T.02.09 Third Wheel

In Which Jacob Gets Brothered

Bella finds that motorcycles no longer inspire hallucinations, so she's looking for a new high.

Jacob buys her a small Valentines day gift, which given her admiration of his chest recently isn't a huge leap. Bella deflects again and decides to set up a group trip to the movies to put Jacob off the scent. Ouch. Who does she recruit for this? Her other admirer, Mike. I have to admit, that's a whole new level of cold. Sarcasm: I can't see this going badly!

So on Friday they're going to Port Angeles to see the new bloodbath shoot-em-up movie. Lots of invites, not many coming. Quill is grounded. Jessica is not her friend anymore. Lauren never was. Tyler and Conner won't go because of Jessica and Lauren and Ben and Angela (the only friend Bella has left) gots the stomach flu. So riding to Port Angeles in Jacobs now-finished VW = Bella, Jacob and Mike. The Beetle Blackheart Love Triangle. Also a good band name, by the way.

Lots of love triangle stuff on the way to and in the theater, Bella is saved by Mike getting sick when the movie gets going. Turns out it's the flu, so they have to head back. Triangle crisis sort-of averted.

Jacob and Bella have a long heart to heart while Mike barfs his lungs out. Jacob = pursuing. Bella = broken. Jacob = more than friend. Bella = you're wasting time on me. Gods, they hold hands and debate the meaning of the hand-holding, then head home with sick Mike.

During the dropoff, car-shuffle Jacob promises he'll never hurt Bella, which I assume is a big fat plot point because he's about to be a Werewolf. Hopefully soon so we can get this bus moving. Bella heads home and establishes Jacob as a brother in her mind, which is probably ten times worse than Mike's "golden retriever" dismissal in the last book. That romance smothered, she then goes on to douse it with water and bury it in a shallow grave:

"I needed Jacob now ... like a drug".
"He was my best friend. I would always love him and that would never be enough"

Wow and wow.
Bella and Jacob both get the flu and Bella spends quite a lot of time describing how miserable it is. Charlie shows some more fatherly concern.

SumUp B

So time to close out the complaint box. Final gripes, then these are off the table unless they directly affect the plot in new ways:

• Bella is incapable of real love. Period. If you're on Team Jacob, you're out of luck, ain't happening. She can only be whammied by the Goddess Meyer to love anyone, regardless of reason or human nature or time or situation. End of line.
• Bella is substituting Jacob & adrenaline for Edward because she's clinically insane.Will this ever start to mean something in the plot? Dunno.
• Bella is a pitiless, manipulative ice queen. Her feeling bad about it afterward doesn't change that fact if she does it over and over and over.

So why the B? Because I've actually enjoyed reading this chapter. In fact, I've enjoyed the last four or five chapters. The budding and dying romance between Bella and Jacob has been well described; moments and feelings have been captured and presented with minimal eye-emotes and zero statuary. This has been a pleasant experience on the whole. This chapter, despite the ongoing destruction of Bella's mind and her ugly manipulative personality, has hit plenty of solid notes and hasn't spent too much time in the Wahmpire or Romance Novel categories. I can't recall any particular time when my suspension of disbelief has been rudely shattered, nor have I done a lot of eye-rolling. My notes are neatly written and lack the giant pen slashes and angry rants that were so common in the last book.

So I'm in a very forgiving mood. I'm whisking through chapter after chapter as if I were reading a novel. Not a great novel, not a wonderful story, not even something I'd generally read for pleasure, but I am reading this without hating it.

I wanted to get that out before things go wonky. As I suspect they will shortly. Werewolves are coming sooner and sooner and their introduction, no matter how well it's handled, will herald the return of the core problem with this series: the wahmpires. There's no escape from them, they represent the foundation of the series and this temporary escape changes nothing. Like Meyer says, we're trapped in the orbit of Edward.