New Moon Chapter 01 – Paper – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Cut

Previously: Edward really wanted to kill Bella but also kiss her, I guess. That was the whole first book.
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Marines: And we’re back! I added a little exclamation point to feign some excitement about reading this again. I am happy you are here, though. Welcome! (Note: Genuine exclamation point that time.)

Say hello, ladies:

Kirsti: HELLO FRIENDS. Fun fact: when I first typed that, I wrote “HELL FRIENDS.” That accurately depicts what reading and recapping this book is like: you’re in hell, but at least you have friends to complain to about how godawful it is. 

Catherine: Hi! I’m glad to see you all again although I wish it was under better circumstances. We really must meet at a happier occasion sometime. Like a funeral or a Mary Kay party.  

Annie: Oh, so it wasn’t a bad dream? We’re actually gonna do this? Yeah? Okay.  Well, at least we’ve got company for this shitshow. Welcome back, you poor, masochistic, crazy friends! Glad to have you on-board to suffer through this with us!

Mari: We’ve got 31 days this month and, counting the epilogue, there are 25 chapters in this book. So, we’ll post a recap every day except Sundays. There may be bonus content but we kind of sucked at that last time because recapping this thing so quickly requires enough time, energy and willpower as it is.

Also, as we were preparing to put this all together, Kirsti emailed us all a copy of this Bingo card and I think you all need it in your life:

Just looking over that I think we’re going to win Bingo every time. Let’s wait and see!

K: Please admire my awesome Photoshop skills. This is why I get paid the medium-sized bucks.

Also, we have to talk about the acknowledgements: “Thanks to all my siblings, Emily, Heidi, Paul, Seth, and Jacob, for letting me borrow your names.” Bella is a total Mary Sue. AND SMEYERS NAMED JACOB AFTER HER BROTHER?! We clearly have a bunch more people to blame for encouraging her in writing this tripe. 

Catherine: At least none of them are named Renesmee.

Annie: Fun fact: I legitimately met a 2-year-old named Renesmee the other day. I judged that mother SO fucking hard, you guys. SO HARD.

Mari: Probably almost as hard as the rest of us are judging Emily, Heidi, Paul, Seth and Jacob.

After the acknowledgements, we start with a a quote from Romeo and Juliet and if your computer just rattled, it was the violence of my eyeroll.

Up next, a preface because Stephenie Meyer takes her stories really seriously. She’s actually teasing out her plot.

In the preface, Obviously Bella tells us that she’s living something like a nightmare, where she’s running and running but can’t get somewhere fast enough. But this is real life and she isn’t running away; she’s trying to get somewhere. She’s trying to save someone. She takes a moment to remind us that she doesn’t really care about her own life at all, so that’s our first little bit of continuity. Welcome back; Bella still doesn’t care about her own life.

She’s on some kind of super dangerous mission that Alice warned could kill them, but Bella runs on. She thinks she’s going to fail, so she’s glad that she’s surrounded by creatures that can eat her. Have we mentioned her complete lack of desire to live? Twice in the preface? COOL.

I’m going to back up here for a second because I felt a little whiplash-y as a I read this, so I wanted to share.

First line of the preface:

“I felt like I was trapped in one of those terrifying nightmares, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst,  but you can’t make your body move fast enough.”

(A: A+ use of ’till’ instead of ‘until’, Meyer. You’re so good at words.)

First line of chapter one:

“I was ninety-nine point nine percent sure I was dreaming.”

ALRIGHT ALREADY. DREAMS, WE GET IT.

What? We’re still only on page 3?

Catherine: Now none of us want to live. THANKS, BELLA. 

Mari: Bella can tell she’s dreaming because there’s sun in her dream and she lives in rainy, dreary Forks. Also, her dead gran is in the dream.

“Gran hasn’t changed much; her face just the same as I remembered it. The skin was soft and withered, bent into a thousand tiny creases that club gently to the bone underneath.”

Some further evidence that this is a dream is that there seems to be some disembodied skin hanging out next to Gran.

K: Mari, girl, you just made this book a thousand times better. Because this is all I can picture now:

Mari: Enjoy it while you can.

Gran and Bella both try to speak at the same time and smile at each other over the awkwardness. Gran, Bella (and The Skin) are all interrupted when Edward calls out to Bella. We get like two paragraphs of over-dramatic stupidity about how Bella would recognize his voice anywhere:

“I didn’t have to look to know who it was; this was a voice I would know anywhere– know and respond to, whether I was awake or asleep… or even dead, I’d bet.”

Yeah, I’m sure you’d respond to his voice while you were dead. Maybe she doesn’t care to die because she thinks she’ll still be having vampire fun times in the hereafter?

Bella starts panicking about introducing Dream Gran and The Skin (band name!) to dream Edward. And here comes Mr. Razzle Dazzle.

“Well, Gran, you might have noticed that my boyfriend glitters. It’s just something he does in the sun. Don’t worry about it.”

Replace “gran” with “readers” and pretend it’s Stephenie talking directly to you. (Also, was SMeyer just a little bit funny and self-aware there? WEIRD.)

Bella wonders what Edward is doing, strolling around in the sun, smiling “the most beautiful smile on his angel’s face.” I start to realize that the whole purpose of this dream is probably exposition, so we can get caught up on book one. Bell-bell has covered that she lives in Forks, is dating a vampire, he sparkles in the sun, he carries around an angel’s face and now she explains that Edward can read minds, but not her mind. Gran is looking at Bella like WTF, until Edward reaches them and puts an arm around Bella. Then Gran is all sheepish looking and she too puts her arm around some invisible air. DO YOU SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING YET?

Catherine: If you do you are officially quicker on the uptake than Bella. 

Mari: Bella finally does! (K: And it only took her three and a half pages…) She notices a huge gilt frame that is encompassing her Gran. Bell raises her other hand and “Gran” does too. Bella can’t touch “Gran,” just the cold mirror. Bella clarifies for us that there was no Gran. That was her in the mirror, being all old and ugly and mortal ugh worst. Edward is all young and beautiful next to her, not reflected back in the mirror. Edward gives her an icy kiss on her granny cheek and wishes her a happy birthday.

Catherine: My favorite part of this is how many times she made sure to mention that Gran was OLD and WRINKLY and WITHERING. Like, wow, you think you finally get to have a conversation with your dead grandparent and you can’t stop focusing on her oldness? Real classy, Bella. 

Mari: Thankfully for us, Bella finally wakes up.

“I woke with a start– my eye lids popping open wide– and gasped.”

I remember why Stephenie’s writing is the worst– why does she keep interrupting herself– and cry.

It’s September 13th, which is Bella’s birthday, and I’m so sad because mine is September 12th. Also, I think I’ve said that before? Either that, or there is another awful character that has a birthday near mine and I was sad about that before. These feelings just seem familiar.

Annie: I got married on September 12th. I love that time of year. It made me feel super sad that her birthday was so close to a special day for me, so I can only imagine how sad that makes you, Mari.  THANKS FOR RUINING IT FOR EVERYONE, EMILY, HEIDI, PAUL, SETH AND JACOB.

Catherine: If it’s any consolation, Edward and I have the exact same birthday (June 20th). I don’t think his birthday is actually mentioned in the series but it’s part of the reason I used to think he and I were soul mates. I don’t know why I’m admitting this. 

Mari: For the Internet.

Bella has been dreading her birthday all through her totally perfect and rainy summer. AND NOW THIS:

It was even worse than I’d feared it would be. I could feel it– I was older. Every day I got older, but this was different, worse, quantifiable. I was eighteen. And Edward never would be.”

No, dummy, he already WAS 18. Now he’s like 100dirtair old, or whatever.

K: Seriously. STFU, Bella. No 1 curr about your first world problems. (This book would be so much less painful to all concerned if it were set outside the US and she could spend her 18th birthday getting shitfaced.)

Mari: When Bella brushes her teeth she searches her ivory skin for wrinkles and after a whole book that’s basically dedicated to Edward’s butterscotch, gold, ocher, magic eyes, we finally learn what color Bella’s are: brown.

Bella tries to get out of the house as soon as possible but her stupid dad wants to wish her a happy birthday and give her gifts or some BS like that ugh he’s the worst gifts what even.

Catherine: What a piece of shit. Can’t he see she’s BROODING? 

Mari: Next, Bella drives to school, despairing the whole way, up until she finds Edward.

“I couldn’t feel anything but despair until I pulled into the familiar parking lot behind Forks High School and spotted Edward leaning motionlessly against his polished silver Volvo, like a marble tribute to some forgotten pagan god of beauty.”

Alice is there too and blah blah recap: they are not really  brother and sister, but everyone thinks they were adopted by Carlisle and Esme.

Bella is sad as she’s getting out of the Wow. Free. Truck because she sees that Alice has a gift and OMG freakin’ gifts who wants those not me please stop. She’s rude to Alice who tries to wish her a happy birthday and give her a gift. Alice asks if she liked the scrapbook from her mom and camera from Charlie. Bella sighs, figuring that Alice saw her birthday gifts IN A VISION. Because Alice apparently gets visions about what people are going to get for their birthdays…? Nonsense.

Catherine: Also, why would she spoil the surprise like that? She’s specifically doing it to show off how Miss Cleo she is or whatever? It’s kinda shitty. 

Mari: The girls reach Edward. Bella holds his hand and reminds us that Edward’s skin is smooth, hard and very cold. Edward starts tracing Bella’s lips (?) while he confirms that he isn’t allowed to wish her happy birthday. Bella marvels over his perfect, formal articulation. “It was something that could only be picked up in an earlier century.” Uh, the 20th century? The one you born in Bella? Yeaaah.

Bella keeps being a little piece of poo about the fact that she’s kind of sort of one year older than Edward now.

Now, everyone. PREPARE FOR THIS CLOWN CAR SENTENCE:

“And I supposed… if I could be sure of the future I wanted, sure that I would get to spend forever with Edward, and Alice and the rest of the Cullens (preferably not as a wrinkled little old lady)… then a year or two one direction or the other wouldn’t matter to me so much.”

A sentence that starts with and, has ellipses at the end of the introductory clause, a weird ass comma before Alice’s name, a parenthetical, and ELLIPSES RIGHT AFTER THE PARENTHETICAL.

K: NOPE.

Mari: Alice invites Bella to the Cullen house after school but Bella has a bunch of excuses about why she can’t be there. Alice turns threatening because I guess vampires really take birthday happiness deadly serious? I don’t know what’s happening. Edward appears to take Bella’s side but then he promises Alice to bring Bella to the house at 7. Alice kisses Bella goodbye and dances off to class.

Bella starts to beg Edward not to make her celebrate her birthday, but Edward SHUSHES her with one ice pop finger. He says they’ll talk about it later and they head to class together because Edward of course got himself into almost every one of Bella’s classes. (K: SO CREEPY.) (A: The better to stalk you, my dear.) Mike Newton is this class and Bella tells us that he isn’t glum about her dating Edward anymore but he is totally copying Edward’s hairstyle because Edward invented hair gel, I think.

Bell-Bell spends the day trying to think of ways to spend her birthday mourning her mortality instead of receiving gifts and attention. She’s too clumsy to receive attention. I think the attention might knock her over. She goes on some more about how she didn’t want gifts and no one listened to her which, fine. That kind of sucks. I just hate Bella anyway. Also, Bella works at a sporting goods store so E.L. James plagiarized that as well. Have a drink, friends.

Anyway, Bella is saving into a college fund, but that’s plan B. Plan A is to become an animal-blood-sucking vampire, obviously. Edward is super rich, too, because the Cullens use Alice’s visions to get rich off of stocks. Bella tells us that she’s really uncomfortable about Edward spending money on her, so that’s another Bella/Ana crossover.

“He, for some unfathomable reason, wanted to be with me. Anything he gave me on top of that just threw us more out of balance.”

I mean, did you take into account that he also wants to eat you and carry the one?

K: Especially seeing as just before that, she says “Edward was just so stubborn about leaving me human.” Translation: “It’s a super drag that Edward’s holding back on MURDERING ME.” 

Mari: On that note, we head to lunch.

I’m not sure if the writing has gotten worse of if I seriously forgot how bad it could be:

“The three of us– Edward, Alice, and I– sat on the extreme southern end of the table. Now that the “older” and somewhat scarier (in Emmet’s case certainly) Cullen siblings had graduated, Alice and Edward did not seems quite so intimidating, and we did not sit here alone. My other friends, Mike and Jessica (who were in the awkward post-breakup friendship phase), Angela and Ben (whose relationship had survived the summer), Eric, Conner, Tyler and Lauren (though that last one didn’t really count in the friendship category) all sat at the same table on the other side of an invisible line.”

THAT ENTIRE HOT MESS TO DESCRIBE LUNCH TIME SEATING ARRANGEMENTS.

Catherine: We had to read it (it was very hard). There were lots of commas, (and parenthesis). 

Mari: Bella explains that everyone feels ill at ease around the Cullens, even though last book Edward was like, “everything about me is appealing to humans.” Hahaha, not. Bella is the only one who is super comfortable near Edward. “He thought he was hazardous to my health– an opinion I rejected vehemently whenever he voiced it.” So basically, Edward is still occasionally reminding Bella that he wants to murder her? Cool.

Catherine: Good night, Bella, good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.

Mari: After school, Edward walks Bella to the Wow. Free. Truck, but opens the passenger side door for her, meaning he’s going to drive. Bella wants to drive for her birthday, because now it’s her birthday.

Edward says Bella has a crappy radio, and she gets defensive because she likes the Wow. Free. Truck.

When they get to Charlie’s house, Edward commands Bella to be in a good mood, letting his sweet breath fan over her face, so probably he’s exhaling every word he speaks. (K: He’s also clearly a mouthbreather. Ew.) He manipu-kisses her, so she’ll forget that she hates forced birthday parties. Bella gets too into the kiss, though, so Edward breaks it up. “For her safety.”

K: Okay, you guys, I have to stop because Bella says something in here about how Edward has to keep his mouth shut when they kiss because his teeth are poison to her. I… I don’t really understand how Bella can hurl herself into kissing him if basically all he can do is sit there with duckface. SO SEXY OMG SWOON.

Catherine: Not just duckface. Cold duckface. Duckface that has been left out on the counter all night. 

Mari: These are people’s wet dreams, y’all.

They go inside the house to watch Romeo and Juliet for class.

“When I perched on the edge of the sofa in front of him, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me against his chest. It wasn’t exactly as comfortable as a sofa cushion would be, what with his chest being hard and cold–and perfect–as an ice sculpture, but it was definitely preferable.”

“Your chest feels like cuddling with an iceberg, but NBD. It’s PERFECT.”

As they are watching, Edward says he doesn’t have much patience of Romeo. Bella gets defensive because until she met Edward, she kind of had a thing for Romeo. Whatever, I’m ignoring this super heavy handed commentary because there’s more of it, but I’m sparing you.

Bella starts crying at the end of the movie and Edward sighs that he does envy Romeo for his ability to kill himself.

Catherine: Us too, Edward. Us too. 

Mari: Edward says that last book, when Bella was kidnapped by The Plot That Walked Out of the Forest, he started to think about ways to kill himself, but he’s a vampire so it would be super hard and not real easy like for everyone else who commits suicide who has it totally easy.

Bella has a flashback so we can all remember when The Plot That Walked Out of the Forest kidnapped her. Once that’s done, Edward says he thought about going to Italy to provoke the Volturi so they would kill him and he wouldn’t have to live without her. Bella doesn’t want to believe he’s serious, but his GOLDEN eyes are brooding and far away. Bella asks what a Volturi is. Edward explains in the first chapter of this new book so I wonder if this is going to be super important information that the Volturi are an old and powerful family. You don’t want to piss them off.

Bella gets super angry and tells Edward to never, ever think about ending his life, kind of like she does, EVERY OTHER PAGE. Then, the cutest couple of all time get into a little fight about whose fault it is that they are in danger and who would kill themselves more if anything ever happened to the other.

Edward gets up suddenly so Bella guesses that Charlie’s home. He brings in pizza, thinking that Bella wouldn’t want to cook or wash dishes on her birthday. Edward asks if he can take Bella for the evening and Charlie is totally cool with it, much to Bella’s dismay. He tells her to take lots of pictures and then asks after Alice. Because apparently Charlie is a big fan of Alice now.

Catherine: Don’t worry, that doesn’t really come up again in any significant way. 

Mari: We head back out to Wow. Free. Truck and this time Edward drives. He says that Bella would like an Audi, aka the Submissive Special, so drink for more plagiarism. Edward asks Bella to cut his family some slack because the last real birthday they had was for Emmett in 1935. Emmett and Rosalie will be back in town for the party, too, which puts Bella on edge.

Edward asks if there is anything she wants for her birthday and Bella is like, “you know what I want.” She wants that d. Death, I mean. Well, undeath. (K: I mean, she also wants the sparkle peen, but she wants death more.) Bella pouts about not being able to be a vampire and then groans when she sees the Cullen house has been decorated. Edward tells her again to be a good sport. Bella very seriously asks if Edward is going to show up in her pictures and he just laughs and laughs and laughs at her all the way to the door. I mean, that’s really rude, but in this very same chapter Bella was thinking about all of the vampire pictures of Carlisle in his study so. Stop being dumb, Bella.

K: She also tells us that her brand new camera uses film, which I’m gonna go ahead and call bullshit on considering this is apparently set in 2006.

Annie: Stephenie could’ve really used a fact-checker. And an editor. And a publisher who had the balls to say NO, THIS IS TRASH, IT WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED.

Mari: Inside, the whole gang sings her happy birthday and take their turns greeting her, so we can can be reintroduced to everyone. Rosalie is aloof, Emmett is big, Jasper is keeping his distance and Alice is skipping around, or something. She announces that it’s present time. Bella moans and groans but present time has drawn nigh.

The first gift is from Rosalie, Emmett and Jasper. It’s an empty box and Bella doesn’t get it so Jasper explains that it’s a new stereo for Wow. Free. Truck and Emmett went out to install it so she can’t return it. Bella laughs and thanks everyone.

Next is Edward and Alice’s gift. Bella tries to open it but gets a paper cut. I’ve never gotten a wrapping paper paper cut, but I asked Twitter and a few of you were like, “yes. Absolutely.” So, there you go. Wrapping paper paper cut.

And then:

So now, Bella has crashed into her birthday table and her arm is all cut up so all of the vampires are looking at her like NOM NOM NOM.

End of chapter.

K: I have two questions on this ending: 1. HOW DID ALICE NOT SEE ANY OF THIS SHIT COMING, and b. who the fuck uses glass plates?! 

Catherine: Come on, Kirsti, Alice’s power works by seeing possible outcomes based off of decisions they make. So obviously Bella made a decision to cut herself with that wrapping paper. It really couldn’t be more simple. 

Mari: Let’s count dashes!

There were 85 em dashes in the first 26 pages. So basically, this whole recap could’ve been:

A bunch of nothing happened in book one, but I am dating a vampire now. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — It’s my birthday! I HATE IT. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —Paper cut! — — — — — — — — — — — DANGER.

Finally, that’s Bingo by my count:

See you next time.

Next time on New Moon: Edward really doesn’t take paper cuts well in Chapter 02.