Previously: Bella and Alice flew to Italy and stole a super conspicuous car.
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Kirsti: They start the climb up to the city and Bella freaks as the traffic slows down. Eventually, they realise that everyone’s being made to park and go into the city on foot. Bella tells us that it’s super windy and there’s red clothes and flags and scarves everywhere. Alice announces that she can’t see what’s going to happen any more, and that if it doesn’t work, Bella has to go in alone and run to Palazzo dei Priori. Alice tells her to run and not get lost. Shockingly, she doesn’t include “don’t fall down and hurt yourself like you always do because your sole personality trait is clumsy”.
Annie: We all know that Bella is only clumsy when it is convenient to the plot. Like basically every other personality trait, bit of knowledge, and character fact in this book.
Marines: That and Bella is clumsy because it gives the males in her life an easy excuse for their overbearing and controlling behavior. “It’s for her own good.” No males in this scene present? No need to be clumsy!
K: Of course. How foolish of me not to realise.
They reach the gate where guards are turning people away. Alice puts on an elbow length skin coloured glove, and winds down the window. The guard tells her that only tours are allowed in today, and she tells him it’s a private tour and hands him a $1000 note. The guy’s all “The fuck is this?”, probably because HE’S IN ITALY AND SHE JUST HANDED HIM U.S. DOLLARS. But eventually, he decides it’s legit and lets them drive through.
Mari: If someone insisted on touching me with flesh colored gloves, I’d probably hurry them out of my presence too.
K: Agreed.
Alice drives them most of the way there, then tells Bella where to go. Then she hisses “They’re everywhere!” and tells Bella to run because she’s only got two minutes until Edward Cullen, Drama Queen, takes centre stage. Bella runs into the square, shoving people out of her way like the rude bitch she is. Somehow, she manages not to fall over and break a limb though, so I guess that’s something.
She spots an opening in the crowd and jumps into it, only to find that it’s a fountain full of freezing cold water. Good eyesight you’ve got there, Bella… (A: Her super-eye-sight must only work when she’s spotting tiny shreds of running shoe near the forest’s edge or the muscles twitching and rippling under the wolf pack’s skin.) (M: Or flashes of red hair out in a stormy sea!) (C:Also, why is the water freezing cold? Is Italy cold? That is the opposite of what my wine has been telling me.) She wades through it and out the other side, and apparently the fact that she’s now covered in freezing cold fountain water makes people move out of her way. Shocking. The clock starts to chime, and she shoves more people out of her way, as she screams Edward’s name.
Catherine: I so wanted some other guy named Edward to be like, ‘what, bitch?!’
K: That would have been AMAZING.
We’re treated to page after page of unnecessary detail about the people Bella’s shoving her way past. The clock keeps striking noon – as clocks do when it’s noon – and she keeps screaming Edward’s name. Then she spots him, standing like a shirtless statue in the shadows. “I’d never seen anything more beautiful – even as I ran, gasping and screaming, I could appreciate that.” What.
Apparently Edward’s deaf, because he doesn’t hear her repeatedly screaming his name. (A: SMeyer Vampires: Super-sensitive hearing, so long as it is convenient to the plot.) (M: I’m sensing a theme here.) Bella realises that she’ll never want anyone but him for as long as she lives, no matter how abysmally he treats her. Yay.
Mari: “It was really him, no hallucination this time. And I realized that my delusions were more flawed than I’d realized.”
Oh. Honey. Cut your MF HALLUCINATIONS some slack.
K: *headdesk*
Edward steps forward, but just before he reaches the light, Bella tackles him like a fucking linebacker. I can’t stop laughing because she weighs like three kilos and he’s made of marble. “I slammed into him so hard that the force would have hurled me into the ground if his arms hadn’t caught me and held me up. It knocked my breath out of me and snapped my head back.”
What a romantic reunion, ammirite?
Annie: Nothing says true love like whiplash.
K: Edward looks at her in awe and decides that he must be dead because Hell is spending time with Bella Swan clearly he’s in Heaven if she’s there. (C: Cue over-the-top eyeroll.) Bella feels instantly whole again being in his presence. “It was like there’d never been any hole in my chest. I was perfect – not healed, but as if there had been no wound in the first place.” I’m torn between relief that we don’t have to hear about her fucking chest hole any more, and disgust that JUST BEING IN HIS PRESENCE cures her depression.
(Yes, I’ve been saving that gif for a special occasion. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a flawless cinnamon roll of a human being, and it causes me pain to involve him in this trash. But that face is perfect. So here we are.)
Edward wibbles some more about how fast the Volturi killed him and how he didn’t feel a thing, and Bella’s all “Look, dickwad, you’re still alive”. When she mentions the Volturi by name, he realises that she’s not a hallucination and jumps in front of her protectively. Two of the Volturi minions appear, and Edward smarms that he doesn’t require their services any more.
They Godfather that they should take the conversation somewhere more appropriate – no, seriously. The guy’s “smooth voice whispered menacingly“. That screams Godfather to me. Edward snaps that it won’t be necessary, the other minion is all “We just meant that we should get the fuck out of the sun, numbnuts”. Edward says he’ll be right behind them and tells Bella to go enjoy the festival.
But LOL NOPE, it’s the Time For Bella To Put Herself In Mortal Danger part of the story, and The Godfather hisses that Bella’s coming with them. Edward argues the point, the Jets and the Sharks prepare for their switchblade fight, I give zero fucks about any of this. Bella does, saying “Edward didn’t move an inch. He was dooming himself by protecting me.” Clearly he has a brain the size of a raisin.
Alice shows up to even the odds, and points out to the Volturi Minions that there are civilians watching.
Mari: I’m breaking all of this amazing action to share this brilliant description: Alice tripped lightly to Edward’s side, her stance casual.
She trips like a lady.
Catherine: As opposed to us filthy humans.
K: Oh, Alice.
Said civilians are concerned about the switchblade fight that’s about to go down, and attract the attention of some guards. Edward continues to insist that he can’t possibly go anywhere unless Bella goes free. Then someone else turns up. Bella thinks it’s a little boy at first, but NOPE. It’s a vampire girl, as teeny and bird-like as Alice.
The Volturi Minions sigh in relief and Edward slumps in defeat. Bella’s all “BUT SHE’S A TINY PERSON???”. No one cares about Bella’s questions. Teeny Bird Girl – otherwise known as Jane – demands that everyone follow her, and off they go. As they walk down the street, Edward’s all “ALICE, WHAT THE FUCK?”. She tells him that it was her fault he thought Bella was dead, and she had to set things right.
Edward asks what happened, and Alice says that Bella was just cliff jumping because she’s “all about the extreme sports these days“. That may be the funniest line in this entire book. Bella blushes because she’s sure Alice’s thoughts are full of werewolves and Edward can read thoughts, remember?
Catherine: Alice gets all of the one joke in this book.
K: They reach a dead end in the alley they’ve been walking down, and Bella’s all “Whaaaa??”. Then Alice jumps down a drain in the road. Bella doesn’t want to follow, but Edward says it’ll be totally fine because Alice will catch her. He lowers her down and then drops her.
Okay, this is a total segue, but I’ve just noticed that when Edward’s around, Bella often becomes the object of a sentence while he’s the subject of it. He’s constantly moving her around – cradling her in his arms, lowering her through holes, giving her piggybacks up trees – and the way the sentences are written, she’s always passive. She’s not ACTIVELY choosing to have these things done to her a lot of the time. She could easily be replaced with a bag of potatoes or a water bottle or a stuffed animal and you basically wouldn’t have to change anything, despite the fact that she’s the narrator.
This serves very little purpose in this recap, other than to say that it’s SUPER obvious how the sentence structure changes the minute Edward pops up on the page again. “He let me fall” is a prime example of this.
Annie: Additionally, I find the ways he moves her around tend to infantilize her, so it adds a whole new level of creep factor to it. This 100+ year old vampire is cradling, carrying, giving piggyback-rides to, and rocking a teenage girl. NOPE. NOPE, NOPE, NOPE.
Catherine: Rereading this as an adult has just added so many new layers of gross to it for me.
Mari: Have you heard of the Sexy Lamp Test? It basically asks you to think about if you can replace a female character (generally in a film) with a sexy lamp without disturbing the movie. This is like that except LOL. SACK OF POTATOES. STUFFED ANIMAL.
K: YES. Bella can 1000% be replaced by a sexy lamp. Except without the need to be sexy. Just a lamp. The lamp would probably have more personality. And care about its friends more.
Anyway, Alice catches her, and Bella tells us that “It was dim, but not black at the bottom.” Then Edward jumps down the hole and drags her along after him as they start walking. “I wrapped both arms around his cold waist, and tripped and stumbled my way across the uneven stone surface.” OH LOOK, HER CLUMSINESS IS BACK!
Mari: Because A BOY IS THERE. SEE?
Catherine: TRIP LIKE A LADY, BELLA. GOD.
K: Dammit, SMeyer.
Jane leads the way through the tunnel, and Edward and Bella have a super weird silent reunion as they walk:
“Edward held me tightly. He reached his free hand across his body to hold my face, too, his smooth thumb tracing across my lips.“
Now, it may just be me, but that sounds like THE MOST AWKWARD WAY TO WALK IN HISTORY. Like, just pretend for a second that you’ve got your arm around someone’s waist. And then reach across with your other hand to where their face should be. Now walk.
Indeed, John Cleese. Indeed.
Then we’re treated to this gem: “For now, it felt like he wanted me, and that was enough to offset the horror of the subterranean tunnel and the prowling vampires behind us.” Uuuuuuuuuuuuugh. HER PLANET IS BACK, YOU GUYS. HER LIFE HAS PURPOSE AGAIN BECAUSE EDWARD WANTS HER. Bella doesn’t care why he suddenly wants her again, because getting to be with him before she dies is “better than a long life.” 
Catherine: Gross. Gross message, Meyer.
K: She wishes she could ask Edward where they’re going, but she’s too busy trying not to fall on her face. They head further under the city, blah blah, Edward’s marble skin makes her teeth chatter because she’s still freezing from falling in the fountain, they’re led through a door, Edward tenses, and this chapter finishes. HURRAH.
Em-dash count: 31
Ellipses count: Only 1. Wow, Steph. You really restrained yourself there.
Next time on New Moon: We meet the Volutri in Chapter 21.
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.
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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.
