T.03.02 Evasion

In Which There's Normal Plot Development

Bella is approaching graduation and her Freshman Year at Vampire University. Meyer describes the air around FHS as the senior class inches toward the big day and hits the jackpot of well-imagined and presented scenery. Signs in the school about end of year activities, fliers on the wall, class elections for the upcoming year. I'd have to guess she hit a local HS and put her best descriptive cap on, because I enjoyed every moment of it.

Angela needs help with graduation announcements and Bella uses the opportunity to both feed Charlie some normal-teenager vibes and reconnect with one of her old human friends. Alice, meanwhile, is plotting a graduation party that Bella, being some kind of anti-celebration mopey-dope, is all harsh on. In the middle of all this pleasantly paced and effectively described character development, Alice falls into a plot-related trance so we can move forward with whatever series of events will make Bella don her Damsel in Distress hat.

Edward and Alice become evasive (hey, a plot event that matches the chapter title) and do whatever it takes to not tell Bella that she's somehow in danger. Bella heads home with Edward and emails Renee while Edward investigates her room. He notices the radio that Emmett and Japser put in her truck on her last birthday (6 months prior or so). Why is he just noticing this now? He's been prowling her room nightly for months and he's just now spotting the broken radio? Edward also remembers the plane tickets and pushes Bella to go visit her mom or really disappoint Esme & Carlisle.

Bella finally turns the conversation to Alice's vision (something I think I'd ask about every hour on the hour) and Edward convinces her it was about Jasper.

Charlie comes home, Bella makes din-din, Charlie wants to visit Billy next weekend. Edward tells Charlie that Bella has tickets and there's a big discussion since she has 2 tickets and Edward would be traveling with her. Much chance for the grandkinds, Charlie reasons. Bella asks if he thinks Renee is such a terrible parent (ouch) and eventually Bella bails to Vampire Manor.

When she gets home, Charlie tries to have the sexxors talk and Bela gets embarrassed & annoyed. She finally manages to stop Charlie from showing her how contraceptives work and bails for La Push to visit Jacob. When she gets to the truck, however, she finds Edward has disabled it. No Werewolf friends for you.

SumUp A-

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this chapter that I haven't already complained about, and really there isn't too much of THAT anyway. The FHS descriptions are great, Edward and Alice's evasive vision-nonsense is old hat by now, although Meyer does a fair job making it all seem as realistic as it's likely to get. I realize that Edward is trying to get Bella to leave town for some "for her own good" reason to be revealed shortly, but we at least have the tickets from the previous book as leverage. So credit for either setting this all up beforehand or at least working the tickets into the story. The bizarre father-daughter relationship doesn't always feel right, but they're somewhat estranged anyway and I'm no expert on what this type of strained relationship.

My main complaint is that Edward is just now noticing the radio. He's really behind on his normal boundary-free exploration of Bella's room and has taken numerous trips in her truck. How has this only now become interesting to him? Minor quibble, Meyer is putting it in the "hey, remember your plane tickets" chapter as a tool to get Bella to safety (or whatever), which is a million times better than the last plan Edward devised for Bella's own good.

So we're two chapters in and I'm not nearly as horrified or depressed. Yeah, it all started so optimistically last time... and the time before that... I'll take what I can get, though.