Breaking Dawn Chapter 17 – Brainless and Heartless

Previously: Bella picked a fugly name.
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Marines: I feel like you guys aren’t even going to believe this chapter name but I am here to faithfully report it: What Do I Look Like? The Wizard of Oz? You Need A Brain? You Need A Heart? Go Ahead. Take Mine. Take Everything I Have.

The drama is real. Also, I’m not convinced Jacob has a brain or a heart so…

Kirsti: Neither. Neither is good. (Seriously though – that chapter title is fucking ridiculous. No wonder this book is seven trillion pages long…)

Annie: Everything about this is ridiculous, so at least Meyer is staying on message?

Catherine: I feel like that title alone is all  you need to realize that you shouldn’t read these books. 

Mari: I guess we start this chapter with Jacob running away from his pain and planning on wrecking Edward’s car to make himself feel better. (No brain, no heart.) He gets a surprise because Edward actually handed him the keys to an Aston Martin Vanquish. Jacob jumps in, revs the engine, and tell us he’s too emo to moan over the noise it makes.

Jacob speeds away from the Cullen house. He passes Leah on the way out and briefly wonders what she would think (…about? IDK.), before realizing that he doesn’t care. (No heart.) Jacob heads south and is mad because he’s going 200 miles per hour and can’t seem to find a cop anywhere. He thinks about how a high speed chase might be fun and also it would get Edward in trouble. He doesn’t for a moment think about the danger it would put the cop in, but we’ve already established that Jacob has no brain and no heart.

The only thing Jacob spots is another wolf he thinks is Quil. Jacob again briefly wonders what Quil will tell the others and then remembers that he doesn’t care. (C: You clearly do, dude.)

He drives for two hours and reaches Tacoma. He slows down then because now he tells us that he isn’t trying to kill any innocent bystanders. Wow. Thanks for doing things that might kill innocent bystanders, but clarifying that you aren’t trying to.

Annie: What a dick. Are any of these characters even remotely likeable?

Catherine: Remember last book when Edward was going to reveal himself to the Volturi by killing a bunch of innocent bystanders? Is there a correlation here? Does Meyer hate and possibly fear innocent bystanders? Has anyone asked her if she’s the Zodiac Killer? Answer the question, Stephenie! 

Mari: “Look at all these bystanders, all innocent and shit.” — Stephenie Meyer, probably.

Anyway, we get to the meat of Jacob’s plan, which apparently isn’t actually drive really fast and wreck a car. He’s come to the closest big city TO GO IMPRINTING HUNTING. He’s trying to get over his Bella pain by imprinting on someone ASAP and he figured he’d just show up to a big city and have a look around BECAUSE HE HAS NO BRAINS AND NO HEART.

K: The part that actually offended me most about this was that he refers to it as hunting. Like… this is already a bullshit plan. But the actual line is “I’d seen all the girls in La Push and up on the Makah rez and in Forks. I needed a wider hunting range.” Which 100% reads like something a serial killer would say. 

Annie: Absolutely. He’s not looking for a life partner, he’s looking for the next victim to bury in his backyard.

Mari: Jacob says that maybe getting your choice taken away from you isn’t that bad and it’s disgusting because remember that imprinting means the other person loses their choice too, mostly because the imprinter turns into an overbearing stalker freak.

Jake figures that to get this imprinting party started, he should find a crowd. He makes his way to the mall but can’t bring himself to stop there because would he want to imprint on a girl who spends all day at the mall?

The park is next on his imprinting tour. It’s a nice day so there are a lot of people out and about. Jacob parks the car across two handicap parking spots because he wants a ticket and also to block access for people who need those parking spots. (A: Because he’s an asshole.)

Jake walks around for hours, creepily staring at women. He even tells us that he magnanimously tries to find something good in all the girls he sees.

“I tried to find something interesting about each face, so that I would know for sure that I really tried. Things like: This one had a really straight nose; that one should pull her hair out of her eyes; this one could do lipstick ads if the rest of her face was as perfect as her mouth…”

I never thought that I would hate reading from Jacob’s POV more than Bella’s, but here we are. Here we are, in which Jacob is literally trolling a park, trying to find a women to magically force himself on, and the most he can find to say positive about women is how he would fix them.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

K: The post it note I have stuck to the page just says “THE FUCK” in huge letters. That says it all, really.

Catherine: He also notes that some of the girls “had way too much makeup on.” I can’t stop yelling and I can’t remember my life before I started. Is this garbage dump supposed to be a HERO? Are we supposed to LIKE him?

Annie: Absolutely nothing about this is okay. NOTHING. What’s worse is, I think we’re supposed to feel sorry for him. Not be creeped out, raged-filled and disgusted. Because poor Jacob. He’s so heartbroken. He loved Bella so much. And now he’s alone. Nope. Hard pass.

Mari: Jacob flatters himself that some of the girls who look back at him are interested, even the hottest girl at the park, but alas, no imprinting because his girl is still hanging out in a womb. #spoilers

Next, Jacob says that he starts seeing bits of Bella in everyone he looks at and if that isn’t the premise for a D-grade horror, I don’t know what is. It’s at this point that Jacob realizes/admits that walking around a park judging women who have 0 knowledge of his existence on their appearance is probably not going to work out in his imprinting favor.

K: You know what all this reminds me of? That episode of Buffy where the dudes are making a Frankenstein girl out of specific parts and throwing away the rest. 

Mari: Legit.

Jacob walks back to his double-parked car and prepares to emo some more. He’s interrupted by a girl named Lizzie that he kind of recognizes. He realizes it’s because he’s already “catalogued” her. CATALOGUED. (C: Is he for real buying PARTS?)

Lizzie is apparently some mix between a god damn idiot and a saint because even though Jacob is being such a jerk he won’t even shake her hand when she extends it, she keeps talking to him. She starts drooling over the car and angling for a ride. Jacob hopes for some imprinting but nope. No imprinting and everyone knows that there exists nothing between being a jerk to a girl and imprinting on her, like there’s nothing between meeting a guy and true love.

Jacob realizes that he is still brainless and heartless (or whatever) and Lizzie is decidedly not Bella and not living in her uterus (#spoilers). He tells Lizzie he has to go. Jacob drives safely on the way back home and has many thoughts about how Leah ~*gets*~ his pain. He’s coming around to the idea of being her friend, I guess, and letting her stay in his pack, except that he doesn’t want Seth so it’s a pack of two.

Jake gets back to the Cullens’ house and Eddie is waiting for him. Jacob realizes that he forgot to wreck the car because he was too busy brooding. Don’t you just hate when you forget to damage private property like damn it was on your to-do list and everything.

K: Shit. I’ve had “burn work copy of Breaking Dawn” on my to-do list for months and still haven’t gotten around to it. Thanks for the reminder, Mari! 

Mari: Anyway, Edward is waiting to talk to Jacob because he wants him to control Leah. (*angry noises*) It seems Leah came to the house, trying to figure out what sent Jacob running and demanded to speak to Bella. Apparently, Leah marched right in there and gave her a bit of hell for having the gall to smile at other men and also wanting to have a friend and I don’t know, other wild hussy moves. Leah was so mean that Bella started crying and feeling guilty. Edward threatens to throw Leah across the river should she ever come back with her harsh words and guilt trips.

Catherine: I hate… everyone involved in this. 

Mari: Jacob’s mostly impressed that Leah went in fighting on his behalf. He does promise to talk to Leah about it, though he doesn’t think Leah will come back to yell some more. He also promises to absolve Bella of her guilt, though the incubator is sleeping right now and Rose is watching her. Jacob scoffs at the fact that Edward calls Rosalie “Rose” which is a nickname which means he’s totally over that whole thing where Rose is weirdly obsessed with his unborn child.

Edward says that Bella is doing “better,” and Jacob gets all huffy about the fact that suddenly Eddie loves the vamp baby since he can hear its thoughts now. Edward explains that it’s more than that. The vampire baby is super smart and well developed and can understand them. It also has a sense of what hurts Bella, so it’s trying to avoid that because it loves Bella. Jacob just stares in disbelief. He realizes that this is what made Eddie #teambaby, because he can’t hate anyone that loves Bella, which is why Jake figures that Eddie hasn’t murderpunched him yet.

K: This whole thing is SO FUCKING CREEPY. Like, words cannot describe how creepy this is. 

Catherine: When I was a kid my mom pointed out to me once that babies grow fingernails while they are still in the womb and the idea of them scratching at the insides of a uterus creeped me out so much.

This is so much worse.

This baby is developing, like… a morality complex in utero. WTF is it gonna do with that in there? WHAT DOES IT NEED THAT FOR? 

Mari: For creeping us out, basically. Just for that.

The long and short of it is that the super special baby is even more developed than they suspected. Carlisle isn’t home from using his doctor cred to get blood, but as soon as he’s back, Edward is going to try to convince him to deliver the baby. For the millionth time in this chapter, Jacob gives some variation of “WHAT???” And the hits keep coming because Edward is now convinced that Bella is going to live through delivery, which for some reason makes Jacob go all weak in the knees. In a bad way, I think, because he talks about an endless ocean of grief. Grieved if she dies, grieved if she doesn’t, I guess.

Kind of soaring over the fact that Jacob is having a grief fit, Eddie asks him for one more favor. Since Jacob is the real, real alpha, he’s the one who can renegotiate the peace treaty. They are going to turn Bella either way, but Edward wants to remain (condescending) (racist) friends with the wolves. He even goes as far as to say that he considers Jacob a brother and comrade in arms. Jacob asks for a minute to think about all this.

Seth comes out of the bushes. Jacob’s like, “I’ll fill you in later. Also, tell Leah to chill.” Seth goes back into the bushes. (A: Hi, Seth! Bye, Seth!)

As they are walking to the house, Jacob and Edward super-hear someone sucking through a straw and start running. Bella’s awake! This is all so exciting. Bella spots Jacob and smiles at him for one second before she feels bad about all that adulterous smiling and stuff. Bella apologizes to him. Jacob looks into her eyes and sees super special things there. IDK. I’m doing my best. Bella is his best good friend and even though Leah is cool (I guess), she’ll never be Jake’s best friend like Bella is. She’ll be turned soon, though, and it’s up to him if she will remain an ally or a friend.

In his head, Jacob concedes to Edward’s request, saying that turning Bella won’t break the treaty. Edward thanks him. Then, Bella needs a potty break. Rose helps her up, but the cup o’ blood she was drinking tips over. Bella automatically reaches for it, but something happens and it involves a ripping sound coming from the center of her body. NOPE.

K: My page post-it says “Oh my God ew no you should not be able to HEAR that happening ugh stop why”. 

Annie: Yep, ew, nope, no thanks.

Catherine: So excited for you guys to see this happen in the movie. It’s so bad that it is all I remember from like, 4 hours of movie watching. 

Mari: Bella falls and she screams in agony and starts throwing up blood. NOPE NOPE NOPE. (K: And believe me when I say that Mari’s given you guys the toned down version. The actual written version is SO MUCH WORSE.)

Annie has the next chapter?

Annie: A live look at me preparing for chapter 18:

Mari: Sorry, girl. This is where I leave you.

 

 

 

Next time on Breaking Dawn: Baby maybe? in chapter 18.