Previously: Jacob’s a werewolf with wolf telepathy and silent wolfy steps and wolf fever.
—
Annie: This chapter opens feeling strangely familiar, with Bella clinging to some guy in a forest while a group of potential predators are approaching. Instead of big bad vampires, it’s big, bad, half-naked boys. The boys are moving in sync, because that’s apparently what werewolves do?
Kirsti: Meanwhile, all I could think of that episode of Buffy in season 3 Willow said something about how the towels were for privacy because she and Oz were still getting used to half-nakedness, and Xander freaked a little and went “Half?! Which half??” It’s much funnier if they have shirts on and no pants.
Marines: MEANWHILE, I can’t get over how “all minorities look the same” this description is:
“Something about the way they moved almost in synchronization to stand across the road from us, the way they all had the same long, round muscles under the same red-brown skin, the same cropped black hair and the way their expressions altered at exactly the same moment.”
I can’t unseen your racism, Stephenie.
Annie: Of all the things Stephenie could choose to describe, she chooses to describe skin colours.
The teen wolves get pissed off when they notice Jacob has Bella with him (C: Wouldn’t you?) and they argue. Jacob is trying to explain that Bella can help. With what, exactly? She’s useless. And the boys are having none of it.
We are treated to this gem of cheatery narration:
“Don’t talk about her like that!” Jacob shouted back, stung by the boys’ criticism.
According to the narration, Bells is also able to observe shudders rippling along another teen-wolf’s shoulders and spine. Maybe her superpower is super eyesight and that’s how she’s going to help them?
Mari: “I’ve got eyes in the back of… your head.” — Bella Swan.
Annie: One of the teen wolves shape-shifts into a wolf and leaps to attack. Jacob shape-shifts to protect her, and Sam joins in, chasing after them.
K: Excuse you, SMeyer tells us that both the boys “exploded.” But, like, without actually exploding. Which is disappointing, because that would be MUCH more entertaining.
Annie: Embry, one of the remaining boys, starts laughing. Apparently he’s laughing at Bella’s expression. The non-wolfed boys make some joke about Jacob’s shoes and how his shifting has destroyed the shoes, and how Billy is going to be maaaad… and this goes on for three quarters of a page.
This big reveal is so clunky and poorly written, my head is starting to hurt. It feels like Stephenie got so excited while writing this, she forgot to go back over it later to make sure it wasn’t a hot mess.
Mari: “NAKED BOY EXPLOSION. Done.” — Stephenie Meyer
Annie: Embry and the other boy (whose name is Jared) talk about Bella like she isn’t there. They talk about the shape-shifting a bit longer and the three of them get into Wow. Free. Truck and Embry drives them to Sam’s fiancée’s house for reasons.
Catherine: I HATE this part. Between the talking about Bella like she isn’t there and the laughter at her concerns over her friend’s safety when a GIANT WOLF is attacking him it’s not a great introduction to the werewolf pack. It makes them seem like assholes. But everyone in this book is an asshole so maybe it’s perfect.
K: So it’s terrible but also not surprising that it’s terrible? Sounds like a summary of the series, really.
Mari: “New Moon: Unsurprisingly Terrible.” — Every single Snark Lady.
Annie: On the drive Embry asks Bella if it was okay for them to deal with Laurent the way they did. Little late for that now, isn’t it, Wolfman? The teen wolves say they didn’t want to break the vampire-werewolf treaty.
They arrive at Sam and Emily’s home and let themselves in. We get another racist skin colour description! This time Stephanie describes Emily as having “satiny copper skin” and “long straight crow-black hair.”
Catherine: Pfft, what’s racist about comparing a Native American person to a crow? Oh…wait…
Annie: Emily also has a scar on her face from eyebrow to mouth. I think SMeyer is hinting that it was caused by a werewolf. Can’t be sure, though. She’s so subtle.
Jared introduces Bella to Emily. Emily calls Bella the vampire girl and Bella calls Emily wolf girl and I guess they bond over this. They’re BFFS 4eva now.
K: I have a lot of rage over this entire section. Because not only is it suuuuuuuuper racist 9000% of the time, but Bella’s all “Wow, Emily’s gorgeous!” and then Emily turns around and Bella sees her scar and is all “EW NO SHE’S A HUMAN TROLL DOLL”. STFU, Bella.
Mari: She calls it a “once-beautiful” face because SERIOUSLY, STUF. Vampires get to walk around with PURPLE BAGS UNDER THEIR EYES and red eyes and it’s all, “oh pretty!” This is THE WORST.
Annie: Emily has been preparing food and scolds Embry, who is stuffing his face. Emily tells Embry to make sure he saves some food for his brothers. Bella is surprised to hear Emily refer to the wolfpack as being ‘brothers’, but the others think nothing of it. Thanks for those super important details, Stephenie.
Sam arrives at the house and kisses Emily on her ‘ruined mouth’ and makes everyone feel awkward. I just feel angry by the use of the word ‘ruined’ to describe Emily’s scar. (K: YUP. I had a ragey post-it stuck on that one too.)
Jacob and Paul return and they have some #justwolfthings time before Jake says he has some news for the group. Jacob tells them that Victoria has arrived to avenge her mate.
If only. This book could really use some Cap.
K: I just got a warm, fuzzy feeling imagining the “cloy-oy-oy-oy-oy-oing” sound that would occur if a werewolf smacked face-first into Cap’s shield.
Annie: Anyway. The wolfpack thought Victoria was avenging the death of Laurent, but in fact she was out to avenge James, killed by the Cullens, so Victoria’s real target is Bella. (…which we, as readers, already know, but hey, let’s go over it again.)
Jared, Embry and Emily are surprised that Victoria wants to kill Bella. Clearly, they haven’t spent much time with her yet. They say she’s just a girl, so why be bothered with her?
Jared wants to use Bella as bait to draw out Victoria, but Jacob is all NOPE. And they’re talking about Bella like she isn’t standing right there and can make her own decisions. It is as if Sam is reading my mind. He tells the group that Bella has to decide for herself how she wants to proceed. He tells her that they can’t promise she’ll be safe.
It’s a really cute moment where Stephenie tries to show us that Bella does have a choice and that she doesn’t just wait around for men to tell her what to do.
Catherine: By having a man tell her to make a decision. Great job, Meyer.
Annie: Bella says she doesn’t want to lead Victoria back to where Charlie could get hurt, and Sam agrees that La Push is a great place to end Victoria. Bella asks the teen-wolves to be careful and the Wolf-boys laugh hysterically.
Catherine: Murder is especially funny when it’s being done by children.
K: She also references Emily’s scar again, this time calling it “her deformity”. SCARRED AND DEFORMED ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
Mari: This is where my angry sticky note was. Bella’s all, “oh, under her deformity there is beauty.” I HATE IT.
Annie: A+ gif selection. This whole book is making me want to SMASH EVERYTHING.
Anyway. Bella spends the rest of the day at Billy’s and Charlie joins them after work. He brings dinner and is super suspicious of the sudden turnaround between Bella and Jacob. At least according to the cheater narration.
Jake walks Bella to her Wow. Free. Truck and he tells her not to worry and to drive back to La Push first thing the next day. Back at home, Charlie questions Bella on the strange 180 she’s done with Jacob. 10 parenting points to Charlie!
Bella swears it was all a big misunderstanding and then distracts Charlie by talking about Emily and Sam’s engagement. I’m going to have to take away some of those parenting points, Charlie.
In bed, Bella is awake with too many words. She’s hung up about being called a hypocrite and tells us that even if Edward was a murdering normal vampire and killed lots of people instead of only wanting to murder his girlfriend, she would probably still be obsessed with him.
Because she is the fucking worst. I mean, because love is irrational. Girl, no. Love makes you restless, or it makes move across the country on whim, or believe promises that can’t be kept. It does not, I repeat, NOT make you forgive murderous, stalker, control freaks. Wrong fucking message, Stephenie. (C: A+. Well said.)
Bella falls asleep and dreams of holding Emily’s hand in the woods as they wait for their werewolves to return and oh thank god, Bella’s sleeping so that means this chapter is over.
Next time on New Moon: Bella tries to swim with the fishes in Chapter 15.
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.
