Sunday, November 28, 2010

Reason #1 This Series Doesn't Work

If you'd like to write a romance, you should probably have interesting romantic leads. Here's a partial list of characters from the Twilight series that are more interesting than either Bella or Edward:

Jacob
Alice
Carlisle
Jasper
Rosalie
Charlie
Aro
Jane
Eleazar
Garrett
The entire Egyptian coven
The Romanians (Vladimir and Stefan)
Sam
Quil
Leah
Seth
Billy
Sue
J. Jenks (the lawyer)
That girl Jacob meets in the park when he runs away from Cullen Manor
Renesmee, I guess -- she loses points because she's Edward + Bella, but still
Phil (but not really Renee, she's pretty boring)
Several of Edward's cars
The cleaning lady on Isle Esme

I probably missed a few; a few underdeveloped Cullens and other major secondary characters were left out on purpose, such as the human high school students. If there are obvious omissions, let me know!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Chapter Thirty-nine: I am so done.

Let's end this book, once and for all! I am so, so done with Twilight.

Turns out that it was Bella that really decided matters. Of course it was! And as the visitors all leave, Edward says that the Volturi won't be bothering anyone for a while, though they'll probably come back someday. Hello there, sequel bait!

Anyway, everyone leaves. Edward tells more about just how scared the Volturi were, how Bella would have made them fight at a disadvantage since she was just that amazingly powerful and sparkly. Apparently, the wolves did their part too, since Caius is terrified of actual werewolves, so seeing 16 of them in a gigantic organized pack was a bit much, even if they were technically shapeshifters.

Oh, so remember how nobody in the novels ever brought up the fact that the Quileute werewolves were actually shapeshifters, but that there were real werewolves in Europe and Asia? You'd think that would have been thrown in the books at some point if it weren't something that Meyer came up with at the last minute. But it's okay, because Edward has a great explanation for this:

"It never came up."
Sigh.

Alice explains her ridiculous plan to Bella, and that she couldn't tell Bella everything because she's not a good liar and wouldn't be able to hide it from everyone else. Wait, you mean Bella's not perfect??

It comes up that Nessie will be fully grown in about six and a half years, and that Jacob might have some competition in the form of Nahuel, the half-vampire boy from South America. You know, because Renesmee is literally the only non-relative female of his kind he's ever seen. There is a sad bit here, where Edward explains that seeing him and Bella and Renesmee as a happy family makes Nahuel more hopeful, because until then, he thought he was an evil creature just because he killed his own mother.

Bella remarks that the day belongs to happiness. She pays lip service to Irina's death, but then hand waves it away, much like the audience has at this point. Everyone can be happy now, yay!

Bella and Edward head back to their cottage, where Edward says it's time for the traditional, celebratory post-battle sex. But Bella actually says no for the first time in her life. Instead, she plays with her shield and lets Edward enter...her head. Mentally. It's the first time ever, and she's saved up all her super special memories just for this moment. It might be touching, if I cared. It'll probably work well with some sappy music as the last scene in the movie.

And the worst series of books I've ever read ends with Bella and Edward arguing over who loves each other more, and then deciding that they'll have forever together. The freaking end.

I'll be back with a recap soon, but for now, thank the sparkle-gods that I'm done with this torture. I've read everything Twilight had to offer, and I've survived. Free at last!

...what do you mean there's a new book about that vampire girl from Eclipse that surrendered to the Cullens?

...wait, there's a half-finished retelling of Twilight from Edward's perspective, too?

DAMN IT.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Chapter Thirty-eight: Guess what? Everyone's okay.

Alright, so the Volturi start mentally attacking the Cullen Crew, ready to try to take them down for whatever reason they come up with in the next couple minutes. But who could have guessed it -- Bella's power stops every single one of their attacks! It's a sparklepire miracle! Actually, I'm surprised she even notices the slightest discomfort (and really, that's all she does feel) from their attacks, since she couldn't even tell they were trying to do anything when she was a wimpy human. Alec throws his numbness gift at them, and that fails too, although its a bit reminiscent of Novocain.

So, as the Cullen allies start imagining which of the Volturi they'd most like to kill now that they have the upper hand, Aro says that it's time for them to vote on how to proceed, and pretends that nothing is wrong, reminding everyone that violence doesn't solve anything. Of course, he's still looking for a way to win this battle without killing Edward and Bella, since they'd be very useful; Bella is happy in some sort of masochistic way, since she realizes that the Volturi can't win unless they do kill her. Haha, she wins?

So, it comes to a vote. Caius votes to kill Renesmee. Marcus votes to leave the poor mutant alone. It all comes down to Aro...

But wait! Edward senses something exciting! First, he forces Aro to clarify that if they were 100% certain that Renesmee wouldn't be a threat to their secrecy, they'd let her live, which Aro agrees to. Oh, you tricky sparklepire, Edward!

It turns out that Renesmee is rare, but not unique! And he knows that, because...Alice is back! Alice is so back, that -- not a joke -- six consecutive words in the narrative, and five consecutive words of dialog are nothing but repetitions of the word "Alice." Alice Alice Alice Alice Alice Alice!

Anyway, I'm going to go through this way more quickly than the book does. Alice found some vampires down in South America. One of them had a sister who was once in Bella's pregnant with a mutant situation, only she died during childbirth. The baby then turned its aunt into a vampire. They lived together, the baby reaching maturity seven years later. He's now 150 years old, his name is Nahuel, and he's here today to set the record straight.

Turns out Nahuel has some sisters too, all thanks to his dad, Joham, who sees himself as some sort of mad vampire scientist creating a super-race! Good times. He even has his own daughter, who is not venomous.

So, Aro considers this, and votes not to kill Renesmee, but instead to visit Joham and probably kill him instead. It's a sort of consolation prize, but it'll have to do. The Volturi turn to leave, Carlisle reminds them that they probably shouldn't hunt in the area, since the Cullens would like to remain anonymous, and everyone is friends again. Or not, but they at least say they are.

And then everyone cheers. It doesn't really seem like a "cheering" moment to me; more like a "phew, we just barely got out of that one" moment, really. But hey, I wasn't there, they can celebrate not getting killed however they like. Everyone kisses and they all get to live happily ever after.

Unfortunately, there's still one more chapter. JUST END, YOU STUPID SERIES!

Friday, October 8, 2010

Chapter Thirty-seven: Vampires shouldn't talk this much.

I just spent a couple hours reading a much better book with vampires in it, so why not write about a shitty vampire book before bed?

The two sides get within 50 yards of each other, meaning that, because they are super-sparklepires, they're basically withing instant striking distance. Caius is pissed off, because he wants to kill some Cullens, damn it! But Aro is still formulating strategy.

See, Aro sees that everything is all true about Renesmee, and that they can't just slaughter objectively innocent sparkly ones in front of so many witnesses. It's just not good business. The witnesses, for their part, are not exactly ready to crush, kill and destroy anymore.

Bella tests her powers. Yup, just as incredibly amazing as always. Even more so, maybe.

Okay, Caius is on to Plan B: werewolf discrimination! The Volturi have been hunting werewolves for thousands of years, so how can they let these werewolves live?

But Aro has seen everything, and knows that this plan won't work ever. See, because the La Push werewolves aren't werewolves! They're just shapeshifters. If they were real werewolves, they wouldn't be wolves during the day, and such. They are not Children of the Moon, even though Meyer didn't bother telling us that for the first 3.9999 books.

Caius tries to make the charge stick, but Aro subtly points out that any obviously flawed accusations will probably turn the vampire world -- like 80% of which is in this damn field -- against them instantly. By the way, with all these vampires here, they should totally start up an impromptu vampire baseball league, or even a vampire soccer league, since a lot of them traveled from Italy, where there's very little baseball. Vampire sports in general would be awesome.

Caius decides he wants to talk to Irina, who clearly screwed this all up from the beginning with her false accusations. But hey, it was an honest mistake. He just wants to know why Irina made the accusation in the first place. If you recall, she was pissed because the were...shapeshifters killed her love interest, Laurent. Irina has the option of making a formal complaint about the fact that the Cullens were okay with the La Push Pack taking down her sparklelover.

But Irina refuses, showing a good deal of moral fortitude, and saying that there was no crime. As a reward, she is killed instantly. Good times! Irina now becomes the most significant character that we're supposed to like that's been killed, though on a scale of 0-100, her level of relevance is about a 0.5, so it's not exactly as big a deal as Meyer probably thinks it should be.

But the idea is to rile the sparklepires up, and it pretty much works, since a couple people on the Cullens' side decide to jump out at the Volturi. There's a struggle, but of course, nothing bad happens, and everyone is held back just in the nick of time.

Look, this is all going nowhere. Let's skip ahead a couple pages, okay?

So, back to the matters at hand, Aro speaks to some of the witnesses. He goes to Amun, who witnesses that Renesmee does grow and stuff, and that she probably doesn't need to die or anything. He then runs away to safety. Siobhan says that the kid isn't a danger at all, and that no laws were broken. Aro agrees, but then says that she is an unknown factor, and thus is dangerous, since they can't know she'll always keep quiet about the whole vampires are real thing. Apparently, he's even concerned that humans might be able to kill them now, what with nukes and whatnot. It makes you wonder why they needed to be so secretive in the first place, if humans never posed the slightest danger to them until recently. Aro says it was for the sake of convenience...but how is that convenient at all?

The nomad Garrett offers another, rather obvious perspective, that the Volturi are basically making up anything they can to come up with an excuse to kill lots and lots of vampires. This takes like three pages, but I've pretty much summarized it already.

Aro says people basically have three choices: agree with the Volturi, fight against them, or leave peacefully even if they disagree, which seems a little out of place, but I guess it scores them political points with the undecided voters. A lot of the Volturi "witnesses" decide to take the third option, since this is all getting a little ridiculous at this point.

Aro points out to his army that they are now outnumbered, but they confirm that they're okay with fighting to "protect their world" even if that would mean they lose a few of their number in the battle.

So Aro, Caius and Marcus counsel. It is boring.

Meanwhile, Bella prepares Renesmee and Jacob to leave. It's supposed to be touching, but it's really not.

Everyone says their goodbyes to their loved ones, just in case. If you cared about 99% of the characters here, this might be meaningful.

And then Bella feels the pressure of the mental attacks from the Volturi start to push against her shield, and the battle is ready to begin! This would be exciting, if this weren't Twilight.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Chapter Thirty-six: Oh look, more vampires.

Okay, I hate this chapter, because it feels extraordinarily cheap to me, even for this series. Before we get into what happens in this chapter (and beyond), let's remember the problems with dealing with the Volturi:

  1. The Volturi are going to be enraged about what they believe to be an immortal child. They are extremely unlikely to even pretend to listen to whatever the Cullens say, which is why they had to amass a virtual army of vampires just to try to get the Volturi to slow down for a few seconds and listen, otherwise it would be instant death with no conversation, debate, or discussion.
  2. Aro wants what he wants. Even if they get the Volturi to slow down -- which, remember, would be a minor miracle in itself -- Aro is likely to come up with excuses with which to collect Edward, Alice (were she to be there), and possibly Bella and/or Renesmee.
Remember, this is what we've been told for the second half of this book: the Volturi are going to rush in, dispense judgment, and that's that. So, what happens?

The Volturi slowly reveal themselves, with the guard slowly giving way to their leadership. To quote Meyer:

Their progress was slow but deliberate, with no hurry, no tension, no anxiety. It was the pace of the invincible.

The problem is not that this is unrealistic. In fact, it's exactly what one does when they believe they are in a position of certain victory in case of conflict, whether that be in a war or in a game: you take your time, consolidate your position, and then win. No need to force things when that might lead to mistakes that give your enemies a chance to win.

The problem is that this is exactly the opposite of how we've been told the Volturi would act by every source in this book. You can't do that! You can't tell us the Volturi are going to act one way, which is a big problem, and then have them act exactly in the way that gives your plan a chance!

Sigh.

Anyway, there are 32 Volturi, as well as another 40 or so vampires there as witnesses for the Volturi, more or less; once they see justice dispensed, they can go tell the world about it. Also, they might get the chance to kill and fight and burn things, which is always fun. Irina is there too, not really feeling like a part of either group.

Edward reads the minds of Aro and Caius. It seems that they have a complex strategy, where if Irina's accusation is proven false, they'll come up with another reason to kill the Cullens. Which means they never intended not to listen; they only intended to win no matter what was said. Which is completely different that what we've been told by everyone for the last 300 pages. Granted, we were told they would eventually try to find any excuse that fit even if the Cullens could make them listen, but the really, really hard part was supposed to be getting them to listen at all...which apparently, the Volturi planned to do all along. Sigh.

The wolves come, and now there are 17 of them, because with so many vampires hanging out with the Cullens, it was inevitable that more kids would get called up from the minors to join the pack. The fact that these kids are generally really young, barely teenagers, would be really sad if I thought they were in any danger at all.

The Volturi stop to consider what to do should it come to a battle, since (not counting their witnesses), they're actually outnumbered for a change, and don't recognize some of their opponents. Carlisle takes the opportunity to chat up Aro a bit.

Aro brings up the immortal child issue, though he seems a little sad about having to kill Carlisle. But Carlisle points out the good news -- he doesn't have to be killed at all, for Nessie is just a freakish, mutant child, and not a tiny vampire!

Caius doesn't take well to this, and brings up Irina to identify Renesmee. Which she does, but she also points out that Renesmee has obviously grown since the last time she saw her. Thus, not a vampire. Oops.

There's a lot of confusion as to just what the hell is going on here, so Aro calls up Edward to read all of his memories. Edward goes out to meet Aro, and Jane makes a little smirk, which pisses off Bella. This incites Bella to throw her shield out further than ever before, reaching Edward way out where he's about to give his memories to Aro. Of course, this would be a bad thing, so she pulls it back. But now she knows she's a superpowered sparklepire after all. Of course she is.

Aro reads Edward's mind for a bit, and then realizes that something very different has happened here. Given that he's thousands of years old, and that his first reaction to everything he saw is described as "amused," I sure hope Aro didn't spend too much time in Edward's mind watching him and Bella sleeping together, because that would be way creepy.

Aro wants to meet Renesmee, and eventually all parties agree to this. Bella, Jacob and Emmett come too, as do a few of the Volturi, just to make sure everyone feels secure. Jane is jealous that Aro got Bella a present (the necklace, which she is wearing). Oh, girls.

Aro is amazed about everything, and sees Renesmee as a new chapter in sparklepire history, while Caius still wants to kill shit. Aro calms him down for a moment, then had Renesmee touch him, and sees everything. He tells Renesmee he's not going to hurt anyone, but everyone else is pretty sure that's a lie.

Aro makes some comments about the wolves. Edward reads his mind, and sees that he'd like to keep them as, like, guard dogs or something. Edward informs him that it doesn't quite work that way, no matter how loyal they may be to the Cullens. The whole eating people thing would probably be a dealbreaker when working with the Volturi, you know?

So now Aro is thoroughly perplexed as to what he should do. He needs some time to think it over and come up with a new strategy. If only he had the end of a chapter to give him a short break...hey, look, there's one right now!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Chapter Thirty-five: Small talk is not exciting.

Wow, this chapter is way longer than it needs to be. To make up for it, I'm going to make the review of this chapter as short as it deserves to be.

Bella heads out to pick up her fake documents -- the ones for Jacob and Renesmee -- from Jenks. They spend a few pages on small talk, including Jenks for some reason thinking that Bella might be wanting to kidnap Nessie from Edward. This accusation doesn't further the plot, adds nothing to the meeting, and is entirely unnecessary. But this book wasn't long enough yet, so why not pad it a little? We're only on page 670.

Bella gets home, and the house is mostly empty. She takes the time to go into Alice and Jasper's room and grab stuff that Jacob and Nessie can use. Like cash. How much cash, you ask?

I raided their petty cash, taking about twice the yearly income from the average American household.

Way to make this book timeless by not mentioning an exact dollar amount, but just describing the money as an amount that will always seem like a huge sum to most of your readers! It's not like there are hundreds of other technological, social, and pop culture references that date the books to the early 21st century, or anything.

Bella thinks it would be nice if Alice and Jasper could hook up with Jacob and Renesmee after everyone else is slaughtered (which, remember, is totally going to happen, right?), but Alice can't see into either of their lives. She can see Bella, so she makes a big production about writing RIO DE JANEIRO on a piece of stationary, and hopes Alice will see it. She then puts the note in the bottom of the bag she packed for Renesmee, hoping Jacob will see it. A foolproof plan, if ever there was one.

Around New Year's, the Cullens start preparing the clearing -- you know, that big one where half of the important events in this series have happened for some reason -- and have their witnesses come in formation to be ready when the Volturi arrive. Bella and Renemee say their I love yous, and Bella tells her daughter to run when Bella says so.

There's some talk about where everyone is standing. The gist of it is that Bella is standing near their best threats, so that she can protect them for as long as possible. Vampires without useful powers get to stand far, far away from Bella and wear red shirts.

The werewolves show up. Everyone waits. Then they see the Volturi coming, and the chapter ends.

The good news? Things will actually happen in the next couple chapters! Maybe not as much as you and I want to happen, but a few things, I swear. At least there's a little action. A very little.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Chapter Thirty-four: End! ENNNNNDDD!

I'm sick. Not of the book, but really sick. Well, I am sick of this book too, but I don't think it's responsible for my runny nose.

Bella gets back home and hears Edward playing the piano, as he's known to do. Bella tries to hide the fact that she did more than just go Christmas shopping for Nessie, but she's pretty sure Edward isn't buying it. Bella also wants to get in some more combat practice with Emmett, since she lost a whole few hours while running her secret errands. But Edward makes her wait until tomorrow.

Apparently, Bella has made some more entirely baseless assumptions about Alice's plans. Now, she's "deduced" that they'll lose to the Volturi, but that it'll be close, which is how Jacob and Renesmee get away. Oh, and since her and Edward will both die, they can be dead together forever. How lovely!

On Christmas, all the werewolves, Bella, Edward and Nessie hang out at Charlie's place. Apparently, all of the werewolves are pumped up for the fight that Bella has deemed hopeless. Way to have confidence in your friends and family, Bella! The ones who have never left you down ever, and -- if you recall -- killed like 20 vampires without a single casualty. And now there are way more vampires and werewolves on your side. Come on, stop being such a pessimistic whiner!

Renesmee's Christmas presents, for anyone who is interested: Bella got her a locket, Edward gave her a fully stocked MP3 player, and Jacob got her a Quileute promise ring (NOT CREEPY, RIGHT?).

Back at Cullen Manor, there's a little scuffle breaking out. Amun is all mad at Carlisle because he wants to leave, while half his coven wants to stay. This all amounts to nothing, since Amun ends up saying he'll stay, but that he'd be open to switching sides if that's what it took to ensure his survival.

Alistair already bolted, and Amun thinks he's the only sane sparklepire in the group. It seems Alistair thinks that no matter what they do, the Volturi will come up with a reason to get what they want, which is not a popular opinion among your rank-and-file sparklepires. I mean, if the sparklepire government is manipulating their own laws, that would be something never before heard of in human history!

Of course, the Romanians love the fact that at least a few people seem to be realizing that the Volturi aren't as good as they pretend to be. I mean, sure, they were evil overlords of the night when they were in charge too, but at least they didn't pretend to be good! Plus, they think this is the best shot they'll have at taking the Volturi down, or at least making them look silly in front of a lot of the vampire world.

Slowly, all the assembled sparkly ones make declarations, most saying that they'll fight, of course. They scoff at the werewolves also saying they'll help, clearly ignoring the fact that the werewolves' record against vampires is pretty damn good so far in these novels.

Later on, Bella thinks about things, which never leads to good results. What, she reasons, if the reason they fail is that everyone thinks Bella can help shield people, but she really can't? And her shield has holes, because Nessie can do her little memory sharing thing with her. But Edward isn't worried -- she's probably just the opposite of her parents. She can give everyone her thoughts, and she can't be blocked by anyone. Everyone will have to see the truth, since there's no blocking her ability to share the truth.

But will that be enough? Given that this is Twilight, there are two possible answers:

1. Yes, and everyone will live happily ever after.
2. No, but everyone will still live happily ever after.

Almost done...almost done.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Chapter Thirty-three: Seriously, why am I STILL reading this?

Ugh.

Okay, so Charlie hasn't seen his granddaughter in a week, but Bella can't very well bring him into a house full of sparklepires who want to eat him just for being human. Instead, Nessie is going on a day trip to grandpa's house. There's a lot of talk about who Charlie is hanging out with, like Billy and Sue and blah blah blah.

Jake is coming too. He has a great nickname for the creepy Romanians: Dracula One and Dracula Two. Keeping with our "one enjoyable bit per every few chapters," we shouldn't expect anything else to be very interesting for a while, so let's milk it for all it's worth and learn more about our Romanian friends!

It seems that unlike everyone else, Renesmee finds the old vampires to be more interesting than fucking creepy. They don't want to touch her, so she speaks with them out loud and asks questions. Why do they have such weird skin? It's because they sat still for a very very long time while everyone came to them. That's the one thing they don't regret, they say, because now it's the Volturi who are sitting still and petrifying while they move about and stay in good sparkle shape. Actually, I have to quote a couple sentences here, because it really is pretty good. The Romanians are speaking to Renesmee:

"I suppose the Volturi did us one favor when they burned our castles. Stefan and I, at least, did not continue to petrify. Now the Volturi's eyes are filmed with dusty scum, but ours are bright. I imagine that will give us an advantage when we gouge theirs from their sockets."

I tried to keep Renesmee away from them after that.
Meanwhile, on the car ride over to Charlie's place, Bella starts being all cryptic. What's she up to?

When they get to Charlie's, he wants to know where Edward is. Jacob tells Charlie he should just be happy he's out of the loop on this one, which is pretty true: I probably wouldn't want to know that my daughter's new friends would like to eat me.

Bella says she's going Christmas shopping, but it's obviously a lame excuse for something. In actuality, she's headed to see J. Jenks in Seattle, based on Alice's strange note. The address she was given is in an awful neighborhood. We know it's awful because of the businesses that are there: a psychic supply store! A tattoo parlor! And...a daycare? Really, who would put a daycare next to a tattoo parlor, even in a bad neighborhood? That's just bad planning.

So Bella talks to some guy who knows J, but won't give her information. She uses her feminine wiles to get him to call J, who responds well to the name Cullen. Bella gets new instructions on where to meet J, and goes for yet another drive.

Eventually, after a bunch of pages that are really just a waste of time, Bella and J meet. It seems that J knows Jasper, but has never met Alice, and would have been perfectly happy to meet Bella at his classier office. Between knowing her situation and hearing the word "papers" earlier when talking to Max, she makes an educated guess as to what she's there for.

Bella decides that Alice saw they couldn't win, and this meant that Renesmee would have to run. She orders two birth certificates, two passports, and one driver's license. Her plan is to leave Renesmee with Jacob, so that the two of them can run away to safety. By the way, Bella's fake names are the best for them: Jacob and Vanessa Wolfe. Are you laughing yet?

Bella wants the papers in a week, which makes it a rush order, doubling the price. On the other hand, money isn't really an issue for the Cullens, since they're super rich vampires, remember? So rich, that Bella pays him 100% of the price up front, and is willing to give a 100% bonus upon delivery. Must be nice!

Bella and J agree to meet in one week. J seems worried about something, but assures Bella that the papers will be ready on time. Luckily, we won't have to wait another week for this chapter to end; mercifully, it's over. Only seven more to go!

Monday, September 20, 2010

Chapter Thirty-two: Guess who's coming to dinner? Vampires, of course.

Yes, there are lots and lots of vampires in Cullen Manor, but it's okay, because like, they're sparklepires, and they can't get uncomfortable! Plus, nobody needs a room, since they don't need to sleep. Being a Twilight vampire comes with all sorts of perks.

Dinner is a problem, since most of the guests insist on eating human. The rules of the house are that you can hunt, but you have to do it outside of Washington. Bella decides this is okay, because they'd be hunting somewhere, even if it wasn't in their neck of the woods. You are a woman of great moral fortitude, Mrs. Cullen.

Jacob is described as "upset" by this, because his whole job as a werewolf is to NOT let vampires kill people. But they're hunting just outside of the pack's borders, and it's all for Renesmee, so whatever, right? It's all good.

Speaking of the little mutant baby, everyone loves her. We get a lot of exposition here about all the different vampires coming in from around the world, and how they take a minute or two to decide that Renesmee is not an immortal child, and that they'll stand against the Volturi. That second part seems like a much tougher sell, but inevitably, it works.

Many of the visiting vampires have unique skills, since you're a pretty shitty sparklepire if you don't have at least one magic power. Most of them are pretty irrelevant, but since some of the powers might prove to be relevant, let's do a quick rundown:

  • There's Maggie, from Ireland, who can tell immediately if she's being lied to. That make it pretty easy for her family to believe all the Renesmee crap.
  • Some vampires from Egypt show up. The older ones don't like Nessie, but a younger one, Benjamin, has the power to physically manipulate the elements. He's basically Sparklepire Planet without the Planeteers.
  • There are some singular nomads that show up, including Garrett, an adventurer who is willing to take any challenge he can find.
  • Alistair comes in from England and mostly just sits in the corner listening to Linkin Park and being all emo. But he's a tracker, for the record.
  • A couple of Amazonian women show up. Apparently, Alice was in South America, in case you'd forgotten about her. The book is just begging you to be curious about what she's up to! One of them, Zafrina, can make entirely convincing illusions that effect everyone...except Bella, of course. Renesmee finds this ability really, really fun. Pretty pictures, yay!
Does this seem like a bit much? Don't worry, even Meyer realizes this, because she makes a note of Jacob not being able to keep everyone straight. And then footnotes a reference to an index in the back of the book. Yes, the author can't even trust the reader to remember all of the characters -- always the sign of a great novel.

Bella starts getting fighting lessons from Edward, but they don't go well. He can't bear to think of his wife as a target! Even if it might save her life! Sigh. He suggests she find another teacher. She finds a bunch, as it seems just about everyone is happy to teach her how to fight.

Luckily, other people are actually trying to teach her something useful, like how to project her shield to help cover other people. This way, Bella can help without getting herself killed! It may not satisfy her ridiculous martyr complex, but it's something. Vampire Kate tries to zap Edward, while Bella tries to protect him. Edward gets zapped, because Bella fails. Rinse and repeat!

But, of course, she eventually starts to get it to work. But Kate thinks she could do better with the proper motivation, and wants to bring Nessie in on the fun. This understandably doesn't go over well with Bella, but it turns out that everyone else was in on it together; Kate just walked up threateningly, Bella managed to get the shield over Nessie, and then Edward could verify that by his inability to read her mind. No harm done, though Bella is still angry about this very helpful exercise that never put her child into any danger.

Next, Zafrina tries to do the illusion thing, and Bella manages to protect both Edward and Renesmee from it. This is totally the book version of a cheesy 80's training montage. Just imagine "You're the Best Around" playing, sub in some vampires for Pat Morita, and you've more or less got it.

Skipping ahead a bit (this chapter is far too long for its own good), a couple of Romanian vampires show up, eager to go up against the Volturi. They don't even care what's up, they just want to see the Volturi get what's coming to them. See, they used to be the head sparklepire honchos before the Volturi overthrew them around 1,500 years ago, so they want revenge. They're even pretty happy to see all the neat abilities the collected vampires have, since it might mean they even have a chance.

In total, we have 28 vampires, which Bella thinks is the largest non-Volturi group of friendly vampires ever. Will it be enough to slow the Volturi down for a minute and let them realize that Renesmee is a different kind of freak than the illegal kind? Will the Romanians get to piss on the Volturi's graves? Only a few more chapters before we find out!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Chapter Thirty-one: Words you wouldn't use to describe Stephenie Meyer.

See, because the chapter title is "Talented." I'm so clever.

So, everyone gets all rah-rah about standing up to the Volturi. Jacob says that if they won't stop and listen, he and his wolf buddies will kill them. Unlikely, but I like the sentiment!

Eleazar calls Bella a shield, and after Edward determines that this isn't some sort of slang that he should take offense to about his wife, he decides to ask for more information on behalf of the reading audience. Of course, what he means is pretty obvious; she's shielded from most vampire powers. Most impressive of all is the fact that she was able to do this even as a human.

Edward says that he never thought of Bella's ability as a shield before. Really? Is there even another word that would accurately describe what she does?

Turns out there are other shields, too. For instance, the Volturi have a gal named Renata who protects Aro. If you attempt to attack Aro or her, you somehow end up heading in another direction, confused about what you were trying to do in the first place. I have to say, that's a pretty nifty power, and a neat party trick when you're not busy stopping someone from killing your boss.

The others begin to wonder if Bella could project her ability onto others. Gee, I wonder if that will help save the day in the end? Nah. We also learn about some other vampires and their powers, like Kate, who can run electricity over her skin to zap people. That's actually a bit of projection on her part, as she originally could only zap with her hands. Bella wants to learn too, so that she can save everyone at the critical moment in the plot, of course.

Edward invades Eleazar's thoughts, and then has him share with the whole room. It seems that even he can't understand why exactly the Volturi would send everyone to punish the Cullens. They might send out a few more sparklepires than normal thanks to the large, talented clan the Cullens have, but that wouldn't require everyone to join the party.

But Eleazar noticed a pattern at his time with the Volturi. It seems that Aro is a sneaky bastard, and when he shows up to punish a coven, he just happens to pardon one or two of their most talented sparklepires and take them into the flock rather than killing them. And what do you know, they're the same ones he had noted as being especially talented and interesting beforehand!

Oh, more vampire powers explained: the Volturi have a vampire named Chelsea, who is favored to win the English Premier League this year, though Manchester United and Arsenal are also contenders. Alright, that's a different Chelsea. This one is the daughter of a former US President, who just got married. No, wait, that's yet another Chelsea. THIS Chelsea can make bonds between people looser or tighter, breaking covens apart and keeping the Volturi in line.

Okay, so there is a point to all of this (eventually). Aro wants to come to acquire some of the Cullens for his team. The Cullens have all sorts of cool powers and will resist, so he wants the entire guard for protection during the inevitable fight. If he takes the entire guard, then everyone who stays in Volterra is in danger; someone might try to have a little coup de sparklepire while they're gone. So instead, everyone comes together for a trip to the exciting Pacific Northwest!

All signs point to Aro really wanting Alice, with Edward and Bella both being very interesting -- if secondary -- targets. It seems that the Volturi had already decided to come after them, but were just waiting for some sort of pretext so that it looked fair to the sparklepire population at large. People in power abusing said power for their own personal gain? WELL, I NEVER!

As the chapter ends, Peter and Charlotte show up, meaning Alice kept her promise to find more friends and send them back home. Looks like we're gearing up for a big fight in Forks! It'll never happen, but we can at least pretend it could -- that might make the last nine chapters just a little more bearable.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Chapter Thirty: Rensemee wins again.

The chapter opens with more sulking. This is followed by some Edward/Bella sparklepire sex, since they're both afraid they might be dead in a month, and need to get as much loving in as possible before then, preferably when Renesmee isn't in the room. Although, she is in the cottage, and given how crazy the vampire action gets, I find it hard to believe she could sleep through that. Boy, isn't mom going to be embarrassed when Nessie shows her a memory tomorrow morning!

Edward and Bella stop screwing when the sun comes up, because they have a job to do. They have to track down some guy named Eleazar for some reason or another. Do you really care why? I didn't think so. It has something to do with Renesmee, because everything does.

Bella also wants Edward to teach her to fight. Not a master class or anything, but she at least wants the basics of vampire self-defense, just in case she needs to protect herself. Edward agrees that she should learn the basics, but doesn't think they have much of a chance against the Volturi anyway. Then he launches into an extremely expository scouting report! Here's what he reports back:

Jane: Offensive superstar. Can make anyone feel searing pain (except Bella, of course). Not great on the basepaths, poor arm.

Alec: Complimentary piece that works perfectly with Jane. Can rob you of all your senses (unless your name is Bella!), and can do it to large groups at once. Has some trouble with outside breaking pitches.

This, of course, gives Bella stupid ideas. Their powers don't work on her, so maybe she can beat them up, or at least distract them long enough to give the others a fighting chance. I mean, with powers like theirs, why would they ever learn how to fight? It's not like anyone could have ever foreseen the possibility of a vampire having an anti-power power, seeing as how only like 80% of the vampires we meet in this ridiculous series have superpowers.

So, it seems that Eleazar is a lot like Carlisle, in that he spent a lot of time with the Volturi before leaving them. In his case, he left for a sparkly woman, Carmen. They're coming down with Tanya and the rest of their clan; since they're the closest to the Cullens, everyone figures they'll need the least convincing. Plus, Eleazar knows as much about the Volturi as anyone, so he might be able to help in other ways. He has some sort of ability-sensing ability too, which might prove helpful or something. I don't know.

So, the house guests come over, and there's a lot of needlessly cryptic conversation between the two sides before they finally get to the point. The new vampires smell someone who is almost human. Tada, it's Renesmee!

Of course, when they first see her, they freak the fuck out, because they think she's an immortal child. Edward barely gets them to stay by pointing out that, hello, heartbeat and weird smell equals NOT A VAMPIRE.

Slowly, Renesmee wins them over, of course. She uses her gift, and one by one, everyone falls for her charm and they believe that she's only a half-pire. This process takes several pages, and is extremely repetitive:

"Let her explain!"
"No, that devilish creature will not touch me!"
"Please?"
"Well..."
"Please?"
"Okay..."
*Renesmee does her thing*
"I LOVE YOU FREAK CHILD!"

In the end, everyone agrees that Renesmee is awesome and that they'll stand with the Cullens as witnesses to her status as not an immortal child. Whether or not that will be enough remains to be seen, but the way Renesmee automatically makes everyone love her, I have to like their odds.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Chapter Twenty-nine: Let's all whine, that'll make things better.

Does anyone still read these? I don't think I've gotten a comment in a while!

Everyone is sad. They tell Jacob, and he's sad too. I mean, I guess having a massive army of the world's most powerful (politically, and probably in combat terms too) sparklepires coming to kill you all would be something that would ruin your day. But if it were me, I'd do something a little more proactive than sitting around and moping about it.

Alice is gone for a while, and everyone starts to worry, because she's never taken this long before to...do whatever it is she's doing. Of course, she failed to take a few seconds to tell everyone where she was going, as that would remove most of the dramatic tension while we wait for her perfectly timed return. I'm sure there will be some lame plot justification too, just you wait!

So they track Alice's scent, and it turns out she and Jasper took a trip through wolf country. Sam himself escorted them to the ocean, during which time she mysteriously asked him not to tell Jacob about it until Sam had a chance to tell Edward first. Then, she gave him a note to pass along to the Cullens when they came looking for her. What a delightfully circuitous plan!

The note is ripped from Bella's copy of The Merchant of Venice, which I'm sure has no meaning whatsoever. The note itself is pretty standard, asking the Cullens not to look for them, apologizing for leaving on short notice, and to find as many friends as possible before the Volturi show up. Sam whines about how the wolves would never leave each other in a time of crisis, and how they wouldn't run away from a fight, and how Renesmee is a part of Jacob is a part of the pack, and therefore they'll stand by the Cullens even if some of the Cullens won't.

Bella whines to herself about how if Alice is giving up, it must be hopeless. Of course, the tone of the note doesn't suggest that she's leaving permanently; in fact, she points out that she's going to talk to some of their friends while her and Jasper are away. That's not something she'd do if she thought it was hopeless. But don't worry, everyone will be shocked when she returns. Shocked, I say!

There is another path they can smell: a side trip made by Alice before she went away with Jasper. Just like everything else she does, the path is also circuitous. It's the exact word that Meyer choose to use, and the same one I picked earlier in this entry before I realized Meyer used it too. Does that mean Stephenie and I like the same words? This could become a frightening development.

The path leads back to Bella and Edward's cottage. Bella comes to the conclusion that the message is probably just for her, since the paper used to write it on came from one of her books. Bella convinces Edward to let her go in the cottage alone, though even letting her have 30 seconds to herself is almost too much for him to bear. Seriously, Edward wines about this. About letting his wife go inside their house first and not seeing her for less than a minute. Sigh.

Bella goes to check her copy of The Merchant of Venice, and finds a note with a name and address in Seattle, along with the instruction "destroy this." Bella does as she's told, and Edward comes in the house after just 13 seconds, because he couldn't wait any longer to figure out what she was up to. Truly, trust is not the foundation of a good sparklepire relationship. Accordingly, Bella burns the book and lies badly to Edward, who still believes her since he's useless without his mind-reading abilities.

The rest of the family Cullen is feeling slightly better, since Alice seemed to offer a little hope in her note (it would have been nice for Bella to notice this). Everyone is going to go their own way, finding potential allies and showing Renesmee to them...very carefully. We wouldn't want more people freaking out and trying to kill her or threaten to tell the Volturi about her AGAIN.

Renesmee asks Jacob questions about what's going on, since she basically understands but wants his opinion on what's going to happen. Jacob tells her, since he's imprinted on her and gives her whatever she wants. Bella hates this, because she thinks that Renesmee should live a perfect little sheltered life without having any of her questions about bad things answered. I think I'm siding with Jacob on this one.

A downside for Jacob is that he won't be able to hang around as much with all the vampires strolling into town. The combination of "our kid really isn't an immortal child that you should kill on the spot, no really" and "lol, we're also best buds with werewolves" seems like something that might turn off some of their potential vampire allies, so they're going to ease Jacob into things.

Meanwhile, Bella does some Internet research on the name J. Jenks, finding out that he's a lawyer, but that his office address is way different than the one Alice gave her. You know, when I think novels about vampires and werewolves and giant vampire armies that are coming to kill said vampires and werewolves, I know what I want to read about: Google searches!

At the end of the chapter, Renesmee asks (in her way) where Alice is, and it finally makes Bella cry, for the first time as a vampire. The way it's written, I can't help but be reminded of Arnold Schwarzenegger from Terminator 2. "I now know why you cry." Bella thinks that Alice gave her and Renesmee a way out, even though the rest of the family might be doomed.

Obviously, Bella hasn't been reading this series, or else she'd be very calmly waiting out all the "tension" before things magically resolve themselves at the last minute. Spoiler alert: someone does die! But don't worry, it won't be one of the 50 or so characters you actually care about. That would be way too painful, and as Bella pointed out earlier in the chapter, young readers need to be shielded from bad things.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Chapter Twenty-eight: How do you solve a problem like Irina?

Irina runs away, presumably angry about the friendship between Bella and Jacob, the Laurent Slayer. Alice knows she's not going back to Denali, but can't see exactly where she's headed instead. Oh well -- I'm sure it won't be important.

In the absence of news, Bella looks forward to her upcoming travel plans. First, she's headed off to Italy to confirm her sparkly new lifestyle with the Volturi. Then, it's off to South America for some research time with the Ticunas, who might know something about other little Renesmees who could be running around. Of course, Emmett and Jasper are really excited about hunting in the Amazon. They'll try a little jaguar, and maybe some panther.

Wait a second, aren't a lot of these big cat names just different names for the same animals? Sure enough, "panther" is actually a name given to a whole genus of cats, including jaguars. Oh, but maybe they meant the animal which is more commonly known as a panther, even if that's not a scientific classification! In that case, they're referring to the mountain lion, which is really exotic, considering they regularly hunt them in Washington. Well researched, Ms. Meyer! For further reference, the cougar and the puma are also the same exact animal, if it comes up.

Anyway, my focus on cat names is taking us away from what little plot there is. Alice is cleaning, and drops a vase. Being that she's a perfectly perfect sparklepire, it's impossible that she could have done this by accident. Nope, it's vision time!

And it's a particularly disturbing vision at that. She sees some vampires coming for the Cullens. The Volturi. All of them. Eep!

Alice sees snow on the ground when they come, so it reasons that they have a little over a month before it happens. What's really concerning everyone, though, is the fact that everyone is coming. I mean, even the WIVES are coming. They're letting the womenfolk out? But the wives never, ever leave! Who will cook and clean their tower??

Bella is sure the reason for this unprecedented event is Renesmee, even though she's not sure why. Alice searches back, looking for the answer they're missing. What did Irina see that could upset her and the Volturi that much? I mean, all she saw was a werewolf, a vampire, and a small child who looked impossibly like a vampire child that's totally illegal and the impetus for the worst violence ever in the history of the vampire world. What could have possibly set her off?

Yes, it's that last one. Bella passes this insight along, and everyone realizes that she's figured the mystery out. Oh sure, they're wrong about Renesmee, but the Volturi aren't really ones to hang around and debate the issues of the day before putting things to a vote. Their plan is likely to look something like:

1) Find immortal child.
2) Kill immortal child.
3) Kill vampires who made immortal child.
4) Split the price of a suite at Qwest Field for a Sounders match. They're Italian, they're going to want to see some soccer while they're in town, right?
5) Pictures at the Space Needle.

See? That's a packed schedule, so there's really no time for "confirming" things.

The Cullens examine their options. They can't run; Demetri will always find them, as he's the world's best sparklepire tracker. Fighting seems futile, because as perfect as the Cullens are, the Volturi are even MORE perfect. Plus, there's way more of them.

But the Cullens do have allies that could even up the score. We've got the werewolves, who aren't going to ignore an invasion by dozens of hostile vampires. Then there are all their vampire friends from around the world; it seems that one of the benefits of not being jerk-pires is that you gain lots of buddies.

Even with all the different vampires around the world that the Cullens take a page or so to list who might come to their aid -- and you'd have to think that at least a few will say "no, I don't want to be slaughtered by the Volturi death machine" -- they're pretty sure they can't actually win a fight against the Volturi. But if they can get them to slow down a bit and consider things, they can prove that Renesmee isn't an immortal child, but just an abomination, a freak of nature that's just so lovable!

And the race is on to track down all the friendly sparklepires they can find. The chapter ends on a super-happy note, as Bella informs Jacob that they've all been sentenced to die.

Oh, come on Bella, you've been in this series for nearly four books now. You know that'll never happen. The only real drama is trying to guess just how they'll manage to survive with absolutely no consequences to speak of!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Chapter Twenty-seven: Everybody Loves Renesmee

Bella spends the first page of the novel recapping the fact that she now has a really big family, especially if you count the werewolves as cousins or something. Even Sue and Leah Clearwater are part of the show now. And it's all because of Renesmee, aww!

Everyone is happy. Bella's even more happy, because everyone around her is happy. Jasper is especially happy, because he can feel all of Bella's happy. SO MUCH HAPPY!!

But some things aren't perfect -- which is to say that they haven't become perfect yet, since they inevitably will. Renesmee spoke her first word ("mommy," aww) at the age of one week, which is slightly earlier than most kids, unless you start them really early on those Your Baby Can Read DVDs. Even they probably wouldn't say that word as part of a complete sentence like this little half-sparklepire.

And that's only the first of many wonderful Renesmee milestones. At less than a month, she's walking, and by three months, she looks almost as big as an average two-year-old. She can speak perfectly, read, run and dance and perform open heart surgery. The last one probably is less true than the others.

But she is growing really fast, and even though it's slowing down, Carlisle estimates that she'll be full grown at age four, and an old woman around fifteen. Lucky Renesmee, she never has to worry about turning 30 and really getting old. Actually, though, they don't know what's going to happen to her, since nobody has ever mentioned any half-vampire babies running around. There might be some legends in Brazil, but I'm sure that won't turn up any useful information to save the day at the last moment or anything.

There's one other not-yet-perfect thing that haunts Bella a little bit: those darn Volturi. Alice sent them a wedding announcement to head off them checking on her too early, and they sent back a lovely necklace featuring a few of the crown jewels in an overly ornate box. Oh, and there's a nice note saying that they can't wait to meet the new Mrs. Cullen! Maybe these guys aren't so bad after all.

Well, I guess there's a slight problem with that, in so much as Aro likes collecting unique vampires, and might want to steal Renesmee as the most uniquest thing ever. Bella's ready to deal with this by traveling to Italy herself and showing her sparkle to the Volturi in person. Since they can't read her thoughts, there's no chance they can find out about Renesmee. Perfectness achieved!

In the meantime, Bella, Jacob and Renesmee hunt together. Renesmee can eat human food, but human blood is way better. Animal blood falls somewhere in between, and since there isn't enough donated blood to go around (baby has learned that hunting humans is a bad thing), they're trying to get her to accept that instead. With Jacob along, they can entice her by making it into a hunting contest. Oh, those poor animals.

Jacob and Renesmee go ahead to hunt, while Bella hangs a few minutes behind them so that Renesmee can surprise her with whatever she catches. But Bella catches something herself -- her first glimpse at the Cullens' friend Irina! She's from that other coven to the north, and if you don't remember (it took me a minute), she's the one who shacked up with Laurent. Thus, she's less than happy with the fact that Jacob and pals killed her sweetie, and is only now coming back to see the happily married couple and make amends with the Cullens.

But oops, this was not the best time for them to meet each other. First of all, she saw Bella being friendly and affectionate with Jacob, who might have killed her vampire boyfriend. Oops. Bella calls her husband and has him and Carlisle come join them, since Irina growled at her -- the universal signal of sparklepire displeasure.

Carlisle and Edward go to find Irina, who ran away, while Bella, Jacob and the other wolves take Renesmee back into the house for safe keeping. I smell a plot coming!

Monday, August 23, 2010

Chapter Twenty-six: Don't Tell Mom the Bella's Dead.

Okay, the title doesn't have much to do with the chapter as a whole, but the first thing that happens is Charlie and Bella agreeing not to tell Renee about Bella's craziness -- at least not much. Thus, the title. Deal with it.

Charlie spends the afternoon watching football with Emmett before going down to La Push for dinner with Billy and Sue Clearwater. That'll be fun! Emmett apparently spends the whole time making sexually suggestive jokes, showing all the maturity that your typical immortal vampire should have.

When Charlie leaves for dinner, he spills the beans -- he knew that Bella and the vampirettes almost skipped town on him, and that she can only stay if he can keep his mouth shut. As long as he knows a little, but not too much, she can stay. Of course, she might have to leave anyway...but we all know that won't happen.

Also, Renesmee is the prettiest baby ever. Because everything is perfect. Except for her name, and now we get to know her middle name too! It's -- wait for it -- Carlie, because it's Carlisle plus Charlie. Take that in for a moment:

Renesmee Carlie Cullen. It could be worse, I guess?

Anyway, Charlie leaves, and Bella congratulates herself on not eating her father. Edward proclaims her Queen of the Newborns, being the greatest and most perfect example of a newborn vampire to ever exist.

But not everyone thinks Bella is that perfect. Emmett is convinced that his hugeness will still make him stronger than Bella, even with her newborn steroids. Bets are taken, a suitable granite rock is found (Esme won't let them use her table), and the game is on. The main wager is this: if Bella wins, Emmett isn't allowed to make jokes about Bella's sex life. If Emmett wins...it gets a lot worse (his exact words, in fact). That's...an interesting bet, but sure, why not?

Of course, Bella wins. But it's not just that she wins, it's that she doesn't even have to try to win. She can basically take her time, decide when to crush Emmett, and then do it. Emmett demands a rematch tomorrow, and presumably every day after that until he can be the big vampire on campus again.

Bella celebrates by testing her strength by crushing rocks. She does so easily, and giggles. Everyone else laughs at her silliness. DO SOMETHING, CHAPTER, I'M BEGGING YOU!

Blah blah blah, everyone tells Bella how strong and beautiful she is. Bella thinks it's amazing, because she was so painfully average as a human. And now she's finally amazing. And shiny when she sparkles.

And then the chapter is over. Oh my god, really? NOTHING HAPPENED. Some vampires had an arm wrestling match, that's seriously it! Sigh.

Spoiler alert: things do happen, thankfully, before the end of the novel. Or at least, they try to happen. You know how it is with these books.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Chapter Twenty-five: Yes, this was a realistic course of action.

It's been a week since my last update. Sorry! I should be able to be more timely again now.

Anyway, Edward is able to get Bella's mind off of their endless vampire sex marathon simply by uttering their daughter's name. Which is Renesmee, in case you had forgotten. I think we can all imagine how jarring hearing that come out of anyone's mouth would be, so I can completely buy it as a legitimate tactic.

Bella goes to get dressed, and finds that Alice has left her with far, far too many clothes to choose from. Oh, what a hard life it is for vampire Bella! Edward helps smell her some good clothes (no, really, he does), and they head back to the main house to check on their mutant daughter.

She's still growing, of course, but it seems to be slowing down a little. Renesmee is becoming slightly more like a normal child, and less like a baby, which is still happening way too fast considering she's something like five days old at this point. She's happy to see mom, as is the rest of the family, since Renesmee's main way of passing the time seems to be mangling spoons. This kid is going to be totally well-adjusted.

Emmett and Rosalie make lots of jokes about all the vampire sex Edward and Bella must be having. Haha, it's funny because I'm supposed to be reading this when I'm like 14 and sexual innuendo is taboo! Wait, I'm 29? Damn it, now it's just unfunny and forced. They also talk about how the whole family should get started packing for New Hampshire; it's a convenient place to move, because Bella's already signed up for school there anyway, and she seems to be handling things rather well, so she probably won't eat her classmates. Well, maybe that one kid in her introductory writing class. You know the one.

So anyway, Jacob and the wolves are gone for the day, and nobody knows why. Alice is also confused, because she can't see what's going to happen all day -- as she puts it (and this is kind of clever), he's erased her entire schedule! Also, she's pissed that Bella went for the least outlandish outfit possible, instead of one of the other 3,000 outfits that were prepared for her. Oh, Alice...

But Edward finds Jacob's thoughts, and sees what Jacob has done. Jacob talked to Charlie, and now he thinks Charlie is going to follow him to Cullen Manor. Oops? So Jacob gets there with the rest of his mini-pack, and the vampires just look at him in silence. Jakie, you got some 'splainin' to do!

He confirms that he's told Charlie, but seems happy about it. You see, what he did was...

Okay, first, let me just say this: in a way, this might be the single most ridiculous thing that has happened in this book series about sparkling vampires gods and their Native American shapeshifting werewolf buddies. It's not that anything ridiculously supernatural happens; in fact, what Jacob did (for the most part) is just a pretty standard interaction between two characters. No, it's the way things work out that's entirely impossible to fathom. I mean, we know nothing can possibly go wrong for Bella, but even if that's the rule, you'd think Meyer would at least make the other characters ensure her eternal happiness in ways I could swallow.

Anyway, back to Jacob. He left, because he was tired of hearing about how Bella was going to be moving cross-country. He couldn't take it, so he came up with a brilliant plan. Everyone is pissed that he told Charlie, since he now will either die when the Volturi learn that he's in the know, or they'll have to make him a vampire too.

But Jacob is one step ahead of them. Here's what he did: he showed up at Charlie's house, and then without a single word, phased into his werewolf form right in front of Charlie.

That was pretty much the whole plan. When he phases back, he tells Charlie that there are things in this world that he doesn't understand and can't know about. Bella is better, but she had to change a bit in order to make it through her illness. He starts to explain to Charlie about werewolves, at least, and he doesn't even want to know. To boot, he doesn't even want to know about Bella!

That's right: after seeing his daughter's best friend turn into a wolf in front of him, he's not going to ask any questions, and actually wants to know as little as possible about what's going on with Bella. Wow, that's exactly the perfect result for Bella! And exactly the opposite of what you'd expect from a father who has been hounding the Cullens for information on his daughter for weeks, and is a police chief with an inclination for solving things. This is probably the least likely response Charlie could have had, but since it makes life perfecter for Bella, it's the one he has. Everyone wins!

Bella isn't immediately thrilled with Jacob's actions, but she does sort of appreciate it, especially when she hears how excited Charlie is about being a grandpa. Which is something else that he doesn't want to know any details about, of course.

There is one potential pitfall: Bella still hasn't tested herself much around pure humans, so she could end up eating Charlie accidentally. Of course, she has the best self-control of any vampire ever, so everyone likes her odds, but it could happen. You hear that, readers? Believe it, it could happen!

It won't happen.

The Cullens give Bella some quick tips on acting like a human. Now, I can understand that it's hard once you get used to being a sparklepire to do things like not holding a position for too long, or accidentally moving too fast, or standing up for hours because it just doesn't bother you at all. But Bella's only a few days removed from being a human, shouldn't she be able to fake it pretty well? It's not a big deal, but "don't stare at things for too long" is the kind of thing I'd think Bella could handle without being told.

Before they know it, Charlie's there, and after a quick talk to Renesmee to make sure she doesn't accidentally bite her grandfather, Bella is ready to attempt to not eat dad. Bella tries to keep all her concentration on this goal, but the prospect of more vampire sex with Edward distracts her momentarily (yes, this really happens) until Jasper reminds them that she really needs to stay focused.

Charlie arrives, and is kind of shocked to see what his daughter looks like now. Even though vampires can pass as human, it seems like they really can't pass as their human selves so well. It takes Charlie a minute to accept that it really is Bella.

Meanwhile, Bella quickly learns just how tempting human blood is, and only avoids not eating her dad because...well, it's her father, and she's in her house, not out in the woods hunting.

Charlie takes a look at his granddaughter, who is completely and entirely adopted, as far as he knows. That lasts for all of two minutes, when Charlie realizes that this adopted baby -- supposedly Edward's long lost niece -- bears a striking resemblance to Bella, too. For the first time, Charlie actually wants the truth about something! But Edward tells him it's more important for him to know the public story, and that ends that. Charlie decides he definitely doesn't need to know anything...just because he doesn't.

So, with all that taken care of, Emmett throws on some college football. Florida is playing against someone, and just scored, making it 7-0 Gators. Emmett makes a joke about how they're the only ones scoring around here, and with that, Charlie takes a seat on the couch to watch the game with his new family, completely satisfied with everything he's seen.

Yeah...things tend to work out like this for Bella. If you haven't gotten used to it yet, it's time to get started.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Chapter Twenty-four: A new house, a huge closet, and vampire sex. Happy birthday!

In the past 36 hours, I've had to get five teeth removed, and read this chapter of Breaking Dawn so I could get on with writing this blog. One was an intensely painful and uncomfortable experience that couldn't end fast enough, while the other took place at the dentist's office.

*rimshot*

I know, it's the oldest joke in the book. But here's something that's not a joke: both were very, very uncomfortable. I'd still rather read this chapter again than go through the dental work, but it's closer than you'd think. On the bright side, it's a short 15-page chapter, so let's dive in!

The Cullens demand that they celebrate Bella's birthday, and they play along. Edward is going to give Bella her "after" car, though he's going to wait for the morning so that they can show Jacob, who will actually appreciate the awesomeness of his gift.

Alice is up next, ready to show Bella and Edward the gift from the rest of the family -- Esme most of all. Several family members make innuendo about how the new couple will enjoy their new gift alone, which is why only Alice is going with them. Oh boy.

Anyway, Alice leads them a bit away from the house into the woods...where Esme has built Bella and Edward a swank little cottage for them to live in. Awwwww. Alice stocked the gigantic closet as her special little extra for Bella, and then leaves her and Edward alone to enjoy the house.

Bella starts freaking out. Why didn't everyone come with them? She really likes the house, they all could have seen how happy she was! You see, Bella doesn't take a hint well. The fact that this leaves only her and Edward alone in their own house in the middle of the woods hasn't dawned on her quite yet. Once Edward points it out though, it's all she can think of.

Edward carries his bride over the threshold while she thinks about how every little tiny thing in her life is made of perfect sparkles of perfection. They take a quick tour of their fairy tale cottage, including Alice's closet, which is bigger than the master bedroom.

Oh, the bedroom...

...and thus begins the vampire sex romp. Clothes and fabrics are destroyed, they never make it to the bed, and they can finally go all-out since Edward is much less likely to kill Bella now. Bella's biggest concern? Since they'll never get tired, why would they ever stop?

Of course, Bella will never believe she's good enough for Edward. Actually, her problem is now that she thinks that the new, undead Bella might be missing something of the warm, live Bella which Edward was such a big fan of. Of course, Edward declares that she's even more perfectly amazing than she was as a human, so that leads to another couple hours of stony sex.

Now, Bella's big worry is that she'll never stop wanting to fuck all day, every day. Edward says that they'll get better at balancing their lives as time goes on, but it could take a few years. apparently, Rosalie and Emmett took about a decade! But eventually, it becomes easy; when you don't need to sleep, you have plenty of time to do everything you want as part of a well-balanced life.

Edward points this out by noting that he's the family's best musician, and that besides Carlisle, he's read the most books and learned the most stuff and can speak the most languages and so forth. Emmett thinks it's because he reads minds, but the truth is that Edward just had way less to do with his free time than everyone else who were busy in their respective bedrooms every night.

Yes, I think Edward just made a joke about the advantages of being a century-old virgin vampire. And that's the end of that chapter.*

*Except for the last sentence of the chapter, which implies they're about to have a lot more of the sex.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Chapter Twenty-three: Bella does stuff.

If you remember, Bella was ready to kill Jacob for calling her daughter Nessie. We pick things up now a few minutes later. It seems that Jacob wasn't even going to defend himself, but that Seth jumped in the way to protect him. He didn't attack Bella or anything, he just blocked threw himself in Bella's path and was rewarded with a broken shoulder and collarbone.

Edward apologizes, Bella apologizes, everyone is sorry! At least nobody was killed, so whoever had the under in the "how many people will Bella kill in her first year" bet is looking very good. Besides, werewolf magic means Seth will be back to normal in about a half-hour. Remember, if Bella does something wrong, there won't be any real consequences. It's a nice life.

There could have been issues, though, if Bella had actually bitten one of them. It seems that vampire venom is poisonous to the werewolves. But not Renesmee's, of course. She bites Jacob all the time! One wonders if this will keep up when Renesmee and Jacob's relationship changes after she grows up.

While Bella calms down -- Jacob and Rosalie won't let her see her daughter until they're sure she's 100% composed and not in a biting mood -- Bella thinks about everything she was told while Seth was being fixed up. In other words, it's time for some clumsy exposition! The big news is that there's no more feud with Sam's pack. The main force behind the new, binding treaty? Jacob's creepy infant imprinting on Renesmee. See, werewolf law #1 (which was never mentioned before) is that you can't kill someone that another wolf has imprinted upon, so nobody's going to go after Renesmee anymore. Jacob, the rightful super-Alpha, was okay with Bella's transformation, so Sam -- who I guess is now the Beta Alpha -- can't get mad about it. Oh, and conveniently enough, Alphas from different packs can talk to each other, even though packs have their own wireless wolf networks. They may not all be best friends anymore, but everyone is getting along just fine.

Then there's the Charlie issue. Nobody's sure what to do. Do they tell him that Bella's dead, and have a whole funeral deal? Let Charlie see Bella and make his own assumptions, thus technically not breaking vampire law? Trust me, if you haven't read these books, you'll never guess how this plays out. Seriously, try. Take a minute and come up with how you think they'll manage to make things okay for Charlie and Bella, and then come back with your answer. Sorry, wrong! I have no idea what your answer was, but seriously, I'm sure it's wrong.

Anyway, Bella moves on to thinking about Jacob and Renesmee and how that's going to suck for Jacob if the vampires have to move away for a while as part of the "Bella is dead" illusion. Like Jacob wouldn't just tag along anyway.

Now, it's time for the thrilling "measuring the baby" scene, which we can only hope will be faithfully reenacted in the film version. They measure Renesmee four times a day because she grows so fast; these exercises bore both Renesmee and the reader in equal measure. The girl is already nearly toddler-sized, which makes Bella and Edward wonder what they're going to do with her if she keeps aging so fast. But Jacob is less concerned; though Carlisle wants more data, the possessive werewolf is sure the rate of growth is slowing a little. If it'll make things easier on Bella, you can be sure it'll happen.

Bella hangs out with her daughter for a bit. Renesmee uses her ability to show mom all the boring shit she did today, like watching mommy freak out and almost break that poor werewolf's neck, Grandpa Vampire measuring her again, Rosalie doing her hair. She also shows Bella a memory of drinking blood, which doesn't cause Bella to flip out, much to everyone's surprise. Jasper is most upset at all; he's wondering if maybe anyone could avoid going crazy as a newborn if they're as focused as Bella.

Allow me to help you with this one, Jazz. If you were the main character, you'd be doing great, trust me! Sadly, you're just a secondary character, so you have to set the baseline that Bella gets to surpass by a mile. Sorry about that, but it's just the way it works. If there weren't average sparklepires, how could Bella ever truly be amazing?

Carlisle suspects that self-control could even be Bella's gift. At first, Bella thinks its a really lame power...mostly, because it is. But on second thought, it does mean that she can be a good vampire right away, instead of going through her year of wanting to kill all humans. Of course, there's still a question as to whether or not it's her gift, or just a byproduct of her preparation for being a vampire. You, dear reader, can probably figure out which by taking a guess as to how awesome Bella's power should be to be consistent with the rest of Vampire Bella's awesomeness, and whether or not "self-control" reaches that lofty height.

After an hour or so of storytelling time by Renesmee, she nods off. Bella picks up the baby's hand and puts it back on her own head on a hunch...and it works. She can now see all of Renesmee's dreams, most of which involve Bella or Jacob, with Edward and Rosalie fighting for third. At this rate, Renesmee's going to think Jacob is daddy, which could lead to some awkward times around the Cullen home.

Alice runs into the room with a brass key tied up in a big pink bow. It seems that the vampires are going to celebrate Bella's 19th birthday, even though she's not aging and is very particular about the fact that she's 18 forever. Bella protests, but Alice will have none of it. I wonder what wish that key is going to grant for Bella? We'll find out...but not until the next chapter.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Chapter Twenty-two: Bella, Jacob, and the baby they loved.

Bella's little girl is uniquely special, probably one-of-a-kind in a very perfect sort of way. She has vampire hard skin, but has blood and a pumping heart. She can eat food, but prefers the sweet taste of human blood that goes down smooth and isn't filling. Renesmee is also very intelligent, and though she doesn't speak yet, it's probably only a matter of time. She has her own way of communicating; it seems she has the opposite gift of Edward, being able to give her thoughts to others. She basically, she's the least baby-like baby ever, and is way easier to deal with than, you know, an actual baby.

Bella's still wondering why Jacob's sticking around. Isn't he feeling tortured over how badly Bella broke his heart? Edward doesn't seem to feel so bad about Jacob anymore, but refuses to tell Bella why. The communication in this relationship is about as good as on Lost, where the communication between...well, pick any two characters, and about as much relevant information was exchanged there as between Mr. and Mrs. Cullen.

But those questions can be answered later. For now, Bella just wants to get home to see Renesmee. She races Edward home, but the Tour de Forks is cut short when three werewolves, one of whom is in a very human Jacob form, block their way. It seems that Jacob wants to test Bella before she gets to see Renesmee. Now, why would Jacob be so protective? Hmm...

Jacob is surprised how Bella-like Bella still is, so it seems all anxieties about sparkle-Bella have passed. He offers himself up as a test; if Bella can breathe him in and not try to go for the kill, then she can see her daughter. The result: now that Bella's a vampire, Jacob smells pretty bad, and she doesn't want to eat him. Well, not much; that pumping heart is tempting, but overall, he's more like a fast-food mountain lion than a filet human.

Having passed, everyone gives Bella permission to see her daughter. She's only two days old, but she's already looks all of several weeks; apparently, Bella won't have to change diapers for very long, which is perfect, since that would get in the way of all her lovely wish fulfillment. Some of the vampires are still nervous; when Bella so much as takes a step towards Renesmee, the entire room panics. I mean, why would a mother want to see her baby unless she was ready to take a bite?

Edward tries to calm the room by pointing out that Bella caught the scent of some hikers while they were out hunting. This makes the entire clan flip out, because apparently, being a vampire means you can't wait to hear the end of a sentence to get the entire story. Everyone is shocked -- shocked, I say! -- to find out that Bella did not, in fact, eat the hikers. Eventually, they will understand that she's the greatest sparklepire of all time, but for now, each new ability of hers is a little jolting.

Finally, after some more angst from the family, Bella is allowed to hold Renesmee. She gets her first feel for her child's creepy ability by seeing Renesmee's memory of her, back when she was giving birth and covered in blood. Pleasant!

After a little mommy-baby time, Jacob starts getting antsy. He doesn't want Bella to push her luck, which finally gets Bella to ask some questions. What the hell is up with Jacob? Why does he care so much? Why does everyone else act like he's got some horrible secret to hide from her? And why does he stare at Renesmee like she's the most important thing in her life?

Wait a minute...

Yeah, Bella pretty much flips out now. Jacob tries to explain that it's not really something he can control, but the thought of Jacob being in love with her two-day old baby is just a little too much trouble. He tries to point out that it's not like he wants to sleep with her (yet), so there's nothing disgusting about it at all (not true, Jacob, not true). And he even explains that the pull he and Bella felt for each other while she was pregnant was caused entirely by the connection between Renesmee and him.

All of that's not enough to make Bella happy about things, but it's at least seemed to stop her from wanting to kill Jacob. She still encourages him to run before she snaps, but Jacob, as always, decides that he needs to throw in one thing too many. In this case, he uses the nickname he's given her baby: Nessie. Like the Loch Ness Monster.

And then Bella tries to kill him. Come on, Bella, Nessie is like 10 times better than Renesmee any day. You should be thanking Jacob for showing such initiative! On the other hand, the ensuing violence might be exciting.

Spoiler: it's not.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Chapter Twenty-one: The hunt is on.

Edward and Bella go hunting. Let's count all the things that Bella is good at!

  1. Bella is super graceful, even for a vampire.
  2. Bella is extremely good at jumping over rivers on her first try.
  3. Bella is great at running at sparklepire speed without hitting trees.
  4. Bella is good at hearing and smelling elk from far away.
  5. Bella is better than any other sparklepire ever at not eating people (she smells some, and runs at them, but then freaks out and stops).

  6. Actually, this last one event makes Edward laugh, because it's so preposterous that a newborn vampire could feel bad about thinking about eating a human. Which brings us to...

  7. Bella is great at ignoring the awful thirst for blood in her throat.
  8. Bella is good at killing mountain lions and drinking all their blood.
  9. Bella is really hot. Edward mentions this a lot, especially after the mountain lion tears up her dress a bit.
So yeah, that's pretty much the chapter in a nutshell. I'm sure you wanted to read more, but it's all about how awesome Bella is at everything.

At the end of the chapter, Edward is all over Bella, mostly because there isn't very much dress left after the hunting was over. But what Bella wants to do -- just a tiny bit more than having vampire sex in the woods -- is see Renesmee. Who is with Jacob, which seems a little strange to Bella, though her super-fast vampire mind hasn't come up with any theories yet. As you'll see over the rest of this book, for minds that are supposed to work unbelievably fast, it takes a very long time for vampires to figure things out.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Chapter Twenty: Bella, Queen of the Sparklepires

Bella is now in full sparkling glory, and as it turns out, the world is too. Everything she sees, she sees a bazillion times clearer than she did before. She can see dust motes, and notes that they're much more attractive than the dust moats Meyer wrote about in one of the earlier books (in fact, she writes the phrase "dust mote" three times in the first two pages of this chapter, as if to prove she's learned how to spell it properly). She can breathe, and even though she doesn't need to, the air tastes really good, because she can taste everything. She can hear everything. Basically, she's fully aware of everything going on within a huge radius, because she's a full-blown sparklepire of the highest order.

Edward touches Bella. It's not cold anymore, because she's cold too! And now that she can see so much more clearly, he's even hotter than he was before! And guess what -- she's even hotter than she was before too, because vampires just...are. I mean, they're actually cold, but you get the picture.

Bella's a little confused, because she has lots of emotions right now. Wasn't she supposed to be an emotionless killing machine for a year or so before they came back? Bella hugs Edward, and actually manages to hurt him, because one of the other benefits of being a newborn vampire is increased strength, even compared to other sparkle gods.

Edward and Bella make out in front of the whole family, with Bella basically mounting them. Then they remember that these aren't things we do in front of your parents and siblings. Oops.

Everyone is surprised by how much control Bella has. Of course she does! Why would she have to go through anything difficult? That would get in the way of her wish fulfillment. Oh sure, she still has mood swings and feels like she wants human blood, but you can pretty much count on these "challenges" being cosmetic, at best. Bella is going to be the best. Sparklepire. Ever.

Assured that Renesmee is fine (other than the stupid name), Bella is convinced by Edward that they should go hunt to take care of her thirst. Of course, Bella wants to see her baby first, but the rest of the family isn't so sure. After all, she's half-human, so newborn Bella might eat her for her first post-sparkle snack. So she agrees to be patient, at least for the moment. What surprises her most of all is that Jacob is still around. Hmm, how peculiar...

Alice demands that she gets to make Bella look in a mirror before they go, so she can be there for the "first time." Bella looks, and sees that she's really, really hot. Maybe not Rosalie hot, but definitely at the Esme/Alice level, which is still way above human, apparently. It freaks her out a bit too, because she has those awesome blood red eyes that are just a bit of a change from her human days. A steady course of animal blood will clear that up, but it'll still take a few months.

This is all a bit much for Bella to handle, but she manages...which shocks all the other vampires. Newborns aren't supposed to be able to do this! Bella has the advantage of knowing what to expect going into the whole sparklefication procedure, but still, this is above and beyond what any of them thought was possible. Yes, Bella's not just a vampire, she's a magically special vampire!

After Edward assures Bella that she's really hot (but that he's disappointed that he still can't read her mind), Jasper's uneasiness with Bella reaches a boil, and they agree to let her go hunt once so that they can be even more assured that she won't flip out and start attacking everyone in sight. Bella's a little worried about attacking wild animals for the first time, but with Edward with her, what could possibly go wrong?

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

More Posts Coming Soon!

Sorry about the lack of updates, guys -- work has been keeping me very busy. I'll be pumping out updates as fast as possible in the next week or so, because I need to get Breaking Dawn done soon!

But that won't be the end of this blog. Oh no, there's plenty more bad Twilight writing to suffer through...

Monday, July 19, 2010

Chapter Nineteen: Return of the Bella

Bella's back to her role as narrator. She's better at it than Jacob, much in the same way that having a finger cut off is better than losing an entire arm.

Bella is in a lot of pain. Yes, we're picking things up just as her body begins to react to all the Edward venom coursing through her body, attempting to keep her alive long enough to turn her into a sparklepire. Bella's body is trying to protect her from the agony, but nonetheless, it feels like she's being tortured in a dozen different ways all at once. That's not actually happening, which is a slight disappointment to me as a reader, but what she's going through is bad enough to give us at least a little satisfaction.

It's understandably confusing to be Bella right now. If we back up a few minutes to when she was giving birth: she knows something is wrong with the little baby boy who is totally a boy inside of her, and she slips constantly between numbness and excruciating pain. Bella is kind enough to take us through the same birth we've just seen from Jacob's perspective, only this time, instead of Jacob telling us that Bella looks like she's in tons of pain, Bella tells us that she actually is in tons of pain! It's a whole new angle!

Skipping past all the repetitive stuff, Bella talks about how she wouldn't have been able to struggle very long for herself...but for Edward, and for Jacob, and for Renesmee, she can do anything! Sure, it's really their faults that she's in this mess in the first place, but if they got her into it, they can get her out.

Bella feels some new heat heading into her heart. Oh, that must be the sparkle venom! It gets hotter and hotter, until it's much too hot. Then it gets even hotter than that. And there's nothing she can do about it, since the heat is coming from inside of her. So, umm, ouch? This is going to suck for Bella.

Yeah, now she wishes she had just gone and died. Every other pain she's ever felt in her life is nothing compared to all the venom going through her body. Becoming a vampire isn't quite as fun as you imagined now, is it Bella?

What really confuses her for a moment, though, is why she can't scream and thrash about like her instincts are telling her to. And a moment later, she realizes the answer: it's the morphine. It seems like an understandable mistake; Carlisle and Edward were hoping that by getting enough morphine in her quick enough, it would dull the pain of the venom. But instead, it's just making Bella paralyzed in her horrific pain.

But wait a second...Bella points out that she more or less knew this would happen! They gave her morphine after James bit her in the first movie, and she knew that it hadn't helped at all. And instead of giving her vampire doctor this very, very important information, she decided to keep it to herself so that Edward wouldn't stop her from becoming a sparklepire. You know, Bella, I don't think the relative amount of pain you're going to feel for a few days is really what was driving Edward to keep you human for as long as possible. Use your brain!

Besides, it's important to point out a few obvious logic issue here: Bella has no idea if the morphine is helping or not. It might be making things more bearable than she realizes. Maybe without the morphine, it would be ten times worse, and she'd be killing herself by contorting her near-dead body because of the pain before the venom could kick in. Do we have a control Bella somewhere who tried this without painkillers? These are the things I wonder about.

Bella wants to die. How do I know this? well, this is a line from this chapter:

Let me die, let me die, let me die.
So, yeah, I think she's less than happy with the process so far. But then things change! The venom repairs Bella enough so that she can feel her lower body, so that hurts too. Awesome.

After a while, things start "improving," in so much as that she can begin to feel the ability to move again as the morphine begins to wear off. Of course, now she can feel the pain event more that before too (hah, told you Bella!), but at least she can sort of think about the agony a little more clearly now. Still, she doesn't want to scream, because it might upset Edward. Sigh.

Eventually, she gets control over her body...but does nothing with it, since she doesn't want anyone to worry about her. Then she can start hearing, and she can hear her heart beat, which gives her time to count. She can hear people asking questions that she refuses to answer, because she knows she'll start screaming, and she certainly can't do that. I mean, they all know she's being tormented anyway, but if she screams, then...umm, something. I don't know. I guess, to be fair, that it's hard to stay rational when your body is being absorbed by vampire venom.

She pretends to stay paralyzed even when people touch her. She can hear Edward berating himself; since Bella isn't moving, he thinks something must be wrong. But Bella's heart is doing so well that Carlisle is sure he did everything right. Of course her heart is bouncing along at a record pace -- Bella is going to be the most perfect sparklepire ever, and don't you forget it!

Bella continues hearing conversations, now about some sort of crazy situation that could lead to bloodshed. Oh, Bella, when you wake up and see that your best friend is in love with your baby, that's going to be awesome.

Alice comes into the room a bit later. She's sure it's almost over, because she's starting to see Bella clearly again. She can see humans and vampires, but not in-between, so Bella must be almost up to 100% sparkle!

Bella already has super-hearing at this point, and can listen to the Mariners play on the TV downstairs. Why she wants to endure even more pain this way, I don't know.

A little later, the pain begins to fade slightly from her extremities. Unfortunately for Bella, at the same time, it gets worse in her heart, and she starts to feel really, really thirsty in her throat. Oh yay, she's almost ready to eat some people! As the pain starts moving from her arms and legs directly into her chest, her heart starts beating even faster. She realizes that her heart is her last human organ, and the venom is moving to finish it off. Go venom, go!

Bella's heart stops. But alas, she's not dead. No, she's now pain free and more alive than ever. Well, technically, more undead than ever...but you know what I mean. In our next installment, Bella adjusts to her new life as a sparklepire. Here's a spoiler: it goes well for her.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Chapter Eighteen: The most amazing thing I've ever read.

The official chapter title (remember, it's from Jacob's perspective, and the chapter titles reflect this) is "THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR THIS." Jacob is damn right about that, but I'm going to try. This is the big one, folks. If you have read these books, this is the chapter you've been waiting for me to write about. This is the chapter you want to know how the hell they're going to film when it comes time to make the Breaking Dawn movie(s). For this is the chapter in which Bella gives birth. Game on!

We start the chapter with a blood-soaked Bella convulsing all over the place. Normally, the convulsions would at least mean her body was doing something, but Jacob notices that it's mostly whatever is trying to get out of Bella that's causing the commotion.

The vampires take Bella up to the hospital-esque room that they've set up for her care, and Rosalie rips Bella's clothes off to prep her for, umm, surgery. Jacob feels a little conflicted by this. I mean, he doesn't like that his best friend is dying and covered in her own blood while a monstrous creature is attempting to claw its way out of her womb, of course...but at the same time, he DID spend a lot of time imagining her naked. How ironic that now that he gets his wish, it's during a time when, on balance, it's not something he can be happy about. Poor Jacob! And Bella too, since she's near death and all that.

Carlisle isn't around -- remember, he's conveniently out getting more blood, which they put off just long enough to risk this happening -- but it hardly seems to matter, since Edward and Rosalie apparently have no problem diagnosing exactly what's going on. The baby is suffocating! The placenta detached!

Bella manages to come around during all this, and starts screaming at them to take the baby out now. Her screaming causes blood vessels in her eyes to burst, just adding to the bloody mess. Then there's more blood, which stops her from continuing to scream. Really, if Stephenie Meyer wants you to get one thing out of this part of the chapter, it's that Bella has lost about eight people worth of blood already.

Edward wants to wait for the morphine to spread before they attempt to take the baby out, but Rosalie is convinced there's no time: they need to act now. In an attempt to be demonstrative about this, her hand lands on Bella's stomach, and you guessed it...more blood! This time though, it comes as a bit of a surprise to Rosalie, and causes her to lose focus. In one sense, it might not be a big deal, since the plan is to eat the baby out of Bella anyway; but since they'd rather not eat Bella during the process, this is not a positive development on the whole. Jacob tackles Rosalie, who doesn't put up much of a fight as Alice drags her out into the hallway.

With Rosalie out of the room, there's a new plan; Jacob performs CPR while Edward tries to get the baby out. Hurray for Jacob, now he gets to pretend he's making out with Bella again AND potentially save her life. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

Then another crack rips through Bella -- it seems that the baby loves her so much, it decided to break her spine so she couldn't feel the pain of it ripping its way out of her womb. Aww! Jacob also points this out, telling Edward that he really doesn't have to worry about the morphine anymore since Bella won't be able to feel a damn thing anyway.

Edward gets started on delivery while Jacob deals with keeping Bella going. He can hear her heart beating softly, but she's not breathing, so he tries to breathe for her. The first thing he notices? That Bella's lips taste like blood. Funny, that; maybe it's the geysers of blood coming out of her.

Edward starts with the delicate surgeon's touch of the scalpel. Then he decides that that subtlety needs to be thrown out of the window, and dives in face first, ripping apart Bella's insides with his own teeth. Jacob remarks that it sounds like metal being torn apart as Edward bites his way into the womb; somehow, this observation is among the least traumatic imagery in this chapter.

Jacob keeps Bella's heart beating and lungs breathing as Edward pulls the baby out. It's a girl, maintaining Bella's record of being wrong about everything ever. Her name is Renesmee, which will unfortunately doom thousands of children over the next two decades to being given that awful name by terrible parents. If your name is Renesmee, and you're reading this in the year 2025 or so (either in its original blog form, the sure bestselling book that will follow, or in some sort of 3D format, since that's what all the kids are into now), it's nothing against you, of course. I blame your parents for naming you after a fictional half-vampire, that's all.

Bella, momentarily calm, wants to hold her daughter -- a perfectly reasonable thing to want, of course. But in a matter of seconds, she's gasping again, because the baby has just bitten her, causing yet more blood (how much more can she have left?) to come pouring out of her chest. Edward scolds his daughter for this. It's not right to be biting people and drinking their blood without asking properly first, Renesmee!

Bella's eyes roll back into her head, and she heads off near death again. Jacob goes into full CPR mode, trying to keep her heart and lungs moving for as long as possible. He gently reminds Edward that this might be a good time to start vampirizing Bella, but he needs somewhere to put Renesmee down first. After Jacob suggests throwing her out the window, they reluctantly settle on giving her to Rosalie, who promises not to eat Renesmee.

Edward momentarily gets Jacob to stop pumping so that he can have a turn. He injects a syringe of Edward-grade sparklepire venom directly into Bella's heart, hoping that it might speed up the process a little. Then Jacob goes back to pumping, hoping to spread the venom around her body as fast as possible, while Edward starts biting Bella in every place you can imagine, and quite a few that you can't.

But at some point, Jacob decides that this is all futile, because Bella isn't responding at all. From his point of view, they're working over a corpse, and while playing doctor is sometimes fun, it's less so when the patient is your dead best friend. Jacob feels a pull to be elsewhere, anywhere but in the room with definitely dead and not about to be a perfect sparklepire Bella; hearing his thoughts, Edward invites him to leave then, and reiterates his confidence that Bella's going to be just fine.

So Jacob leaves. He's tired and broken, so when he sees Rosalie on the couch downstairs playing with the baby, he kind of loses it. Maybe this is what she wanted all along, to let Bella die and take the kid as her own. Come to think of it, that would have been a pretty clever plan on her part, and now, no matter what this book tells me, I'm going to assume that was exactly what she intended. It certainly makes the story more interesting!

Jacob hears Renesmee feeding on blood, and declares her a little monster. Not just any monster, the monster who killed his best friend who is definitely NOT going to be saved at the last minute. No, the baby needs to die. Rosalie's too distracted to stop him, and so what if her, Alice and Jasper would kill him after he did it? At this point, he's not all that concerned about what anyone thinks or feels. The only sensible course of action is to kill a newborn baby. Totally justifiable, even if it was the exact same idea that caused him to leave his wolf pack just a couple weeks earlier. But this is different, because he's mad, and therefore infanticide is a perfectly rational plan!

Stupid or not (and it is stupid), Jacob proceeds with operation Kill the Baby. He moves in for the kill, when Renesmee gets one good look at him from over Rosalie's shoulder...and it's all over. Remember that pull Jacob had to Bella's bulging stomach? Remember how the werewolves are all imprinting on people...even infant people?

Yeah. You can put two and two together. Jacob feels a million giant steel cables connecting him to Renesmee, meaning he will forever be connected to her. Yes, he's basically in love with a baby that's less than five minutes old. Imprinting isn't creepy at all!

On the bright side, Bella's dead, right? At least we won't have to deal with her for the last twenty chapters or so. Wait, what's that? Jacob hears a new heart beating furiously again upstairs? Sigh -- we should have known we'd never get that lucky. On the bright side, this really is the end of werewolf-vision; Bella's going to narrate the rest of our journey. The rest of our sad, boring journey of wish fulfillment.

Enjoy?

Bonus: for a shorter, more visual summary of the birth, this animated .gif may help.