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
- 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.
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.
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