in his deck at all, being a loveless vampire for the last century, but ok.

• eyes = cautious
• eyes = wary
• eyes = reluctant

We end the chapter just prior to the big reveal, which I'm already aware of. The build up is endless and you'd think when he walked into the light he turned into some kind of bat-beast or was covered in bees or... gods, anything else. Just anything else.

SumUp:C+
SM plays to her strengths with the natural world descriptions and travel, so things roll along after we get the mysterious Billy and Jacob visit and junkie morning out of the way. The whole scene with Edward's sisters implies there's going to be an unrealistic range of feelings amongst his family members, probably ranging perfectly from thrilled to hating it (but not killing Bella). We'll see. The problems of motive and plot logic are still there and the eye emotes are reaching a fever pitch. The irredeemable idiocy of Edward taking Bella hiking by themselves is the anchor around this chapter's neck.

Stay tuned for the sparkles!

T.01.11 Complications

In Which Being In The Dark Is Annoying

After a long morning of Q&A, Bella and Edward go to Bio, where they watch a movie in the dark. It's a horrible experience. At least it was for me because I had to read how they can't touch each other. It's some kind of actual , physiological torture to sit near each other in the dark. Oh, the starcrossedness or something.

Wait, why can't they touch each other? They've touched before (remember? electricity?). Supposedly it boils down to Edward being a psychopathic monster who would kill her if she touches him while there are no photons bouncing off his milky, stone skin. Or maybe it's the room full of witnesses. I guess this is what PG sexual tension looks like, and it's ugly. When they leave Bio, however, Edward touches her face. I was waiting for the ensuing blood-bath, but was disappointed. This angst pile is tedious at best and while I make fun of the silly rules that SM seems to have dropped into this universe, it doesn't make any kind of rational sense for them to torture each other like this when there are literally only two options: Bella becomes a vampire or they stop being together (bloodbath or not).

Bella goes to gym and is clumsy. Mike is unrealistically cool with the whole situation. I miss Mike, he didn't subject me to long dark angst filled classes. Oh, and Psychic powers are very lazy. Not going to rant again. Having a hard time paying attention to details in the descriptions because I'm frustrated with the facts as presented. Plus my already tenuous grammar is slipping. Edward reveals that every dude in school is secretly hot for Bella. She plays coy. I grind my teeth. Oy.

You know what else is lazy? Emoting with eyes. Hope your livers are ready.

• eyes = shrewd
• eyes = burned with sincerity
• eyes = playful
• eyes = measuring
• eyes = topaz again.
• eyes = dark
• eyes = ambivalent

Doesn't make the pain go away, does it? No. Not even a little.

The next day is a photocopy of the dark angst, face touch after class routine.  Statues rubbing your face wouldn't seem like it would be that enjoyable, but I don't know how to test that theory without looking really stupid.. Also, the question duties have shifted to Edward, who has a bottomless appetite for the mundane answers we get from Bella.

Thankfully, Jacob and Billy show up to disrupt the Q&A.

SumUp: C
It's the same as yesterday, only more so. Can't penalize for telepathy, but I can be annoyed by the darkness and eye-emoting. I also miss Mike, even as flat a character as he is.

T.01.10 Interrogations

In Which Girls Gossip, the Drinking Game gets REAL and the Q&A continues

Edward arrives to pick Bella up (or did he ever leave? Creepy) and so as to display his chiseled chest (literally) he again loans her a jacket. Oh Edward, you're evolving into such an unrealistic character. Or a marble coat rack.

Side note: why does Edward smell good? Scent is sweat + soap + cologne + whatever you've rolled in or been around. Do wahmpires sweat? Does cologne work if your skin is made of porcelain? His scent is pleasing to Bella (last chapter and again here) but we have no description of what that scent is like, nothing to work from. This isn't just idle curiosity, this ties into the author actually figuring out what her non-human creation is and does. What makes it tick. Sniffing a jacket is a human to human action and we don't have that combination. Is Edward actually dead/undead or is he some sort of suspended-in-life creature? He doesn't eat food, so he must eat a lot of blood to get the ton of energy he uses. Is he always cold or does he generate heat when he moves really quickly? We're clearly dealing with a novel interpretation of vampire lore, so we can't really trust anything inherited from Stoker. Yet Meyer isn't providing anything except "Edward is different" without the underlying structure to explain it. Honestly, I don't need every single piece of magic explained, but I'd at least like to feel like the author put some thought into it.

The conversation continues en route to and while at school. Edward claims "we try to blend in" to which Bella replies "You don't succeed". I laughed for a good, long time at this idiotic understatement. While separated, Edward keeps tabs on Bella via reading other people's minds.

MIND READING RANT
Twilight is presented in first-person perspective, which means we get an inside-the-head description of the universe from Bella's point of view and ONLY Bella's point of view. It's like reading her diary. In contrast, movies are almost always third person (since we can't visualize or hear thoughts except as voice-overs) and we only see what happens, not what's felt. The trade-off is that a movie can cut from person to person at will.

First person has one great advantage: immediate, unrestricted insight into the protagonist.  First person can describe internal emotions and thoughts, even if the narrator is hiding them from others.  The major downside to first person is the limited perspective of only one viewer. You don't see what they don't see. You don't hear what they don't hear. Feelings outside the narrator are implied, described by facial expressions and actions of others. This allows for misunderstandings (drama!), confusion (drama!), unintentional emotions coming out (drama!) and all sorts of other conflict that this limited view allows. You don't get to peek into other people's emotions with clarity unless the book shifts narrator.

Except here we do, thanks to Edward's magical mind TV, and that's a lazy pile of crap bit of cheating. Bella now has a view into other people's heads and other areas of the world via Edward's psychic powers. A view that he seems all too ready to share and use at will. This drops much of the dramatic tension of first-person perspective. There's no risk of deception. No threat of someone lying or hiding something or pretending to do or be something. Nothing around the corner or happening outside the narrator's view to establish dramatic irony. Everyone is now available to be picked clean by Edward, everywhere is now visible. All this does is make the author's job easy by removing the hard, but useful dramatic limitations of writing from a fixed perspective.

AND FINALLY (I swear), having Bella be immune to this, aside from my ongoing annoyance at her unearned special status, is a cheat within a cheat. Why can't he read her? Because then it'd be a boring book where Edward knew every stupid thing she'd do to get into trouble and everywhere to find her and save her before there was any danger. It might as well be from a universal point of view. It's an exception because the cheat itself is so huge that it eliminates all possible tension and drama. This is truly maddening junk and I seriously hate every. single. stupid. thing about it so, so very much.
END OF RANT

Apparently Mike and Jessica really are all taken care of. Check in that box. That was easy!

The chapter essentially boils down to girl gossip and an edited recap of the night before so Jessica is caught up.Bella and Edward spend a lot of time  moping around about how they can't be together in some undefined but deeper sense and continuing the questions.

• Wahmpires can't eat food in any form.
• Edward really, really doesn't know he dazzles people

Oh, and get your shot glasses ready.

• His eyes go cold and piercing
• His eyes go liquid. Gods in heaven I knew it was coming. ARGH. Anne Rice will surely sue.
• His eyes go liquid topaz. First, topaz can be dozens of colors but if pure, it's transparent.  The most common color is an  icy blue, but I'll assume she means the still very common brown/amber variety. Finally, I'd like to point out that liquid topaz would be a mass of hot silicate and you don't want that in your eyes.
• His eyes are smoldering. Which might be what melted the topaz.

SumUp D+
The conversation is boring and gossipy. Nooooothing happens. The questions threaten to continue into the next chapter. I already got the mind reading nonsense out and previously ranted about Edward's ignorance of dazzling people...

Actually, I'm still annoyed at that. I get he had 17 years as a human and 80-ish as a wahmpire, but shouldn't he notice how he makes women react? IF his brain is locked in some 17 year old's mode (which only reduces the creepy nature of this relationship by a notch), there's no possible way he hasn't picked up on that. I assume his sex drive still works on some level, whatever the reproductive capabilities are.

Ugh. Argh. Other sounds of annoyance.

T.01.09 Theory

In Which We have Q&A for the next 3 Chapters.

Edward can drive fast. Bella doesn't like it. For the record, Ms Meyer, most people would assume Vampires are more dexterous, stronger and faster than humans. It's pretty much established in the mythos that you're ... er... borrowing from. You can just drop a fact like driving fast out there in the text once and you really don't need to spell it out for the reader. No need to constantly go on and on and on and on about it. And on. But you're going to.

So here we have Edward and Bella alone and aside from the infatuation stuff, it's a straightforward dialogue of questions.

Now if I were a vampire and I had a person alone with me who now knew in absolute terms that I was a vampire and had detailed knowledge of my life.. I'd kill her. Isn't that what Vampires do? Isn't that a logical self-defense position? I mean, I'm certainly not a killer in real life, but being a blood-drinking parasitic killer of fantasy pretty much rewrites the laws of moral behavior. So keep that in mind, friends and family, that's how close you are. Anyway, in my mind this is exactly when vampires should kill people. OR if Edward wanted to cover his tracks completely, he should take her home, make sure Charlie has a good look at her home safe, then whisk her out of her bedroom and end the threat. SHE'S A THREAT YOU IDIOT. SHUT YOUR STUPID MOUTH HOLE.

Fine. We are thus burdened with Stupid Romance Novel Rules.

So, Bella. You're alone with a supernatural murderer who seems to have some bizarre fetish for talking/staring at you. That infatuation is what's apparently keeping you alive. What do you want to discuss? First, of course, let's just toss Jacob and his whole family onto the fire. Guess what, Edward? Jacob told Bella that you're a vampire. Jacob told her that Ed eats wildlife to not go blood-frenzy in the street type crazy. Did you know Jacob? Son of Billy, lives on the reservation Jacob, that guy? He's also maybe a werewolf. Yeah, that's not 100%, but in case you needed another reason. By Walden's Eyes, girl. Why don't you just go kill Jacob yourself? Of course, I'm assuming some sort of rational response from Edward. Something like self-preservation or a sense of betrayal. Instead he marvels that the Tribe remembers any of this. You know, like a whole hundred years after the truce with the local vampire family was set up.

ARGH.

Highlights of the conversation:
Bella: It doesn't matter to me what you are.
Edward: You don't care if I'm a Monster
Bella: No

Correct Edward Response: You're psychotic and I'm going to bleed you dry and go kill that blabbermouth Jacob now that the truce is over. So help me I'm going to muzzle you and drain every drop of blood from the both of you.

Actual Edward Response: Yep. You're right. I'm a big old vampire. What to know all the rules of Vampires in this universe? You know, so you can figure out a way to kill me or buy me some garlic-filled pizza some time? Love garlic. Good stuff.

We learn they're good vampires and that there are bad vampires (i.e. REAL vampires) that actually hunt + kill people. The Cullen clan call themselves vegetarians. They can but don't go out in sunlight for reasons undisclosed but which we already know (SPARKLES!). So ultimately Twilight Vampires = not really vampires seeing how they ignore all the rules of vampires that make them anything except superhuman parasites. I'm going to dub them WAHMPIRES.

Bella and Edward all but confess some kind of weird co-dependent need for each other and Bella cries and Edward drops her off at home. By romance novel rules we need to have a little more love develop (or whatever this facsimile is) and then there'll be a separation and reconciliation at the climax with much PG-13 kissing... or that creepy stroking thing these two keep doing. Maybe we're not on that ride, but I'm not seeing a lot to suggest otherwise.

SumUp C
It's a road trip with lots of talking. The conversation, insipid as it is, flows along and we get some details on what Wahmpires do and don't do. We learn that Bella and Edward think their annoying co-dependent need to be near each other is some kind of love. We emphasize Bella = Special which = stupid. We might also remind ourselves that Edward is not a 17 year old boy going through first-time love. He's a murderer and a monster and what part of him is actually human is many times older than our alleged protagonist and narrator. Nothing about this makes him a mysterious loving statue for Bella to swoon over, despite what SM insists in the text.

Aside from the illogical amount of revelation Edward does, the main problem I have with this conversation is the amount of "dear reader" text involved. Conversation is a good means to get information to the reader, but there's always the risk of forcing a character to ask questions or say things that aren't really normal so the reader can learn things. It makes the discussion choppy and disjointed. There isn't any big block of it here, but I keep losing any sense of immersion every time Edward goes off on a narrative trail just so we as readers get the full picture.

T.01.08 Port Angeles

In Which Edward and Bella have their first Date.

Skimming past all the dresses and girl talk we find ourselves in Port Angeles (hey look, the Vampire Volvo's here, too) with Jessica and Angela, who are very friendly and slightly boring. Bella apparently thinks so too because she ditches them and gets lost in the warehouse & rapist district which everyone knows is just south of the tourist shoppes. Just down Main, take a left at the authentic Irish Pub.

To be as fair as possible, SM describes Rapistville Heights fairly well (it's dingy and forlorn), but the story of how clumsy (and now directionally challenged) Bella managed to wander into the middle of it comes off a bit weak. I think if you followed those directions you'd loop several times back on wherever you started. Plus I'd love to see the statistics for Port Angeles tourist district versus Warehouse district on violent crimes because it's all awfully cliche. One minor note, the rape squad that follows Bella seems fantastically well-organized. She's literally described as being "herded" rather than stalked or just followed menacingly. That implies a level of hunting prey wolf-style. SO if some  fantastic beasts of the evening aren't revealed to be behind this episode, I'm going to call foul.

As expected, at the last possible PG-13 second Edward arrives on his gleaming silver Swedish stallion and whisks Bella off to safety. He's quite irate and insists that Bella distract him so that he won't go back and kill the crap out of the throng of construction workers and longshoremen threatening Bella. We have a truly amusing moment where Bella reveals a plan to end Tyler's infatuated remorse by running him down with the truck, thus evening the injury score. I admit laughing at this whole conversation, so points there.

Edward uses his magics to find Jessica and Angela and convinces them to leave without Bella so he can feed on her. Bella reveals internally that she's aware of Ed's mind tricks, which emphasizes again that Bella is somehow special. We even get a word for the vampire-mind-trick: dazzled, which is awful. I'd ignore how awful it is if only they didn't use it endlessly during dinner and beyond.

Dinner. Ye gods, dinner.
Edward dazzles the waitress into getting a better table, where he insists Bella take his jacket and order something to eat. We also get an absolutely endless description of how Edward routinely ignores hot women throwing themselves at him. Somebody got ignored on a dinner date or something because ye gods the hostess does it, the waitress does it repeatedly and it just refuses to end. I assume this is shorthand for Edward only having eyes for Bella, but it doesn't work. The reason is mirrored by Edwards other new stupid trait: he's an oblivious moron. He doesn't know his eyes change color. He doesn't notice ladies coming on to him. He's ignorant of the fact that he (ugh) dazzles people.

So it comes down to Edward being so detached that he ignores things or Edward being a giant moron. He doesn't know he's mind-tricking people and I honestly have to conclude that it's not that he's so involved with Bella that he doesn't notice the other women, he's just too dumb to notice them fawning over him. I realize that's not the author's intent (although I can't know exactly what that intent is here), but so help me if it's hard to come to any other conclusion.

Fine. Dinner is interesting for the same reasons that other parts of the book work: the details are good and the conversation is decent, when it actually makes sense. Now that Bella has Edward (sort-of) alone, she leaps into the questions. We learn:

• Edward is psychic. This isn't a global vampire trait.
• Bella is locked away from his big brain for some reason.
• There's some distance limits.
• He wanted to kill her on the first day & has some kill/love attraction to her.
• He can find people with his big brain
• He can find people by their scent
• He has killed people.

Really. Killed. Lots, by the sound of it. Bella's not bothered. We also get into a long discussion of Bella being a magnet for trouble. There's an attempt at a supernatural vibe around this, but it comes down to her always being in danger. This means Edward can come rescue her over and over and over and over again. That, young lady readers, is how your relationships should be constructed. With you as a helpless, clumsy domestic type who can be rescued and eternally protected by your big, strong man.Take notes and then go make me a sandwich. Faulkner's kidneys, this is utter nonsense.

Finally we get a detailed description of Edward's perfect chest and some very tentative touching in which Edward is revealed to be a living statue. That's not hyperbole on my part or metaphor in the text. His skin is cold, chiseled, hard and seemingly lacking in electric current. I'm adding references to statuary and his chest to the drinking game. Man up and pour the Scotch, people.

Next time, we get to ride home in the Vampire Volvo (again) where the interrogation continues.

SumUp D-
If I were judging the moral of the story here, it'd be a flat F. Honestly, Bella is slowly becoming a cartoon and Edward is already a literal statue of a knight. Aside from the time where the girls are together, some of the dinner description and Bella's journey into the seedy underbelly of town, this was a truly bizarre and awful chapter. I don't think any sumup is going to pull it together, sufficed to say I'm not happy where this is going.

T.01.07 Nightmare

In Which Bella Seems Human

Bella hits the CD rack hard, taking one that Phil gave her and rocking those bad vibes out of her head. Supposedly she's pondering the great mystery in her life, but since Jacob spelled it all out for her, I hardly see what the confusion is. Then she dreams (sigh). Mike vs Edward vs Jacob as a Werewolf. Maybe it's foreshadowing. Maybe it's lazy symbolism. Maybe it's a crazy love triangle... or whatever shape we've reached. By the way Love Octagon would be a kickass band name. In fact, I'm going to assume it's the name of the band Bella is listening to, which we don't learn. Even later on when it comes up again. I don't know why either, SM told us the band Edward was listening to in the Vampire Volvo. Off track sentence fragments.

Bella then gets up and goes through a mundane routine to keep her mind busy. Boring stuff in her world, but it actually gives us a good insight into Bella's home life and is well written. Points to SM here. Then Bella researches on the 'net to figure out if her Vampire sort-of boyfriend is a Vampire. Which everyone on either side of the page knows already. Plus whether or not he'll kill her at some point, which clearly he will. The internet proven again to be useless, she bails for the primeval wood just outside.

Here, SM's descriptive powers of nature come back into the spotlight and they don't disappoint. Bella broods. Bella has doubts about vampires. Bella has a long, amazingly rational monologue about why things can't be true despite not really having any reason to think otherwise.

I will point out that this would have been an absolutely ideal time for her to question her memories of the accident and come to a grand conclusion based on the clues she had. If Edward had not been so insistent on her having perfect recollection every possible opportunity, she'd have something to work with. Imagine a  long, dark afternoon in the woods trying to clearly remember details of the accident. A point where Bella decides that she cannot reconcile her scattered rather than clear memories of the crash with what everyone else (including Edward) has been repeatedly telling her. A point in which she starts to put together CLUES instead of the straightforward narrative she's been presented with. A final moment of sleuthing where she decides that the rational cannot be true and instead reality must be explained by something darker. Oh, the characterization! The growth! The revelation!

Well, she doesn't. What she does is rehash what we already know and puts together a puzzle that's missing exactly one piece in the dead center. The only question in her mind is whether Edward is safe or not. Really. Never once a windering if  he's  put the whammy on her or that he might have a basement full of corpses or that Dr. McVampire isn't bringing home corpses for dinner (which is how my story would have gone). No. What Bella decides is that
Ed=Vampire.
Bella=OKEY-DOKEY with that
ED=Maybe Safe. To-do list = Need to figure this out.

Satisfied with these truths, Bella has a cheerful Sunday and heads off to FHS with nary a care. And why not, Vampires and Werewolves vs Love Triangles? Now those are scary. Except for the Mike one, which she untangles neatly by telling him that Jessica likes him and would luvluv to go to the dance. Done and done. Then Angela, Jessica and Lauren (who?) are going shopping! Bella waffles about this until lunch (note: no Vampire Choir) and then agrees.

At home, Bella +1 Domestic, +1 Bookworm (Austen) and then falls asleep in the yard. No Eddy the next day, so we end the chapter in preparation for shopping with the girls.

SumUp B
Think a B is too high? I can't complain forever about crap from prior chapters showing up down the line. There's clearly not going to be much of an improvement in Bella's detective skills, so hopefully once the big reveal is revealed, we can move smartly on to whatever the new plot hurdles are. This chapter, contained in itself, does more than OK. SMs descriptive powers only fail with Bella's dinner, her endless pining for Edward and to some degree the effortless resolution of the Mike love triangle (I assume. Maybe it haunts us later). Otherwise, there's a heaping pile of good descriptions and monologue and even (thankfully) a really nice description of Bella's home outside her amazing domestic abilities. After the nightmare headache of the Jacob chapter, this was sweet, sweet cake.

T.01.06 Scary Stories

In Which We Maybe Meet Werewolves

So it's 60 and sunny in Forks, a week after the snow and ice storm. Not impossible weather, but strange enough you'd expect a comment or two. That said, I don't even know what month it's supposed to be as SM hasn't included any holidays or actual calendar clues other than "school is in session".

Bella = +1 bookworm (Macbeth) which will be revealed later to be part of a reading assignment. Jessica is gossipy and likes Mike and they're all going to the beach. It's too sunny for Vampires, though. Sorry, Edward!

Bella's circle of friends seems to be Jessica, Lauren (jealous of B&E), Angela, Mike, Eric, the recently minted Lee and the similarly newly introduced Samantha and Ben, who are all going to the beach with them. The numbers are a bit sketchy, but there seems to be at least a dozen kids en route.

When we reach La Push beach, SM pulls out all the descriptive stops and does a great job with the beach, surrounding tide pools and forest. It's really very well done and she's got the adjectotron up and purring when it comes to the natural world of La Push. After a walk around the tide pools (+ clumsy Bella, + clumsy Bella) they're joined by some kids from the local Quileutes Native Reservation, most notably Jacob, son of Billy who is friends with Bella's dad and source of my favorite character of the novel so far: indestructible truck.

Bella and Jacob break away from the group and have an odd chat in the woods. Bella uses her feminine wiles to pry a few scary stories out of Jacob after he reveals he knows something about Edward + the Cullens. And here... things go wonky. Really wonky. Purely from a descriptive standpoint, things are fine. The conversation flows somewhat easily (a few exposition hiccups) and Bella seems genuinely charming and at ease with the slightly younger Jacob. The problem is the content. With only the slightest bit of eye-flutter, Jacob tells Bella every single secret he knows about the Quileutes tribe and Cullen Vampire Brood and their century-long truce and reveals that the camping story = the vampires hunting animals instead of people. Given the chance, maybe he'd have told her his ATM PIN and underwear size. This essentially hands the backstory of the upcoming Werewolf VS Vampire plotline (sorry to spoil that for you) to the reader on a big silver platter with flowers and a mint. Everything you ever wanted to know in but a few sections of dialogue.

Aside from the shockingly lazy "plotline for dummies" approach, I'm absolutely stunned that

1. Jacob KNOWS all this as some 15 year old kid
2. Jacob would just spill the beans on what he clearly knows is some kind of tribal secret 
3. Jacob knows the Cullens are Vampires and hunt animals to avoid hunting humans

Jacob further revels that by telling Bella he's broken the century-long truce between the Tribe and the Cullens.
Then he laughs it off. By Chaucer's spleen...

The rest of the chapter is immaterial. HERE is what we have:
IF Jacob is just some dumb kid presenting tribal lore as superstition to some pretty girl, the angle that SM is playing in the text, then Jacob cannot possibly be a Werewolf or know his tribal kin are truly Werewolves at this point. I know from the movie trailers and other media that Jacob is either a Werewolf later or very closely related to several. This means Jacob will find all this out to be true AND be converted (activated?) as a Werewolf in the story. So this will look like a stupid, naive thing to have done and he should feel like a moron. Even if this excuses his blabbering to some degree, it then raises the giant, hairy question of why the Tribal Elders (or whatever) are telling teenagers what they absolutely must know is the truth about these tribal secrets. Somebody, somewhere is letting cats out of bags by the score.

The other option is that Jacob KNOWS all this tribal "superstition" is true (whether he's actually a WWolf or not). This means Jacob KNOWS that the Cullens are true Vampires and KNOWS that there is (er... was) some sort of truce between the two. This option requires us to believe that Jacob is essentially outing both his family/tribe as dangerous, supernatural killers AND outing the Cullens as dangerous, supernatural killers AND revealing (and thus breaking) a century long truce between them to a girl he barely knows because he's attracted to her. This is ludicrous in the extreme. This is a spy novel in which the Russian Spy reveals he's got the keycode to the President's secret bathroom to a lady at McDonalds while waiting for his handlers to send him on his next mission.

SumUp: DEPENDS

Option A = C-
This plot is more acceptable, but just barely. It's a silly conversation in which a boy tells spooky ghost stories in the woods to a girl to impress her. Key problem 1: every inch of every superstitions bit of nonsense he's dishing out is literally true in every detail. There's no embellishment, no imagination, nothing but unvarnished plot points and key information. Worse, it doesn't give Bella anything to work out for herself. This is a Scooby-Doo mystery in which Old Man Smithers pulls of the mask when the van pulls up after the opening theme song. Bella doesn't have to dig kernels of truth out of a superstitious pile and connect them to her experiences to conclude Edward = Vampire, Jacob has spelled it all out for her (and the audience) with barely any prompting. The flaws here aren't in the Jacob + Bella encounter, they're in the means by which the author handles her main character. Key problem 2: Loose lips sink ships, so who in the Q's knows the truth and is dishing it out?

Option B = F--**
Option B is a train wreck without some unbelievable storytelling in which Jacob is leading a Werewolf revolution against his own Tribe and the Vampires and the humans or something. There's no excuse, none, for this plothole otherwise. This means either that SM changed her mind about what Jacob and the Quileutes were after writing this OR that she couldn't imagine Bella getting this information from anywhere except straight from the Werewolf's mouth, and THEN couldn't figure out any way to present that information except as bald facts wrapped in the thinnest gauze of "superstitious scary stories" by a character who could not possibly be so motivated to reveal these facts in this way.The flaws here are universal and fatal.

T.01.05 Blood Type

In Which we finally have a chapter with BLOOD in the title

Bella is, of course, walking on sunshine now that her plan to avoid Edward has crashed headlong into her plan to avoid the dance via a fake trip to Seattle. No one has said the word VAMPIRE, so let's put some fuel into that theory, shall we?

Ed is mysterious. Again. His list of things to now give up include "trying to be good" and him "not being a good friend". We the readers know it's because he's a vampire struggling with his need to rip her still-beating heart out and eat it (or similar) held back only by his slight infatuation and some good-guy mantle he's adopted. So that's like, all dramatic tension.

Actually, for once Edward is actually speaking sense. He really is dangerous (well, by definition of "vampire") and Bella really should stay away. However, he's presenting this useful information entirely via cryptic statements, riddles and mysterious suggestions. Which Bella isn't getting because she has no reason to and because it would be a boring book if she caught on and ran like hell. At least he didn't ask her to the dance.

Now on page 90, Bella reveals that she's justifiably annoyed by all this non-communication and tosses out some superhero theories to asplain Edward's powers. Considering what she thinks she knows, they're silly but at least possible. Edward laughs them off and tells her to try again, ignoring the still glaringly obvious "tell her it's all in her head" + head trauma + I'm not a vampire plan of attack. Why? WHY? W?H?Y? Do Twilight vampires really lack any self-preservation? Why are you hinting that she's on the scent but off course? Why are you encouraging her exploration of your already-revealed super powers? Is there really any possible good outcome you're envisioning? The only answer, of course, is that the author is using this to let Bella ferret out Edward's true nature and fall in love and so forth DESPITE the fact that this is an entirely illogical course for Edward to take. But Bella needs to discover the vampire, get through the angst and fear and fall in love with his perfectly sculpted chest and if it doesn't make sense HOW she does it, oh well.

Biology = blood, which gives us some more "Edward is a vampire" moments & some Mike is a nice guy moments. Sorry, Mike! Maybe if you were a ghoul or poltergeist or something. It also introduces the fact that Bella faints at the sight of blood. She's going to date a vampire (sorry to ruin that for you) probably BE a vampire (a la the prologue) and she faints at the sight of blood. Ye gods. And Edward finds out about this. Wowsers.

Hey, it's Lee! Who? Don't know, doesn't matter apparently, he's off to the nurse with blood issues, too. Bye, Lee! You were the best character in this chapter.

Blood blood blood. Mike vs. Edward. Blood Blood aaaand boom, were in the Vampire Volvo sharing musical tastes and revealing Edward's foster parents are named Carlisle and Esme McHotDoctor. Plus we learn that he can teleport trucks (or something), which is a handy for having lots of conversation-filled car rides with Bella.

Really a tremendous amount of not much going on here.

SumUp C+-
The plot is taking a silly turn that no countersteer can seem to correct. We're veering off into Silly Romance Novel and Tween Novel like a sled on lard. Edward is ever more mysterious, even in what should be obvious. Bella is angsty and troubled and focused solely on her Edward project. Everything is just railroading us into a Bella-Edward date car-ride that establishes the relationship so they can struggle with the unfair universe or we wouldn't have much else for plot.

In contrast, this chapter wasn't hard to read and I rather enjoyed the Biology sequence. It was trite and having Bella + blood = fainting is downright silly in a vampire book, but I can't deny enjoying SM's descriptive style in every area that doesn't involve plot.. In fact, the only thing that keeps this from being a B chapter is Edward's ongoing mystery and I can only dock points for that for so long. Clearly he's unable to evade Bella's masterful interrogation skills.

T.01.04 Invitations

In Which Bella and Edward clearly know they're in a Vampire Romance Novel

I hate dream sequences. They're lazy and pointless ways to get symbolism and foreshadowing into a book.

Our perfect protagonist now has three suitors, Mike, Eric and now Tyler, who you may recall tried to kill her with his van. Meanwhile, the rest of FHS is indifferent to Edward's saving Bella's life, which implies that the Vampires have indeed employed some sort of mind trick to make everyone forget or SM doesn't care to describe people's reactions. Of course Bella is immune to any Vampy magics and it seems like there could be an easier way to stay under the town's radar, but so be it.

Bella seems to take for granted that Ed is hiding/lying rather than question her own trauma-influenced memory of the accident. This is, again, unreasonable and Edward should be taking advantage instead of doing the whole wink & nod routine.

In tween-land, there's a dance. Lady's choice. Which puts Bella in a spot with her whole flock of love interests. Her friend(?) Jessica is going and is intent on setting up a dramatic love triangle with Mike to distract the reader from this vampire goings on. Bella is more concerned with her growing infatuation with Edward and is looking to fix things by avoiding him. I predict this will go exactly nowhere per the rules of Romance Novels. To escape, Bella invents a road-trip to Seattle on the day of the dance.

"It's better if we're not friends" Edward insists, again without regard for his cover story of being a 17 year old outcast instead of a Vampire of yet to be revealed (but certainly triple digit) age. Leaving Bella with no doubt that her memories are accurate and that Edward has something to hide and that she will have to find out what and that she will fall in love with him by the next chapter or 2.

Quick highlights:
Bella = +1 clumsy in Gym.
Truck = has superpower of resisting damage. Is more interesting than Vampires to me at this point
Everyone = wants to date Bella, apparently because clumsy girls fresh out of the hospital with head trauma might go to a dance with you.

Edward shows he also knows the rules of the Romance Novel AND lacks any self-preservation when he sets up a date car ride with Bella, inviting himself along on her lie-trip to Seattle. During the daytime (Vampire rule check). His reason? He's "tired of trying to stay away". Which suggests that he's tried at some point, which must be that week he took off school and some other stuff that didn't make it into the book. Now that caution is finally cast to the wind, stuff can start to happen!

SumUp: C
Sadly, the tropes of the Romance Novel are now firmly hooking the plot and dragging it down a well-trod path. A dream sequence, star crossed lovers, love triangles and a car crash meet-up end all pretense, however. This is Drama-drama land with watered down vampires and school dances.  I said some nice things about you before, Ms Meyer. Don't make me regret that.

T.01.03 Phenomenon

In Which Cars Crash

In the first part of the chapter we learn that Bella is still very clumsy. This fact will be hammered home quite a bit over the course of the book. At length. Clumsy. Gym class seems to exist in Bella's world purely to focus on this fact. SM treats this as a major character flaw, but it hardly seems like a problem that makes Bella more realistic. It's comedic, sort of, for the moment, and it provides some story outside the fledgling relationship (currently infatuation vs. ignoring/hating) that we're allegedly rooting for, but it doesn't give the depth to Bella that SM seems to want. It's also dangerously close to being an excuse for things to just randomly happen because Bella has terrible luck. It'd be one thing if this were a comedy and her ludicrous clutzitude were the underlying theme, but here it just gets annoying. Further, it undermines Bella as a protagonist and sets her up as a constant damsel in distress, apparently for Edward to start saving. People don't root for damsels in distress, they root for the knight. See Shrek for the proper skewering of that story type. Personally, I cheer for the dragon.

We are told repeatedly going in that Bella is goofy for Edward (naturally) and has a lot of suitors for a ghostly-pale girl with tangled hair that has been at FHS for less than two weeks.

It's also snowed (nice environmental note, except that it only appears because it means something) and in a very nice moment (that will be ruined) Charlie has put chains on Bella's tires to keep her safe. I say ruined because it would be a very nice touch anywhere else in the book, but since it plays a minor plot point with the upcoming car crash, it loses most of its luster. Play this kind of thing for characterization!

And now, the crash.
It is confusing.
It is important.
If only the events and afterefects actually made sense, that importance would be vastly enhanced.
It is, again, so very important.

Bella parks nose-in (the tan car is described as "next to" her rather than "in front of" or "behind" as with parallel parking) at FHS in a line of cars in a parking lot. She notes Ed 4 cars further along. So we have Bella's truck, tan car, some other car, Vampire Volvo + Ed in a line. Bella parks and is standing behind her truck when a van, driven by yet-to-be-introduced Tyler, comes skidding directly at her. But from WHERE? If this is a side by side lot of cars, the van must have been driving perpendicular to them, making its way toward Bella from her & her truck's side. The book makes it seem like it's coming head on, from what must be another line of parked cars across the aisle. Maybe there's an entrance directly across from Bella, but I'm not convinced I'm getting the picture here.

Let's say that Bella is parked facing WEST in a line of cars that runs NORTH-SOUTH.  We'll more or less ignore where it is that Tyler comes from. Edward is 4 cars North of Bella at the start of this section. The van smashes into the "corner" of Bella's truck bed, right where she's standing. This means Bella is standing at her rear, driver-side bumper (the SE corner of her truck) and the van hits that corner more or less at a 45 degree angle ("It was going to hit the back corner of my truck"). So the van was driving North (or West, but ends up going North). Edward magics himself in the way and knocks Bella down. Somehow he comes from the NORTH and knocks Bella down back to the NORTH so she's now behind the tan car. It doesn't fit with the description of "hitting her from the wrong direction". That aside, Tyler's van is still somehow moving, wrapping around the rear bumper of Bella's truck and continuing NORTH toward the tan car. Edward reaches out and stops the pirouetting van as it hits the back of the tan car & Bella.

That part is somewhat decipherable with a bit of re-reading and assumptions. I think Ed somehow sent Bella in the opposite direction he should have, but whatever. It isn't over, though, because the accident continues into yet another paragraph. Although Bella is in some sort of protective bubble of metal and although the van is described as "stopped", Edward superhumanly moves her either under the tan car or between the tan car and her truck so she slams her legs into one of the tan car's tires. Then the van (which again, had "stopped") settles down with a crunch. So stopped = no longer moving in any compass direction, but it's now up on two wheels? How does that happen from hitting the truck or tan car? Why was this final movement a danger to Bella? It seems like she was fine between the van and tan car or at least in a Edward sized dent in the thing. Later, it takes a team of people to extract them, which means she actually can't be next to the car (safely between it and her truck) because she'd have an easy exit (West, toward the front of her truck), so what tire is she sitting against? Is she UNDER the tan car with Edward?

I suppose it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but this is important to the story. It's a typical, cliche Romance Novel plot hook and here it has the added purpose of showing Bella that Edward is inhuman. I think I'm putting way more effort into understanding the blocking of this scene than a casual reader, and I'm still confused. Either SM didn't work this out properly, or she's doing a terrible job at telling us what the heck is going on.

After the glass settles, Edward attempts to convince Bella that he was right there the whole time despite her clearly remembering him NOT being right there when the van came. This is emphasized. A lot. Bella gets angry that he won't explain how he saved her. This goes on at length (apparently while the jaws of life are getting hooked up). This is extraordinarily annoying.

As point of comparison, I've been in one dangerous accident. I low-sided a motorcycle on a wet country road at modest speed. I wasn't seriously injured, didn't hit my head hard and wasn't involved in crushing, smashing metal bubbles with a person I was infatuated with. Even so, I remember nothing of the seconds  before the wreck and for five minutes after the crash, I couldn't have told you which direction I'd been riding or probably what year it was. The adrenaline, fear and shock of the event destroyed all sense of time, all sense of direction and quite a bit of short-term memory. I experienced slowly fading disorientation for hours.

Bella, however, has crystal clear memories of where people were prior to the accident and frustratingly insists that the more reasonable, albeit false, explanations trump her adrenaline and shock filled memories. This event is clearly going to play a major role in the growing relationship between Bella and Edward, and it is fatally flawed from the very start. Rather than have Bella confused by what others tell her about the accident and her conflicting memories, she has photographic memories and zero doubt. Rather than have Edward insist that her memories are wrong and stick ferociously to what should be the obvious and defensive survival strategy, he's going to play coy and mysterious and give her knowing looks and say things that hint that she's right but he's not going to tell. It's not just a squandered opportunity to advance the characters using the (poorly described) accident as a spark, it's people behaving as characters who know what kind of book they're in. Bella is playing the Romantic Novel Lead and Edward is playing some idiotic version of "Vampires who don't worry about being found out and stabbed with a wooden stake by a torch-bearing mob". Why? They've read the script. They know they end up together and are just going through the contractual requirements of a Romance Novel or Lifetime Movie and it all boils down to bad writing.

ARRGH!

Three things come out during the rescue from the tangle of storytelling: Edward thinks he can Jedi-Mind-Trick Bella. He's surprised when he can't. SM uses EYES way too much as a way to express character emotion.

His eyes blaze.
His eyes disorent.
His eyes have devastating force.

For the Twilight drinking game, I'm going to start with eyes emoting. So long as we don't get liquid eyes (a perpetual favorite of Anne Rice, the previous schlock vampire novel queen) I'll be OK.

Bella also calls dad Charlie consistently in this chapter, which will continue to be how she refers to him. I guess it establishes some distance between them.

We get a little more on Tyler = Tyler Crowlie, former van owner and bad driver. He's in her Govy class and is very remorseful. The hospital scene starts well, but then Doctor Hot Vampire arrives and is clearly not that worried that Bella is pulling back the veil on their secret life, undermining him entirely as a wise father figure.

Bella confronts Edward in the hospital about his promise to fess up the secret plot goods, he refuses and walks off without explanation. It's all very scripted. Worst line of the book so far: Bella: "Why did you bother (to save me)"  Edward: "I don't know".

After escaping the throngs of well-wishers and gawkers in the waiting room, Bella makes it home and naturally dreams of Edward.

SumUp D-
Our first vampire revelation and I hated it.

SMs descriptive prowess suffers from bad stage blocking (the cars are WHERE now?) and weak dialogue. Edward is mysterious. Daddy Vampirebucks is mysterious. They're both very hot. Neither seems capable of hiding the fact that they're blood-guzzling parasites who humans would rise up and massacre out of self defense if discovered. Bella's reaction to the crash and subsequent hospital stay are categorically impossible to swallow. A lot of the background stuff (people's reactions, general stuff) are done well, but it's all stagedressing. I'm also very concerned about Edward's apparent Jedi Mind Trick powers and Bella's imperiousness. It suggests that she's somehow special by birth rather than being special as a person in her mental prowess. Again, readers like to cheer for the everyman, someone who overcomes circumstances by grit and determination and spine, not someone who just happens to have the right DNA to not fall for the vampire juju. I really hope Bella isn't somehow vampire special, it's a crutch and I'm already having a tough time liking her as a protagonist.

The D- is charitable. I'm very, very frustrated by developments. Also, where's the titular Phenomenon?