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.
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