T.03.15 Wager

In Which We Get A Sexual Assault

Was I right? Yep. Jake's love lingers in the air and Bella dodges it.

"He was right. If I wasn't mean... I would walk away".

Kind of an ultimatum from Jake, take him as a boor and a lovestruck sidekick with constant need for attention or bail. I'd be jumping out of this relationship, but I'm feeling rational and so forth.

So they debate the nature of their relationship for a bit until Jake grabs Bella by the face and kisses her. Using his monster strength, he holds Bella's head still so he can assault her for a few seconds. She tries to fight but can't, so she waits him out and then punches him. I rather liked this exchange. Add to it the fact that Edward should be along to break Jake's arm, let it heal and break it again and it means something might actually happen. True, it's not the central plot, but it's something.

Bella's hand is broken or something and she starts to walk home. Jacob tries to give her a ride and apparently can't understand why she'd bu upset with his third degree sexual assault.

For some reason, Bella accepts his ride and they argue about it. Jake takes the logical position that he's better for her, which would be a solid foundation if he hadn't just assaulted her. Bella fights him with words, but they don't work. So it's at this point that Jake falls of the very short "characters I like" list.

When they get home, Charlie is amused by Bella's injury.
"Why did she hit you?"
"Because I kissed her".
"Good for you kid".

WHAT? Really, what? Seriously?

Edward comes and get's her, there's a growling contest in the foyer with Charlie keeping peace and Bella starts to leave. Jacob follows.

Here, Edward does the normal thing and threatens to kill Jacob. I would have preferred some actual action from our patient boyfriend of stone, but instead we get a flat threat. When Jacob asks what Edward will do if Bella wants  the next kiss, Edward essentially gives him permission. Then, they essentially spar over Bella, fighting for her like some kind of prize. I'm not sure why Bella is idly sitting by while they write "first prize" on her forehead, but I'm not an eighteen year old girl.

Carlisle puts her hand in a brace and Bella worries about killing people when she's a newborn.

SumUp F-

I'm not going to rage about Jacob kissing Bella. The act itself is wrong, but this is supposed to be dramatic. The situation presented is Jacob being teased by Bella time and time again, led along to believe he means more than she's saying. That doesn't excuse the kiss, it's assault and unwanted and wrong, but it does provide a framework and is in character. Her first reaction is believable, Edward's first reaction is believable and right up to the point where Bella gets home I was in a forgiving mood.

I'm not sure when Charlie stopped being Bella's father and became her pimp, though. I must have missed that chapter. I don't have any daughters, but if someone told me my son forced a kiss out of a girl, I'd be livid. I can't imagine if a kid walked into my house and admitted assaulting my daughter. I guarantee my reaction wouldn't have been to high-five him, instead his safety would be in question. So add that to my list of disgusting concepts Meyer has inflicted upon me.

As for Edward, I don't understand him at all. Why is he competing for Bella? Why is this even a question? She's not up for trade. She's not a prize. She's not dating Jacob and Edward at the same time and now they're trying to out-do each other. What possible motivation could he have for this idiocy? Grow a spine! Why are you even allowing this?

But I know why, because Edward isn't real. Edward isn't human (and I don't mean he's a vampire). Edward is a character in a romance novel and this is Meyer's trying to drag this relationship down so she can build it back up at some point. The fact that it doesn't make sense for Edward to cuckold himself doesn't matter to her. The fact that it all but forgives Jacob is irrelevant to her plan to have a repeat of the big romantic reunion, this time after some manufactured emotional division. Instead of building tension it ends the illusion that these are real people and you're suddenly aware that you're reading a book about people who are doing things not because they want to but because Meyer insists that they're doing them. It's bad writing, period.

T.03.14 Declaration

In Which We Learn Nothing And Do Nothing

Alice is planning a big graduation party, Bella doesn't want it. How does this affect the plot? It doesn't.

Bella has finals. Plot? No. Characterization? Nope. It moves the calendar forward, I guess.

Edward and the Wahmpires are going hunting to power up on blood. 

Bella goes to La Push the next day to stay safe, which is silly since Vampire Manor has nearly indesctructable guards who don't sleep. Of course they're all going hunting, which they could do in turns or whatever. Instead we get Jacob, who sleeps. She manages to invite him to the vampire graduation party, which is a great idea.

Bella takes the opportunity to monologue about everything we already know. Jake wakes up and in a panic tells Bella that he loves her. It's pretty upfront and in response, the chapter ends.

SumUp D-

A graduation party that has nothing to do with anything and Jacob telling Bella things everybody already knows. Great. It's more non-suspense to build the non-tension toward a finale that we know is going to happen but which Meyer insists on holding off for 8 more chapters at least. This chapter is more about Bella's graduation party than anything. The final point, and the one that readers might actually care about, is Bella's reaction to Jake spelling it all out for her. That reaction? Guess we'll find out next chapter. In a book that wanted to build up suspense, it wouldn't be the first thing we learn in the next chapter, but since we're stuck in first-person constant narration land, I'm going to be we open with Bella being shocked and telling Jacob it isn't mutual. Because we needed a chapter break for that.

T.03.13 Newborn

In Which Jasper Gets A Story!

So the wheel of backstory finally lands on Jasper and we get a full chapter. Sadly for you it has nothing to do with the plot of the book except in one area, so I'm not obliged to pass any of it along.

Important point #1: Newborn vampires are frantic, near-mindless killing machines. They're also stronger than mature vampires.
Important point #2: In the past, vampire lords used them as disposable armies to carve out human-hunting territory.
Important point #3: The Volturi are not fans of this practice and will rain down on you with furious anger if you try it.

So Jasper, Civil War soldier becomes Jasper, newborn fighter becomes Jasper, vampire Lieutenant. He works for a trio of vampires named Maria, Nettie and Lucie until he makes friends with peacenik vampires Peter and Charlotte. I only mention these 5 in case they come up again. He is eventually rescued by Alice and joins Carlisle's merry band.

And for some reason, Carlisle is still yakking about the Volturi. I don't get it.

Carlisle tries to recruit help from the Vampires in Alaska, but they're peeved over Laurent's death and want to trade their help for taking out the Werewolves. Carlisle refuses.

SumUp B

It's a nice little ditty, if a little late. Which really highlights a problem I have with these books. Meyer introduced a pile of characters early on and gave us such pathetic outlines of them, leaving everything to come much later. It's taken over sixty chapters to work our way through the list (remember Rosalie just a few chapters back?) to get Jasper's story. We still have no history of Esme, barely anything for Alice, and nothing for Emmett. Meyer also seems stuck in the late 19th or early 20th centuries for her creations. This means that Jasper has sort of been loitering in the shadows with motivations that we didn't understand until now. If history is any clue, we also won't see anything else of Jasper's story for the rest of the book, either.

So, here's the Alaska connection. This crew in Alaska has been described (and is described here) as near family. At the Wahmpireball game we're introduced to James, Victoria and Laurent. James breaks off to hunt Bella. Victoria goes AWOL and Laurent goes north to hide. He apparently ends up at the Alaska camp and joins in with Tanya. Apparently he hooks up with Irina (who is, if I remember correctly and would bother to check if I cared enough) Tanya's sister. Irina is now the reason behind the Alaska revenge problem. Werewolves killed her squeeze, we hate the werewolves even more.  Now I don't think Carlisle mentioned the werewolves to Tanya, but I guess she's aware of them and you'd think that would be enough to prevent assistance.

There's still the elephant in the room = Victoria. Why couldn't she make newborns? She's been lurking as a risk since late in the FIRST BOOK. Why is everyone so fixated on the Volturi? Victoria comes up from time to time, but it seems impossible that nobody has seriously considered that an army of newborns is within her capabilities or an obvious tactic to adopt since she clearly knows about Edward and Alice's powers. The clothes for scent? That's pretty obvious, why would the Volturi need that? The newborns? Carlisle has made some gymnsatic logical leap about covering their tracks, but why would the Volturi care? Do they answer to anyone? If they wiped out a clan out of sheer spite, who's going to stop them? Is there a Vampire UN to sanction them? A Vampire Court for War Crimes? Anything? Seems like the Volturi have the run of it, why would they be subtle at all? It's all so we can have some big reveal where all the characters can be newly shocked about the threat and worry about Bella's well-being. It's PADDING and it's BORING.

T.03.12 Time

In Which We Have YET ANOTHER Debate About Bella

So after all the earlier debate, proposals, wheeling and dealing and eventual horse-wrangling, I'm low on synonyms for yet another discussion between Bella and Edward about her conversion.

• Edward is worried about Bella's soul and feels selfish.
• Bella worries she'll be different physically when she's a statue. Which seems obvious.
• Edward wants to know why she hesitated when he proposed.

Ok, woah. Take a break here. Edward didn't propose he tossed marriage onto the table while haggling with Bella back at the end of Book 2 after the silly vote. Worse, he did so with no apparent understanding of how Bella would react to this new bid. She was standing firm on vampirization after graduation, he raised it to vampire now + marriage. That's not a "proposal", that's a counter-offer. And really, what did he expect? If Bella was half as gung-ho about marriage as she is about dying, they'd already be wed and she'd be drinking raccoons for lunch. Edward seems totally against her vampireism, so he either already knew that Bella was anti-marriage or he was just trying to bowl her over with something out of nowhere. Ignoring the fact that he shouldn't have known how she'd react, NONE of this gives him any leverage in this debate. It's like tossing "let's move to New York" in and seeing how she'll respond.

Gah. Anywho, Bella is anti-marriage because of her parents. They were living in the promised land of 60's love until a ring entered the picture and as we all know that's bogus. Plus Bells doesn't want to be the straight-outta-Forks and married girl that is so socially ... something-something. I don't know if she's railing against the establishment of Forks and it's under-20 marriage rate or if she feels like a modern woman should be dodging proposals until she's post-menopausal. Guessing I haven't watched enough Sex In The City. Regardless, I guess Meyer has at least established that Bella's wonky family structure might have caused her to frown on the big ring thing, but that's pretty thin when the magic-love-of-yer-life is making you an offer that would give you the one thing you've advertised .you want more than anything else. Maybe Vampires have crazy divorce laws.

The morning news has more Seattle killings and so they leave this discussion and head to Vampire Manor. There they meet up with Carlisle, Jasper, Esme, Alice, Rosalie and Emmett. Jasper has a story to tell that requires him to disrobe and show off his many vampire bite marks.

SumUp D-

So sick of this debate. Didn't we resolve this with the big Alice wedding + Vampire switch after graduation thing a few chapters ago? Every three or four chapters it comes up again, starting in chapter 24 of the last book! Does Edward have some new bid? Is he going to raise Bella with a Porsche or big Harley or something? It's boring. It's annoying. It's trod ground. At some point we're supposed to have Vampires and Werewolves killing Vampires! Instead, it's more debate about a closed topic!

Honestly, I griped about the first two books having plots that exploded out of the last dozen chapters. As much as that sucked, this is even worse. Meyer is trying to build tension and it would be working if it wasn't taking so long. She broke away with the history of Werewolves, which was OK, but then we come back to more of the same: talking about things that we KNOW are going to happen and worrying about battles that should have already started. This isn't suspense, it's dragging things out.

T.03.11 Legends

In Which We Get Scary Stories II

Bella and Jacob go to La Push and hang out at a bonfire with the rest of the Werewolf Nation: Billy, Paul, Embry, Quil, Emily, Sam, Sue, Jared, Leah, Seth and so forth.

Billy tells the history of the Quileute Tribe: at one point they were spirit walkers, essentially leaving their bodies and walking around like ghosts. Then an evil Quileute took over the body of the chief while they were in spirit form and trapped him as a ghost. Eventually, the chief had to take up residence inside a wolf to return to the real world and save his tribe from the false chief. This led to the his offspring becoming Werewolves. Later, the tribe would meed Vampires and fight them, learning ways to destroy them in combat. Later still, they'd meet the Cullens and figure out the whole truce thing.

Yeah, it's longer than that, but you can buy the book if you want to read it. This has almost nothing whatsoever to do with the current plot and is just filling in the gaps in the last  Scary Stories chapter.  The lone connection to the present was the story of the "third wife", who cuts herself during a werewolf v. vampire battle to distract the vampire. So that's foreshadowing. Get it? Bella is going to cut herself. In about... 13 chapters, by my calculations. Yeesh, what are we doing for 13 more chapters?

Jacob takes Bella home. Edward is waiting. She falls asleep and has nightmares. He's reading Wuthering Heights.

SumUp A-

Aside from this ongoing lack of plot progression, this chapter holds up. The story is interesting and well written, the foreshadowing is a little obvious, but it at least gives Bella a chance to DO SOMETHING in the final chapters other than stand around while things fight over her. She will, of course, survive, unlike the third wife who snuffed it in her overzealous bloodletting.

T.03.10 Scent

In Which Bella Finally Gets A Helmet

Edward leaves Bella alone at Charlie's so that Jacob can come check out the house. A nice touch: Jacob has to drag his clothing around with him as a werewolf or he'd be naked. At least Meyer paid some attention to that little detail of her borrowed monster mythos. Must be hell on the shirt budget, though.

So Jacob checks out the house, manages to cut himself and do the fast heal thing again. I'll spare you the tedious details, Meyer clearly doesn't want us forgetting this key point, so I'm betting Jacob will get hurt in the climactic battle with Victoria and her newly created army of vampires. Sorry to spoil that for you, Meyer is painting by numbers, here.

Jacob finishes his sweep, invites Bella to a bonfire and leaves.
Edward returns with the mail (she got into Dartmouth).

Bella and Edward realize that the missing stuff was for her scent. I was actually shocked, because I thought for sure they'd already come to this conclusion way back when Bella first noticed it missing. I guess I'm a few steps ahead. Edward calls Carlisle and the two put together the fact that the Seattle crew is composed of new vampires (told you). Now at this point the Victoria connection is obvious, but Edward keeps thinking the Volturri are involved. I find it hard to believe the average reader is going to buy that for a second, but whatever.

Bella and Edward go back to Vampire Manor so she can get her motorcycle. She plans to give it back to Jacob to sell, but Edward has bought her a helmet and a jacket. He's also bought himself a big motorcycle, but we don't really get much of a description. All I have to say is good grief, the girl really has been tooling around with no helmet or jacket. Does Washington NOT have a helmet law? Actually, I don't think Bella has a motorcycle license anyway, so she's all kinds of illegal. Good going, Meyer.

Instead of riding, Edward stuffs Bella's bike into the back of the Volvo (what?!?) and drives her to meet Jacob.

SumUp C-

This is really getting tedious. Jacob and Edward together are ludicrous and this ponderous trudge to some kind of action is boring. I don't understand why they haven't made the Victoria connection. I don't understand why Edward is playing this disinterested, patient boyfriend routine. I actually understand Jacob, but it's been drawn so thin that I don't really care anymore. Somebody DO something!

T.03.09 Target

In Which Necessary Plot Develops

Bella returns home to a phone message from Jake begging forgiveness. Charlie is all for Bella forgiving and seems to be back on his matchmaker kick. Bella grumbles this off and starts laundry and discovers some of her clothes are missing. She assumes it was Alice, per one of her kidnapping plots until Edward shows up and reveals there is/was a vampire lurking about.

Hey, chapter 9 and we have a plot. I bet Bella becomes the Damsel in Distress.

Edward gets Emmett and Jasper to come by and search the house while he takes Bella back to the Vampire Manor. Alice insists it's not Volturi or Victoria near the house. Emmett and Jasper return and announce the all clear. Seems whoever came by snuck past their defenses, stole some of Bella's clothing and left without doing anything else.

Edward takes Bella home and they set watches.The next day Charlie goes fishing and Bella calls Jacob to forgive his outburst. Jacob and Edward work out the details of a new truce to protect Bella over the phone: The werewolves will start to patrol Charlie's house while Bella works to get Charlie to spend more time at Billy's for their own safety.

SumUp: C+

The chapter is fine, but it's short and exists solely to introduce the new threat and have some kind of setup between Jacob and Edward. I'm not sure why Bella/Meyer is dragging this out, we know how it ends and it makes Bella into a really manipulative, cold-hearted person.

Charlie has just about lost all his paternal points with this constant Jacob cheerleading.
Edward is still driving the perfectly patient boyfriend bus.
Am I the only one who's figured out that Victoria is sending vampires to test the werewolf / Cullen border? Or that the clothing will have Bella's scent on it? Doesn't that seem like an obvious sort of set up?

T.03.08 Temper

In Which I Do Three Reviews In One

Chapter 8 has three main sections

1. There's a conversation between Jacob and Bella on the beach at La Push (where else?)
2. A conversation between Jacob and Bella at Billy's about Bella's plans
3. Time with Edward and Bella back and the Vampire Manor.

I'm separating these because the grades I'd like to give to each section range so widely.

T.03.08.01 Perversion

Bella and Jacob are where Bella and Jacob always are, on the beach at La Push. Must be the hip thing to do in La Push.
Quill has converted to werewolf. So that's nice. Ends that little bit of drama.
Quill has also imprinted, which is crap.
His soul-mate imprintee is two years old.

Go ahead. I'll give you a moment. It took me a few.
Two. Two Years Old.
No, I'm not kidding in the least. Eclipse. Chapter 8. Page 175 of the hardcover edition. Most of the bottom of the page.
Go on. Go check.
Two.

"It happens", Jacob helpfully notes.
"Sounds really creepy", Bella understates by a million.
"There's nothing romantic about it", Jacob argues.

Really? Because that's not the song you were singing two chapters ago when this horrible abomination was first introduced. It was "love at first sight, only more absolute" and a "soul-mate" thing. Now it's all big brother and friend and buddy system when a toddler is suddenly involved.

"Doesn't Claire get a choice?", Bella asks. Finally pointing out one tiny facet of the nightmare we're now immersed in.
"Why wouldn't she choose (Quil)?"

Why? WHY? Because she's TWO. Maybe because she the parts of her brain that involve romantic love won't develop by one neuron for another DECADE! Maybe because you've introduced two characters and destroyed their emotional free-will!

Why, Stephenie Meyer? WHY? Why are you doing this? What possible reason could you have for defecating this concept into your story? This is the ugliest, creepiest, most offensive idea I have ever encountered in a mainstream "romance" novel. I'm struggling to find anything in my reading that comes close, and I have to stretch out into some weird manga or slash-horror movies to even approach this idea. I was convinced back in chapter 5 that this was ugly, did you really need to bring it back up and make it WORSE?

This is, by far, worse than the sleep-watching Edward.
This is, by far, worse than Charlie's crush on Alice
This is, by far, worse than the anti-climax of the first book.
This is, by far, worse than the idiotic "for-your-own-good" break up in the second book.
This is, by far, worse than the anti-climax of the second book.
This is, by far, worse than the endless comedy of errors of the funeral/fake suicide in the last book
This is, by far, worse than Edward's emotional abuse of Bella at the end of the last book
This is, by far, worse than all the plot cheating Meyer has been doing with telepathy and precognition.

SumUp: F------

I cannot grade this low enough to truly express my horror. There aren't even words. There is no defense of this, no possible way to claim this isn't awful in the extreme. It's sickening.


T.03.08.02 Break Up

That out of the way, we move on to Bella and Jacob essentially breaking up.

Back at Billy's house, Bella and Jacob discuss her plans to become a Vampire. Jacob wants to talk her out of it, but when Bella tells him that graduation is essentially the deadline, he freaks out. Bella insists they can still be friends but Jacob is having none of it. He thought he had more time to convince her to stay alive and stay with him, now he's down to weeks. He angrily points out that the treaty isn't limited to Washington State, so if Bella goes to Vamp U, the Werewolves might go to war. In anger, Bella hops on her motorcycle and leaves.

SumUp: B

Once again, Bella and Jacob work. I don't mean "ooh, I'm team Jacob, he lubs her". I mean Meyer can actually write scenes with these two characters in which you might actually forget you're reading a book and might, to one degree or another, believe that these two are real people having a real conversation. It's amazing how rarely this happens with Bella and Edward.


T.03.08.03 Treaty

Bella returns to Vampire Manor and talks to Alice and agrees to stay. She crashes on Edward's couch, but wakes up on his bed with Edward alongside. They get a little freaky and it's rather believable. Edward backs down, of course, and they start to discuss the Switzerland situation. Edward is retreating from his anti-Jacob position, but Bella tells him about the fight. So that might sort-of be resolved. Edward tells her a little of his backstory, something that ties back to Rosalie's midnight storytime that involves other, female vampires. Bella gets a little jealous, despite Edward's protests.

SumUp: B+

I'm almost going to back down from my position (stated above) that Edward and Bella rarely have good conversation because here they have a very good conversation. The sexual tension, even with the stupid safety net, builds and bubbles. Edward shows some real emotion, Bella gets jealous. It's believable and effective and even amusing.

SumUp SumUp: F+

I will not touch on the horrors of this chapter. I won't. It's done. I will say that without them, this would have been a chapter of interesting conversations, full of emotional moments and engaging discussion. It's not perfect, Jacob is getting a tad annoying and Edward's perfect boyfriend facade might turn out to be real. Still, when I reread the chapter (skipping a certain section), it was solid stuff. Sadly, the average is still below a D.

T.03.07 Unhappy Ending

In Which We Finally Meet Rosalie

Rosalie has been background noise for two and a half books, stepping into the spotlight only briefly at the end of each book to do something anti-Bella and then fading out again. Here, we have a whole chapter on Ms. Rosalie Hale's life.

Rosalie tells Bella about her life in 1923. She was a fluffy, beautiful daughter of a banker who was admittedly quite shallow. She desired only one thing: a family. Her arranged fiance crosses paths with her while drinking with his buddies and they take liberties, leaving her for dead. Carlisle finds her and tries to rescue her, then converts her.

Rosalie tells Bella that she's never fed on humans. She did, however, get revenge on her rapists. So she's killed 7 people.

The point of all this backstory (aside from finally getting some backstory) is to explain Rosalie's dislike of Bella. Rosalie is used to getting what she wants, and at one point she wanted Edward. Now, Rosalie's still jealous, but only because (she admits) she's very vain and wants everyone to want her. But that isn't the big pole in the tent. Rosalie is angry that Bella has the chance for all the things that Rosalie had stolen from her, family, children, life, and is choosing to become a vampire. In short, Bella is willingly following the path Rosalie was forced to take and never wanted.

The next day, Bella is leaving school when she hears a motorcycle. Jacob has come to take her since his plans are outside Alice's radar and since Bella didn't know beforehand, That way Edward and Alice can't interfere fast enough.

SumUp B

So Rosalie is now more human than most of the other vampires. She has clear flaws, clear problems and a story that supports it. Yeah, it's thin and somewhat cliche and I knew exactly what was going to happen, BUT there are touches of real writing here. Rosalie refuses to feed from her rapists because it would be a mirror of her own rape. She didn't, as she puts it, want anything of theirs inside her. THAT is good stuff.

Sadly, we're 1/3 of the way through the third book in the series and we're finally finding out information about a character that's been wearing the evil stepsister hat since the very beginning of the first book. Meyer is slowly going through the Cullen siblings and giving us history in giant bites. You know what would have been nice? A morsel of this back when Rosalie was dazzling Bella at the lunch table. "Why doesn't she like me?" she could have asked. Edward grimaces and shakes his head. "You're giving up something she's always wanted. I can't tell you..." sort of deal. Instead we had ONE moment during the vote chapter at the end of the last book and nothing else.

T.03.06 Switzerland

In Which We don't actually go to Switzerland

Bella leaves La Push and heads up to Angela's house. The Vampire Volvo, no doubt with angry boyfriend driving, follows. Bella ignores it.

Bella has a very human and very character-building afternoon with Angela doing announcements. It's all normal and all pleasantly written. Many plans and discussions, Angela is curious, Bella is friendly, good times.

Bella goes home and she and Edward argue.

• Edward nearly invaded La Push, truce be damned.
• Bella insists Jacob isn't dangerous.
• Edward puts his foot down.
• Bella does the same
• Edward insists he isn't jealous, which is idiotic
• Bella declares that she's Switzerland-style neutral in this whole debate. She more or less insists that she is, in fact, the country in question. We don't learn who represents the Axis powers in her analogy.

Edward leaves and has to go hunting again, so Bella plans to head back to La Push. Alice shows up to give her a ride home from work and reveals that it's a conspiracy to kidnap her and take her back to the Vampire Manor to keep her from visiting Jacob. And he said he wasn't jealous. This will, Alice tells Bella, be the standard operating procedure for any hunting trips. He paid her in Porsche, don't you know. Bella isn't happy.

Bella calls Jacob to cancel and leaves Edward a tense message. Alice paints Bella's toes (horror!) Bella heads off to sleep in Edward's room, now with an additional bed. And by additional, of course, I mean one more than zero.

Rosalie knocks.
Scene.

SumUp:B

Solid and despite my rage at the previous nonsense there's nothing here to hate. Alice is becoming a bit one-dimensional in her big-fluffy-pink-sister role. Edward's "not jealous" claims are either stupid or lies, and I'm hoping for the latter. The new bed is interesting, as it raises some old issues about vampire sex. Rosalie might actually have a chance to grow some dimensions.

T.03.05 Imprint

In Which Imprinting is a Nightmare

SumUp: F-

Yeah, I'm summing it up immediately. Normally, I try to describe the plot and editorialize slightly, then rant at the end.
Not here. Oh no.

The chapter is the end of a continued conversation between Bella and Jacob. During which they go over the history of Sam and Emily and Jacob describes Emily's injury and how Sam left Leah for Emily, turned into a werewolf and hurt Emily. Leah still loves him. It would be a decent conversation about a painful love triangle, except...

The reason for this love triangle is a newly introduced concept called imprinting. Imprinting is a lazy way for Meyer to introduce true-love without any basis other than magic that is never to be described or expanded on. It's bad enough that we're dealing with main characters whose love is entirely based on some undefined true-love magic wand, but now the werewolves have their own version. And it's ugly. Essentially Sam sees Emily for the first time and Sam = super in love and vice versa. It's absolute, unquestionable and eternal. And that's bull. Imprinting is a horrible concept in a litany of ways:

• Imprinting cheapens the very idea of love. The great love of Sam and Emily goes from beautiful and dramatic to a simple magic fact with no history or basis. Actual love requires effort, dedication, even sacrifice. True relationships involve a construction of trust and support to succeed, and even then they sometimes fail. This is dramatic; every hurdle, every victory, every disagreement, every possible ounce of drama and value that love involves produces drama. Imprinting is a cheap facsimile requiring no effort on the character or author's part. This is the instant-pudding version of love compared to a chocolate mousse souffle and romantically it is, in equal measure, horrifying and empty.
• It's lazy on an epic scale. Now Sam and Emily's relationship can be defined without bothering with the difficulties of background and characterization. His abandonment of Leah is forgivable, not because he's a real person who deserves a second chance or who is trying to redeem himself in a new loving relationship, but because he had no choice. Just toss "imprint" out there and you're all done with the mucky details of feelings and motivations and life.
• It destroys characterization via mind control. It robs characters of choice, of decisions, of (again) drama. You never have to wonder what a character will do if their loved one is involved, because they are defined by their magical compass of love. There can be no betrayal, no hidden motives, no affairs, no weakness and that creates flat, lifeless, dull characters.
• The real complexity of the spell Meyer is describing is astonishing but she never bothers to delve into it. Imagine you love someone and will do anything for them. They require both your kidneys to live. We don't have the rules of imprinting spelled out, but I'm guessing this is an impasse that is impossible to resolve. Even the simplest ideas of this ultra-love go beyond not cheating or not loving other people. Every need, every true desire of your imprint partner becomes an explicit order to you, one that you will carry out happily. How do you resolve any conflicts in the needs of two people? It happens. Life is never fair and relationships are never truly equal every moment of every day. 
• It establishes an ugly choice in your character's actions. Imprinted characters must either be paragons of virtue or eternal fountains of forgiveness.  How could one half love the other if, while separated, their lover was a murderer or a rapist or something equally horrible? Sam is therefore locked into the role of white knight or Emily becomes impossibly joined to a monster she can never not forgive, never deny, never escape. This takes the idea of abused spouse to a horrifying logical extreme.
• Ultimately, it's a wholly repugnant concept. Yes, they're characters in a book, but we're supposed to be imagining these existing in some kind of reality. Imagine for a moment that you or someone you love could be linked like this to a person you/they've never met without any consent, without any foreknowledge. This is mental hijacking, emotional robbery, the destruction of any and every other relationship you have at the drop of a hat combined with an eternity of mental servitude to another person. Their reciprocation is irrelevant. Your bliss is imaginary because you've been given an emotional lobotomy. In any reality other than Meyers', this would be treated as a scourge to be wiped out utterly. A mental defect of the worst kind. It's absolutely sickening in design.

There is no forgiveness possible for an author creating something this repulsive, this ill-conceived. 
Any value in the Jacob & Bella conversation is a tiny buoy dragged under by the weight of the Titanic cancer of this chapter.

This... bewildering need Meyer has to cheapen romance in a ROMANCE NOVEL seems pathological. It rivals her similar need to undermine every ounce of climactic tension. I can't begin to understand why she refuses again and again to describe actual relationships, despite clear evidence that she has some ability to do so. I'm literally shaking with anger at how stupid this concept is and I don't know why she insists on adding it. Why can't Sam just have a flaw? He liked Leah, but he -loves- Emily? Why is it necessary to introduce something so ugly and flimsy instead of doing the homework to make something dramatic and realistic? Irving's kidneys, I'm sick of this.

T.03.04 Nature

In Which Bella and Jacob are Reunited

Bella wants to wahmpirize even more now that Victoria is back in the picture, but the rest of the Cullens remind her that the process isn't short and she won't be any more of a help than she is now.

Which is zero. And has been for the last 2 books. Soory, venting.

Edward goes hunting. There's a good scene of Bella being the frantic, nervous junkie while she tries to kill time while Ed is gone. She even goes to work early, but they don't need her. Bella is starting to leave when she realizes that Alice couldn't have foreseen this change in plans, which means Bella can make the sudden decision to run off to La Push and visit Jacob. So she does.

Billy and Jacob are thrilled to see her. Bella and Jacob hit the beach (which is all they ever do) and she fills Jacob in on the last book: Ed left for her own good, though she snuffed it and then tried to off himself. Things are all better.

Jacob fills Bella in on the whole Victoria problem. The big issue is that the Werewolves and Vampires are pretty much getting in each other's way whenever Victoria crosses the boundary. She's clearly figured this out. The whole conversation is really well written, Jacob is boyish and excited about the chase and gets annoyed when Bella insists on giving each Vampire a name. He finally snamps "I don't really care what their names are". That's worth points, right there.

Jacob tries to grasp the whole Bella and Edward relationship (we're with you, man) and given the chance, Bella tries to explain. As usual, she doesn't. Her reasons: he's decent, he's loving, really don't add anything to Edward that helps us grapple with your head-over-heels love and honestly apply equally well to numerous other people. Like Jacob, Mike, and probably Tyler. Who knows? The chapter ends with Jacob upset and confused and Bella, as usual, leading him on.

SumUp: C+

The escape from Alice's magic is a good touch, but it demonstrates (again) just how much of a cheat this ability is. Meyer is having to write around Alice's abilities. Even if this gives us a good narrative, it's still a gigantic flaw in a central part of the plot.

Jacob and Bell's conversation is lively and visceral. Jacob is especially good at telling his story with little touches of his werewolf point of view tossed in.

Bella is turning the manipulative dial up. I don't know if Meyer realizes just what a colossal tease her main character is becoming. I suspect she has to by this point and is either doing this intentionally or feels like she has no choice but run the path she's put Bella in. Either way, it's not endearing me to the protagonist at all.

The worst of all is, again, Bella and Edward's mysterious relationship.  Meyer finally hands the opportunity to Bella to  go into her personal feelings and explain the deep connection she has with Edward and what do we get? It's a mystery. He's a nice guy. He loves me a lot. In other words, she doesn't know either. I guess it's better than her diving into the drug addict concept again. I just don't know why Meyer put this in here and then didn't use it for more than rehashing what we've already been told.

T.03.03 Motives

In Which Meyer Almost Becomes A Writer To Me

For the first time in the entire series we get a chapter that isn't presented directly in first-person reflective narrative. Instead, we get Bella's memories framed in a flashback while on the plane home from Florida. More on this later, but I was rather surprised.

So Renee is worried about Bella and Edward. She doesn't share Charlie's fear of grandchildren, she's actually more worried about the nature of their relationship and the odd intensity they share. I was going to elaborate more on this in the SumUp, but it's honestly worth going into here for just a second. Meyer has presented B&E in numerous ways but the most common is as an addiction. Their constant and poorly defined mystical need to be around each other has been dumped on us from their first meeting with almost no structure to support it. Here, amazingly, we get an external description of the pair that's interesting, enlightening and well defined. I can't stress this enough. Renee talks about Bella moving unconsciously when Edward changes orientation and talks about the strange way Bella visibly reacts to Edward's presence. This page of narration, this memory Renee is worth ten times what the last thousand pages of goofy looks and longing stares and irrational need that Meyer, via Bella, has been feeding us. THIS gives us a tangible hold on their annoying mystical connection and could have been a glorious light in the darkness of the first book.

Moving on, the homefront is quite abuzz. Charlie seems happy, Jacob wants to talk. The phone rings  and it's Jacob (speak of the Werewolf) who asks Bella if she'll be going to school the next day,. As soon as she says yes, he hangs up. Bella tries to figure out this mystery and decides Jacob was worried that her trip out of town = her conversion to Vampirism. Personally, I assumed this had to do with Victoria.

Alice is at FHS and I was right and Bella was wrong. Jacob arrives via motorcycle and wants to talk to Edward. They have an annoying "conversation" where Edward mind-reads Jacob and they growl and pose a lot. Mucho Testosterone. It seems Paul (Werewolf) and Emmett (Vampire) got into a near-tussle because of problems with the border between Werewolf patrols and Vampire patrols. Seems Edward wasn't entirely forthcoming about the vampires in the bushes and blah-blah took Bella to Florida for her own good when Alice had some vision.

They all argue in the parking lot. In a great touch, Jacob starts slamming Edward with memories to punish him for his mind-reading. When the principle arrives, everybody goes their seperate ways.

Edward & Bella pass notes in class rather than have an actual conversation and Bella + we learn that the Cullens and Werewolves have been hunting Victoria in the woods and stepping on each others' toes. Seems Victoria is aware of the problems the two have in working together and is using this to test for openings.

All that out in the open, they have a brief but very amusing conversation about Bella's horrible luck and how it would have destroyed the plane to Florida. I actually laughed at this. Bella goes to math and overhears a debate about Jacob and Edward's upcoming fight over Bella.

SumUp A

That's right, an A
It's a solid A., too.

Meyer manages to find an actual literary tool in her bag with the extended flashback sequence. Renee gives us some powerful and useful insight on Bella and Edward's relationship from a slightly objective viewpoint. The threat of the book is introduced (in chapter THREE!). Jacob uses Edward's abilities against him. Bella and Edward have an actual argument. Then they have a truly amusing conversation (well, note-passing session). Then we get information from the other students in reaction to Jacob and Edward's argument.

It's almost too much to bear.

I really can't express how much I liked Renee's descriptions and insights. I still don't buy into this magical love-of-the-ages connection between Bella and Edward, it's trite and there hasn't been one ounce of reasoning or support in the text. However, and it's a big however, a solid bit of THIS early in the relationship would have made all that staring and drug-addiction terminology a lot easier to choke down.

We also have an actual threat presented. There's conflict in Bella's ring of protective super-monsters. There's conflict between her boyfriend and not-boyfriend. There's turmoil at home. There is, and I almost hesitate to say it, actual drama going on.