Previously: Bella got some fake IDs.
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Annie: Bella returns to the Cullens’ and she hears Edward at the piano. He starts playing her lullaby in case we needed reminding of that gross aspect of this series.
K: The post-it I have stuck to the page says “Girl. If you are a fucking parent, you should not need a lullaby.” I think 2017 Me makes an excellent point.
Annie: Bella gets Renesmee out of the car and goes into the house. She describes an ‘almost visible aura of hope’. Hokay.
Catherine: That’s pot smoke from your weird pedo cult, you fucking hippie.
Annie: Bella isn’t feeling hopeful, but she needs to trick Edward so they can trick Aro, so she’s going to try to act like everything is cool.
Edward asks Bella about her visit and she tells him they had a good time. She apologizes for being gone so long and tells Edward that she picked up a Christmas gift for Renesmee. While Christmas isn’t going to be much of an event, Bella still wants to mark Renesmee’s first Christmas. Edward wants to see what Bella bought her, so Bella digs a locket out of her purse. Bella hopes Ness will like it and Edward assures Bella that she will.
K: Infants LOVE fancy jewellery, right?
Marines: Creepy adult infants who can talk and break and enter into your mind, might. What do we know?
Annie: Maybe it could double as an engagement gift!
Edward wants to go home, but Bella wants to practice with Emmett. Emmett is all for it, and Bella is stressed by all the time she’s wasting by not practicing, but Edward is the man and the husband and what he says goes.
Bella is trying to stay focused on the positive, but feels like the group they have assembled needs to be able to hold their own if Jacob and Renesmee are able to escape. She’s not confident their band of vampires will be able to stand up to it. Bella tells herself it won’t be the end of the world. That while she will die and most of her vampire family will probably die, at least Renesmee will be safe. She then wonders if vampires go to heaven. (K: EL. OH. EL.)
Catherine: GOD that’s gross.
K: Literally everything about this is 100% NOT OKAY WTF HOW DID A PUBLISHER DECIDE THAT THIS WAS AN OKAY THING TO PUBLISH????
Mari: When I read that Edward gave her an MP3 player, I was going to make a comment about how they were gifting her like an adult, AND THEN THE PROMISE RING.
SO, YES. ALSO: EW.
Annie: Bella, Edward and Jacob were relieved when it was time to go because pretending to be normal and human was exhausting, especially when you have a vampire war about to break out.
Bella wonders if she’ll see Charlie again and is glad she hasn’t seen her mother since her wedding, cuz Bella is still the worst.
Catherine: That woman raised you on her OWN you ungrateful piece of crap.
K: I love that she’s all “Oh, my mother’s been distancing herself from me since I moved to Forks”. Uh, no, girl. That’s all on you. You’re the one who chose to move to Forks. You’re the one who never replied to your mother’s emails. You’re the one who basically FORGOT that she gave you plane tickets to go visit her until Edward was all “We should use those.” That’s not on Renee at ALL.
Annie: Bella is the absolute fucking worst. Renee is better off without having to deal with her bullshit. #TeamRenee
Eddie, Jake and Bella head back to the Cullens with Renesmee sitting on Bella’s lap. There is a lot Bella wants to tell Jacob in case she gets murdered, but she doesn’t want to say these things in front of Edward.
They arrive back at the Cullens’ house where a ruckus is brewing. Apparently Alistair is gone and Amun is arguing with Carlisle and Benjamin. Carlise tells Amun that he is welcome to leave, but Amun is pissed off because half his coven wants to stay behind and accuses Carlisle of trying to steal his vampires. Benjamin tells Amun to slow his roll, he isn’t looking to join a new coven, he just wants to do the right thing. Amun is worried that they’re all gonna die, and Carlisle is saying it won’t come to a fight. I feel like we’ve had this fight already and Meyer is recycling it to up her word count or try to create tension? Either way, I’m not here for this bullshit.
Amun agrees to stay and be witness to the fact that Renesmee has grown but that he’ll fight on the side of the Volturi if that’s how he’ll survive. Amun and Kebi leave, but Edward tells Bella they’re not gone gone. Just keeping their distance.
Bella asks about Alistair, and Eddie says no one knows why he left (K: Probably because he was in introvert hell and he was sick of all y’all’s drama?), he didn’t leave a note, but he feels that it is more than likely the Volturi won’t listen and there will be a fight. Alistair believes the Volturi will use this as an excuse to add to their super vampire collection. The gathered vamps aren’t thrilled to think that the Volturi would manipulate a situation like that except for the vampires from Romania. They are amused that everyone else wants to think well of the Volturi.
The vamps all start having side conversations and Bella chooses to eavesdrop on the Romanians’ conversation because they keep looking at her.
Tia and Benjamin agree to fight, too, as they believe the Volturi will definitely overstep their authority. Garrett makes a joke about how this isn’t the first time he’s fought for his freedom, and oh, this makes me feel uncomfortable.
Tanya and her crew say they’ll stay and fight, and in case you weren’t sure about what the fuck is going on, here, let me quote directly from the book:
“The Romanians’ pronouncement seemed to have made the others feel the need to declare themselves as well.”
No shit. It’s the title of the damn chapter.
So let’s get to this and recap the rest of the declarations, shall we?
Peter and Charlotte, Randall and Mary are undecided. Jacob says the wolfpack is up for the fight, so is Maggie. Siobhan doesn’t want it to come to a fight, so Carlisle asks her to use her vamp super power, which is basically the Secret? She can think things into existence? (C: She what? Why don’t I remember any of this? Did my Forgetting Ray work!?) (K: All I remember about Siobhan is that Steph basically described her body as a lava lamp. So.)
Siobhan is sarcastic because she doesn’t believe that she has a super power and OMG, could this fucking chapter be any more tedious? (K: Don’t give Steph any ideas, please.)
The declarations over, Edward, Renesmee and Bella go hunting and Jacob tags along. Bella is stressing about the fight, and she freezes mid-blood drink. Edward asks what the problem is and Bella says it’s Renesmee.
Edward assures her that Renesmee is fine; she’s with Jacob in the woods. (C: He’s 100% burying her in a shallow grave.) But that wasn’t what she meant. What she meant was what if her shield’s powers don’t work and they fail against the Volturi and they fail and die and it’s all her fault?
Legit can see why Edward was confused.
Mari: BECAUSE THIS IS SO STUPIDLY WRITTEN. WHY.
Annie: Bella is panicking because while they’ve thought she was immune to mind tricks, that’s not 100% true because Renesmee’s power works on her. She’s freaking out and Edward is calm because he’s already thought about it. Edward has two theories about this. Theory one: because Renesmee is half Bella and Bella’s brain is weird and different, so maybe Renesmee’s brain is weird, too. Bella doesn’t buy that theory, so Edward explains his second theory. He wonders if Renesmee’s power is opposite to Bella’s power so while Bella can keep everyone out, no one can block out Renesmee’s power. Edward figures that once they’ve seen Renesmee’s thoughts, they’ll believe her. Bella’s not too excited about letting the Volturi close enough for Renesmee to ‘show’ them her story. The thought of her kid being that close to Aro stresses her out, but Edward feels that’s their only hope to make them believe.
Bella wonders if the truth will be enough to stop the Volturi and Edward has nothing to say to that.
Mari: I’m appalled at the last few chapters, to be honest. We’ve been living the same hell over and over again. There is no new information. Everyone just keeps talking about how stressed they are about this upcoming fight THAT ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN and I would like to destroy things.
We need to finish this soon.
Annie: I can’t stop thinking about that YouTube video defending Meyer and her books. DID YOU EVEN READ THE BOOKS, LINDSAY?
Nothing about this is good.
Next time on Breaking Dawn: Bella collects her fake IDs in Chapter 35.
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.
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.
