Previously: Edward dumped Bella’s miserable ass and skipped town.
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Kirsti: Lucky me, I get the aftermath of the breakup! -_-
Marines: Bad news for us all: the aftermath of the breakup is basically the entire rest of this book.
K: Hooray.
In typical SMeyer fashion, we can’t just read about time passing. No, no. We have to do it in the most dramatic style possible: four pages, each with a month written in the middle of it. Because, like, Bella has zero life without Edward. Geddit?
Mari: I DIED LAUGHING over the blank October, November, December, January pages.
1- It’s not quite so dramatic when you consider how gawdawful Stephenie is at transitions. You know what this is? THE LAZIEST PASSAGE OF TIME THAT EVER WAS.
2- There has literally been nothing of interest in Bella’s life for four months since Edward left. HOKAY.
3- I remember that this was represented in the movie by a camera swirling around Bella and suddenly, she hadn’t moved for four months or something. IDK.
This book is terrible.
Annie: And we’re only four chapters in! This gets so much worse…
Catherine: The first time I read this book I got to this part at 5 in the morning and I was so choked with despair that he hadn’t come back for her that I woke up my mom and cried. The moral of this is that you shouldn’t have kids, kids.
K: I remember the movie version because the swirling camera made me really nauseated. Also, my equivalent of that is that I went into my mum sobbing hysterically when Cigarette Smoking Man set Mulder’s filing cabinets on fire at the end of season… 5? …of The X-Files. And she was all, “what the fuck is wrong with you.”
Anyway.
Essentially, Edward skipped town in September, and we pick up the story again in January. Possibly February. A LONG FUCKING TIME TO BE MOPING, ANYWAY.
When Bella learns to use her words again, the first thing she tells us is “Time passes. Even when it seems impossible.” You know, just in case the FOUR BLANK PAGES OF MONTHS DIDN’T GIVE THAT AWAY. From there, we resume the story properly, with Charlie threatening to send Bella to live with Renee again. Why? Because she’s super boring. No, seriously. She tells us that she has perfect grades, never breaks curfew, hasn’t missed school since That Which Must Not Be Discussed.
Mari: Also, as Charlie starts yelling about sending her home, Bella looks up from “pondering” her cereal. I only have one guess as to what she eats:
Annie: I just choked on my hot toddy. A++.
K: And 1430.
Bella wants to know what, specifically, she’s done wrong. Charlie says that she’s been moping, which obviously makes her mope. He relents and says “You’re just…lifeless, Bella.” I stop to cackle hysterically because YES. YES SHE IS. White bread has more character than Bella Swan. He suggests that maybe she should see a therapist, and I’m going to go ahead and give Charlie Swan a round of applause for recognising that his teenage daughter has depression and suggesting that maybe they should do something about it.
But of course, Bella can’t possibly go to a therapist because she’d mention vampires and be sent to the psych ward. Um. OR. You could just say that your boyfriend left town and it really hurt you? Like, you don’t have to go into so many specifics that you mention vampires and the Papercut of Doom that caused them all to flee. Just saying…
Mari: But being rational would rob Stephenie of her opportunity to be all, “ugh, THERAPY! AM I RIGHT?”
Catherine: She get’s real gross in this part about mental illness. The implication being that therapy is icky and only weirdos need it. You are a grown woman, Meyer, you know better than this.
Annie: While we’re romanticizing controlling, abusive relationships, let’s throw in some stigma against mental illness for good measure! So many fantastic messages in this book.
K: Definitely the kind of thing you want to give to impressionable teen girls.
Anyway. Charlie says he just wants Bella to be happy, and he thinks she stands a better chance of that out of Forks. She counters that it’s her last semester of high school, that she doesn’t want to crowd Renee, that Florida’s too hot. Bitch, please. You’re from Arizona. The word you’re looking for is “humid.” Charlie sighs and says she can’t keep waiting on Edward forever, because it’s been months and she’s heard nothing. Bella glares but doesn’t blush because “It had been a long time since I’d blushed with any emotion.” Can…can you blush WITHOUT emotion? Or is she implying that multiple emotions cause you to blush and she hasn’t felt any of them?
Mari: The moral of the story is that she’s dead inside, either way.
K: Just like me when I read this book!
Bella decides to finish this awkward conversation by leaving for school, even though it’s super early. She pissily tells Charlie that she’ll make plans with Jessica after school to keep him happy, and stomps off to the Wow. Free. Truck. On the plus side, she gets a good parking spot. Because it’s essential for us to know that. She spends the time until school starts reading her calculus book. Except that it takes SMeyer 115 words to say that. I know because I counted.
Catherine: You counting it is more effort than she put into writing it.
K: Truth.
We’re treated to three pages of Bella going to class, and telling us that Jessica’s basically a raging bitch for being offended about the fact that Bella hasn’t talked to her in LITERALLY MONTHS. (M: October, November, December, January…) Bella suggests that they see a movie, and Jessica – bless her heart – eventually softens enough to suggest that they see a zombie movie. Bella’s on board with that because it won’t involve romance.
Mari: “I tried to remember if I liked scary movies, but I wasn’t sure.”
GIRL. As I’m fond of reminding you: IF YOU DON’T KNOW, WE DEFINITELY DON’T. You are the damn narrator.
K: The worst damn narrator of ever.
Jess happily bounces off to her next class and Bella continues to be the actual fucking worst: “I knew from experience that once I got Jessica talking, I would be able to get away with a few mumbled responses at the appropriate moments. Only minimal interaction would be required.” Look, girl, I know that depression is hard. I really do. But Jessica deserves a million trillion gold stars for putting up with your fuckery.
Bella goes home to get ready after school. She stares into her closet, but pointedly ignores the garbage bag that contains the stereo she got for her birthday. WHICH SHE CLAWED OUT OF THE DASHBOARD WITH HER BARE HANDS. Uh, okay.
Anyway, Jessica turns up and they head to Port Angeles. On the way, Bella asks her about her love life like your parents’ weird friends that you only see twice a year and don’t really want to talk to anyway because she knows Jessica will talk for hours about that shit and she won’t have to do anything.
Catherine: Bella also makes sure to turn the radio to another channel when a love song comes on. She turns it to rap and Jessica’s like ‘ew you like rap?’ and Bella’s thinking of course she doesn’t but she doesn’t want to listen to anything vaguely romantic because it will remind her of Edward. I bring this up for two reasons:
1 – The idea in this book that you can avoid all love songs and romantic plot lines in movies is FUCKING LAUGHABLE. That’s not a thing you can do. And the book makes it seem like Bella’s been doing this for months with some success.
2. So you can enjoy the subtle patina of racism that pervades this book. The statement that rap music is intrinsically awful and also never romantic. How many average teenagers do you know that don’t listen to what is probably Top 40 rap?
K: SERIOUSLY. Advertisements have romantic plot lines. There’s no way in hell she’s avoided that shit for like 5 months.
Jessica suggests they see the early movie – “the twilight showing” hahahahaha kill me – and eat later. Bella gives zero fucks, as long as it keeps Charlie off her back.
The zombie movie starts with romance, so Bella bails to get popcorn. She comes back 10 minutes later to be sure that all the romance is over, and watches the rest of the movie. Shit gets awkward when she realises that she resembles the zombies more than she resembles the heroine. She bails again, and sits down outside the theatre to “think of the irony“. I…really don’t think that’s irony. That’s, like, Alanis Morrisette’s version of irony, which is basically an unfortunate coincidence.
Anyway, Jessica comes out of the theatre, and Bella claims the movie was too scary for her delicate baby sensibilities (says the girl who chickened out of The Walking Dead before a single zombie turned up). Jess agrees that the movie was hella scary, and they head out to get dinner. Except – in a shocking resemblance to Bella’s trip to Port Angeles in the first book – they end up down a dodgy street with a dodgy bar on it, and four guys standing outside. One of the guys is short, so Bella gets deja vu over that time Edward saved her life (I’m pretty sure I had to recap THAT chapter as well…) (C:Lol. Whoops.) and walks towards the men.
Jessica’s all “DUDE WHAT THE FUCK” because she has a brain, but Bella doesn’t care because putting herself in danger is one hell of an adrenaline rush. Jess asks if she’s suicidal, which leads Bella to inform us that she’s not because “I owed too much to Charlie. I felt too responsible for Renee” but mostly because SHE PROMISED EDWARD SHE WOULDN’T. She internally argues that this isn’t really putting herself in danger, so it’s totally fine. She tells Jessica to go eat and she’ll catch up.
Annie: “Go eat, friend. Leave me here to die.” Man, if I was Jessica, I’d be all ‘Okay. Suit yourself.’ It’s such a stretch to believe that anyone would actually spend time with Bella voluntarily, because she is the worst.
K: New head canon: Charlie’s paying them.
Just then, she hears a voice ordering her to stop. But it’s not Jessica. “It was a furious voice, a familiar voice, a beautiful voice – soft like velvet even though it was irate.” That’s right, friends. She heard Edward’s voice. And suddenly her senses work again.
Mari: She hears Edward’s voice and it sounds like IRATE VELVET so shit just got real.
K: Brace yourselves, friends. The irate velvet thing is going to crop up a LOT. I’d put it on the drinking game, but we’d be hammered by page 200.
She hears Invisi-Edward’s voice a few more times, telling her to go back to Jessica and keep her promise. She decides that she’s either insane or her subconscious is giving her what she wants. She’s grateful to her brain for this, and is then shocked that there’s no super duper Edward related pain associated with hearing his voice.
She hears his voice some more, and one of the men calls out to her. Probably because SHE’S BEEN STANDING IN THE FUCKING STREET FOR LIKE FIVE MINUTES STARING INTO SPACE AND HAVING INTERNAL ARGUMENTS. After realising that none of them are the men who attacked her the previous year, she heads back to Jessica, who’s super pissed. Legit, girl. Leave Bella’s dumb ass in the dust next time. You deserve better friends.
Jessica clearly agrees with me, because she refuses to talk during dinner, and then turns the music up super loud in the car. Bella gives zero fucks because she’s in an Edward related meditation session. When they get back to Charlie’s, Bella apologises half-heartedly and Jessica’s still super pissed. Bella tells us that “I’d forgotten her by the time I was inside.” Because she’s the worst.
She has a brief conversation with Charlie, then heads up to her room to wallow in her Edward feels, which last for – not even kidding – a full page. But this time, the pain is manageable, and she feels like she’s awake for the first time in forever. And with that, this insanely long chapter draws to a close. HURRAH.
The pain may have been manageable for Bella. It sure as fuck wasn’t for me.
Mari: Bella approached some potential rapists, heard Edward’s voice in her head, and she liked it. I just feel really uncomfortable, you guys.
K: You and me both, girl.
Next time on New Moon: Bella buys a vehicle of DANGER (or something) in Chapter 05.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I am a twenty-something (seriously does anyone remember how old they are after 21?) business owner, candle collector, and excessively nostalgic singer. I spend most of my time trying to tell good stories through music.
I am a 30-something year-old human woman who lives in Maine. I'm a freelance writer who mostly spends time that I should be doing that, watching T.V. I also love reading and comic books way too much.
