Previously: Bella figured out that Jacob was a werewolf and by that we mean she had an inexplicable magical dream about it.
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Marines: Surprising no one, Bella decides to go confront the werewolf. She clarifies that she doesn’t condone what the wolves are doing and it’s real cute coming from vampires’ #1 fan. She spends the first page explaining her reasoning to us, again proving that Stephenie Meyer knew she was writing Bella as an insanely nonsensical character and felt the need to over-explain. Okay, Bella. We get it. You can’t be friends with the killer werewolf but you have to go warn the killer werewolf.
Kirsti: SERIOUSLY. The whole thing is beyond ridiculous. She’s all “I can’t be friends with a killer and not say anything!” Dude. You could have stopped after the word “killer” and called it quits. Most people would.
Mari: And yet. On we go.
“I pulled up to the Blacks’ house with my lips pressed together into a hard line.”
- Okay, but, like, what was the rest of your face doing? Not important or…?
- Dammit, how is EL James THIS good at plagiarizing? She mimicked Meyer perfectly. Have a shot to that.
“It was bad enough that my best friend was a werewolf. Did he have to be a monster too?”
What, girl? Why is it “bad enough” that Jacob is a werewolf WHEN YOU ARE DATING A VAMPIRE? Not only are you dating a vampire, but it’s actively the best thing that has ever happened to you. Why is Jacob’s werewolf so much lesser than Edward’s vampire to Bella?
When you’ve got these kinds of questions open in your story, bad things happen. Because now I’m thinking about how gross it is that the white people get to be beautiful vampires, loved and adored by our white protagonist. The Native Americans turn into literal animals and Bella is like, “ew.”
K: BRB, throwing this stupid book across the room.
Annie: Okay, good. I’m not the only person who felt that was what Stephenie was getting to.
Mari: Bella pounds on the door and hears Billy yell for her to come in. He regrets that instruction as soon as he sees Bella. Billy isn’t even dressed yet, but Bella is here on a holy mission. She tells Billy that her dad is out hunting large wolves and that is something she needs to speak to Jacob about RIGHT NOW. Bella stomps all over the place and bangs into Jacob’s room, which is tiny or maybe just crowded with racism. Even Jacob’s bed is too tiny for his body, though I’m impressed that Meyer gave him a bed to sleep on, and didn’t just make him sleep on the floor.
Catherine: I’m impressed that she didn’t make them literally live in a tepee.
K: I mostly read the description and thought “That sounds SUPER uncomfortable” because both his head AND feet are hanging off the bed, AND he’s snoring. That can’t be good for your neck…
Mari: Jacob is sleeping and he’s got bags under his eyes and somehow looks weary. While sleeping.
K: OH HOW THE TABLES HAVE TABLED, BELLA. Now she’s the one watching people sleep.
Annie: Not just that, she’s barging into SOMEONE ELSE’S home and stomping around and being super rude. Billy should be tossing her out on her ass. Bella’s lucky he’s not having her arrested. She needs to stop ordering adults around.
Mari: She needs to stop a lot of things.
At least for now, Bella feels like a jerk and closes the door, saying she’ll let Jacob get some sleep. Billy and Bella stare at each other awkwardly for a bit before Bella says she’s going to wait on the beach until Jacob wakes up.
Bella drives to the beach and tells us that the sun isn’t even out yet. I mean, I guess she was trying to warn Jacob about a murder party coming for him, but GIRL. I wouldn’t think any lesser of my friends if they didn’t come warn me about something before dawn. Nothing is that important before dawn.
Bella walks around but because she is completely disconnected from her brain and reality, she doesn’t realize why she’s walking around.
“I found what I was looking for before I realized I was looking for it.”
If you didn’t realize you were looking for it, you weren’t looking for it, you sloth-brained ninny. That’s called happening across something. It happens. (A: Maybe it doesn’t happen to anti-humans?)
So, Bella magically looks for without looking for the tree where she and Jacob had their first conversation about vampires and werewolves. Bella sits and thinks about how watching Jacob sleep has made her less angry about him potentially being a murderer.
“Once you cared about a person, it was impossible to be logical about them anymore. Jacob was my friend whether he killed people or not.”
Is Stephenie Meyer married? Because if she is, I’m afraid her husband’s a murderer.
Also, sorry ladies. I love you all but the day you start killing people, this friendship is over.
Catherine: Oh shit. We definitely all had a murder party last month and forgot to invite you. Sorry, Mari!
K: Our bad. We’ll be sure to invite you next time! (Don’t worry, you’ll love it – we only murder condescending YA love interests and asshole billionaires with mommy issues.)
Annie: Hey, that wasn’t part of the deal. You never, ever said ‘no murderers’. What if I only did it because I’m actually Frankenstein’s monster?
Mari: You all are the worst.
Bella says that when she saw Jacob sleeping, she felt an illogical need to protect him. She broods until Jacob shows up. It surprises her because I don’t know if we’ve mentioned it, but Jacob doesn’t make a sound now that he’s a wolf. Also, he’s huge. Bella makes disgusted faces at Jacob in the dark. I really don’t understand how dark it is right now. Light enough that Bella found her way to this tree, but dark enough that she’s surprised Jacob can see her face. Also the sun’s about to come up. WHAT.
Anyway, Jacob harshly tells her she could’ve called (at decent damn hour) instead of driving all this way over to make judgey faces at him. Jacob starts pacing and Meyer takes a break from this amazing action to remind us again that Jacob has quiet wolf feet now. She thought you might’ve forgotten from one page ago.
Bella starts to warn Jake about the hunters and rangers, but he already knows. He’s confident they won’t catch anything and in fact, will start disappearing themselves soon too. Bella is outraged and it’s clear that these two aren’t on the same page.
Bella tells Jacob to maybe try not being a werewolf and he replies that wouldn’t help the people disappearing. Bella doesn’t understand.
Catherine: Okay, I have a rant about this and you all have to listen with your eyes and the voice in your head now. The whole ‘have you ever tried not being a werewolf’ thing reads a lot like a not even that thinly veiled poke at gay rights. ‘Have you ever tried not being gay?’ is such a battle cry of the homophobe that it’s become cliche. It’s even worse in the movie, where (Spoilers!…ish?) Bella asks Jake the same question and then follows it up with: “I mean…it’s wrong”.
Look, I’m not saying this was intentional on Meyer’s part, after all Jake’s wolfiness becomes an asset after this and he’s a character she obviously loves. I’m just saying that’s an interesting unintentional mistake for her to make. If you wanna fight me on this I’ll be behind the old elementary school but Mari won’t let me kill people anymore so no cheap shots.
K: A+ rant is A+ and I love everything about it. But I was more focused on the sentence two before the “have you tried not being a werewolf?” thing, which reads “The sun turned the clouds a slivery pink above us.” I’ve been staring at the word “slivery” for days now, and I still can’t decide if it’s a typo of silvery that NO ONE PICKED UP IN THIRTY REPRINTS or really weird writing.
Annie: First, that rant is warranted, C. It goes along well with Stephenie’s ‘subtle’ racism.
And as for slivery, well, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me the first few times I read it. So after confirming that it was, in fact ‘slivery’, just for fun, I looked it up. And guys, it is a word! Here we go, according to the Free Dictionary:
Adj. 1. slivery – resembling or consisting of or embedded with long slender fragments of (especially) woodhaving sharp points; “a rough splintery floor of old pine boards”
What even. So, after looking it up, I think this was just a case of Meyer had a major fail at using a thesaurus to fancy up her words.
Mari: Is Meyer teaching us something right now because I feel very uncomfortable.
Jacob says that it makes him so mad (he could spit!) that Bella is sitting there terrified of him. That’s fair, Jacob. You are having a conversation with her. Edward had a whole, “see how easy I could murder you and random, innocent nearby trees?” demonstration. She loved it.
Bella says she’s not a hypocrite for being afraid of a monster. Jacob sarcastically apologizes for not being the right kind of monster. Bella jumps up self-righteously and says it isn’t about what you are, but what you do. (A: Yep, giving more weight to the targeting gay rights thing…) Jacob yell-asks what the heck Bella even means and Angry Theater Curtain Edward shows up! Shots! Angry Velvet tells Ana to not push Jacob too far.
“Even the voice in my head was making no sense today.”
- What is that sentence? What is your life, Bella Swan?
- How does that not make sense? You are like, “JACOB YOU ARE A MONSTER WHO KILLS PEOPLE.” and the Angry Velvet is like, “girl. Slow down. Be careful.” What are you not understanding?
- But okay. All of this makes no sense always.
Bella switches tactics and asks if the wolves have to kill people or if maybe they can find some non-murder options. Jacob gets all hopeful because he thought they were just talking about how yucky wolves are this whole time! And they were talking about murder!
K: Excuse you, Mari. He doesn’t get “all hopeful.” He looks at her “with half-hopeful disbelief.” Feel free to submit your photos of what that looks like, friends, because I have no fucking clue.
Mari: Please make sure it’s HALF hopeful and not full hopeful because that would ruin everything.
Bella assures him that wolves are okay with her, despite that one time five minutes ago when she told us “it’s bad enough my friend is a werewolf.” But okay. It’s good now. The bad thing is that he’s a killer werewolf. Jacob smiles because this is great news! Bella is just worried he’s a murderer!
He starts laughing, even before assuring Bella that he’s not a murderer. He hugs her so tight she can’t breathe again, which I know we all think is super sexy. Jacob lets her go and tells her that he’s not a killer and Bella sees truth all over his face so that’s settled. They apologize for calling each other a hypocrite and a murderer respectively. I will not apologize for anything I’ve called them.
Jacob says that none of his pack is hurting anyone. They are protectors. Bella asks if there really is a Youth Mauling Bear out there. Jacob replies:
“Bella, honey…”
There is more to that quote, but I just want to capture this moment of someone else going, “Bella, honey.”
Okay, fine:
“Bella, honey, we only protect people from one thing– our one enemy. It’s the reason we exist– because they do.”
Bella connects everything and asks if Laurent is still around. Jake says they killed him and Bella is so shocked Jacob thinks that maybe they killed one of her friends. What does it say of Bella that Jacob saw this vampire trying to eat Bella, and he still has to ask if it was her friend? Right.
Bella explains that he wasn’t a friend and she’s super relieved that he’s dead now. She doesn’t get how anyone could kill her super special vampires, but Jake’s just like, “whatever. I’m strong too.” Bella asks why Jake said it wasn’t safe for him to be around Bella if he wasn’t worried about vampire attack then. He says it’s dangerous if he gets too angry, like that one time five minutes ago when Bell was calling him gross and he was shaking with rage, or whatever.
When Jacob gets angry he turns into a wolf. No full moon needed. He promises Bella that they are looking out for the hunters and rangers. Bella takes half a page to tell us that she realizes something super important: if Laurent is dead, there is another something out there killing people. Jacob says it’s Laurent’s mate and she keeps attacking and then running away, circling around something and testing their defenses. Bella gets sick to her stomach because obviously it’s Victoria looking for her and attacking people in the woods.
K: HOW THE FUCK DID THIS NOT OCCUR TO HER WHEN LAURENT LITERALLY SAID THAT VICTORIA WOULD BE PISSED ABOUT HIM KILLING HER BECAUSE “She wanted to save that part for herself”. WHY WOULD YOU BE SURPRISED THAT VICTORIA IS AROUND AFTER THAT. WHY. WHYYYYYYYYYYY. I’ve known drowned-in-a-beer-bottle cockroaches with more sense than this girl.
Mari: Jacob asks what’s wrong with her and she says Victoria’s name out loud.
“In my head, Edward snarled in fury at the name.”
Catherine: So, we’re not even gonna pretend she’s not hearing voices anymore? She’s leaning into the crazy? Cool.
Mari: Bella quickly explains who Victoria is and how Edward killed The Plot That Walked out of the Forest, so now Victoria is coming after her. Mate for mate. Victoria must not keep up with the local gossip, though, because Bella says she clearly doesn’t know about the break-up. Jacob asks if that’s what happened.
UM. WHAT. The Cullens left and Bella has been moping to the point of death AND YOU ARE LIKE, “OH! A BREAK-UP? IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED? I HAD NO IDEA!” This is more unbelievable than shiny vampires, I’m sorry.
K: There’s a time and a place, bro. This is neither of them.
Mari: Jacob wants to pass all this information back to his pack so they go back to Wow. Free. Truck. He tells Bella to wait there for him for a second and disappears into the forest. Bella starts panicking and hyperventilating. In her truck, she thinks over everything we learned that one time five minutes ago. I’ll skip that page.
Jacob comes back and explains that when he’s in wolf form, he can hear his other wolf buddies’ thoughts. Bella accepts this pretty easily and says it’s because she once knew someone else who could read people’s thoughts. It’s Edward, you guys, because Bella doesn’t actual talk about or refer to anyone else. Have we mentioned yet that every time Bella says his name, she clutches at her chest? Because of her hole. For real.
Catherine: We’re not kidding when we say how much Bella talks about her hole in this book. She brings it up so much it’s like its own character.
Annie: I wish she would stop because ew, gross, enough already.
Mari: But anyway, Jacob turned into a wolf to tell Sam about Victoria and all that. He kept the wolf-call short because he was afraid Sam would tell Jacob not to bring Bella. Since Sam is the Alpha, when he gives a directive, all the other wolves in the pack have to obey. Hence, why he couldn’t tell Bella about being a wolf in the first place. There are all kinds of weird wolf rules that Sam is teaching him.
K: IF THEY CAN ONLY HEAR EACH OTHER IN WOLF FORM, DOES THAT MEAN SOMEONE ELSE HAS TO PERMANENTLY BE IN WOLF FORM JUST IN CASE SOMEONE HAS A MESSAGE? IS THERE A ROSTER? SOME KIND OF TELEPHONE TREE AS A RESULT? I HAVE QUESTIONS, SMEYER.
Mari: She has no answers.
Jacob says becoming a wolf for the first time was the worst thing ever, but at least he had Sam. Sam was the first to turn and he had no one. He just turned into a wolf one day. Rough.
Catherine: That is ruff.
Mari: Bella asks if the other wolves will be mad she’s coming along. He says probably yes, but they need her insider information. This makes Bella sad because she doesn’t want to be a spy. She just wants Victoria to die and someone who is not Jacob to kill her. They arrive to wherever they are going and Jacob asks if maybe she’s not better off without Edward. Bella doesn’t want to talk about it. I’m actually grateful, because she thinks about it so damn much. Imagine if she also talked about it to everyone.
Anyway, the other wolves have arrived so it’s wolf time, or whatever.
Okay. Bye.
Next time on New Moon: Wolf time, or whatever, in chapter 14.
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.
Fuchsia-haired, caffeine enthusiast, dog person, Raptors fan, sometimes blogger, music & social media geek, freelancer, human being. She/her.
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.
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.
