Midnight Sun Chapter 2

So Eddie is somewhere… snowy. With stars and stuff. Thanks for the transition wherein we find out where he is and why he's there, and the landscape descriptions for a sense of where we are. Meyers would apparently rather give us nonsensical purple prose.


I leaned back against the soft snow bank, letting the dry powder reshape itself around my weight.

Isn't the whole point of snow that it's… wet? I mean, even DRY snow is still wet, just slightly less sticky.


My skin had cooled to match the air around me, and the tiny pieces of ice felt like velvet under my skin.

1. The part about him cooling down to match his surroundings is actually kind of cool, since he's… you know, a vampire.
2. Too bad it STILL doesn't make sense, since the rest of the series never once indicates that vampire body temperature changes according to the environment. In fact, she often claims it's icy cold even when the environment is not.
3. Because Stephenie Meyer is apparently a psychrophiliac. My internet history is really weird right now.
4. But of course, Meyers has to spoil it by talking about ice bits feeling like "velvet" - and this fails because ice NEVER feels like velvet.
5. Velvet is soft and fuzzy and flexible; ice, to my knowledge, is none of these things.
6. And if I recall correctly, Meyers has never indicated that her vampires' diamond skin (!!!!????!!!!) cause them to experience sensory input differently.

The sky above me was clear, brilliant with stars, glowing blue in some places, yellow in others.

So… it's nighttime because the stars are out, but the sky is glowing yellow which would blot said stars out? Where the hell does the sky look like that at night?


The stars created majestic, swirling shapes against the black universe— an awesome sight.

Most normal people don't refer to the sky as "the black universe." I guess "sky" is too mundane a term for the sparklepires.

But Edward is emo and can't appreciate the view… which would be more impressive if he hadn't spent the last five minutes rhapsodizing about it. Yes, he is indeed emo and wangsty and filled with woe, for he still remembers how yummy Bawla smells. Wah wah, he can't appreciate the stars because they are blotted out by Bawla's sniveling face.



Oh and he's apparently in Alaska. How he got there and why is not explored.

Then some other vampire named Tanya shows up, and apparently Eddie has been avoiding her recently so he wouldn't get girl cooties on him. After all, he doesn't want to be unfaithful to his darling Carlisle. Also, Tanya is way hotter than Bawla: Tanya’s skin was silver in the starlight, and her long blond curls shone pale, almost pink with their strawberry tint. Her amber eyes glinted as she spied me, half- buried in the snow, and her full lips stretched slowly into a smile.

Okay, she sounds like an anime character here, which is not the apparent intent. I'm not sure why sparklepire skin would look silver in ANY light, and Meyers does a really crappy job describing pink-streaked blonde hair.

Anyway Tanya does a very detailed dive right next to Eddie and promptly buries him in snow. Since he is emo, he doesn't bother digging himself out, so she has to do it. Lazy bastard.

It turns out that Tanya has a thang for Edward, and two of the other Alaskan vampires have been telling her to leave Emo Sparklepire alone. I'm not sure why it's THEIR business to butt in when she's trying to get some, but apparently Eddie has just been spending his time lying around fantasizing about food while a hot blonde girl chases after him.



“Not at all,” I assured her. “On the contrary, I’m the one who’s being rude—abominably rude. I’m very sorry.”

Note that apparently he's the soul of politeness to other vampires, but mortal humans are basically stupid little bugs that are just there for him to sneer at.

Anyway, Tanya is sad because Edward is planning to leave because apparently lying in the snow in the middle of nowhere does not help Teh Emoz.


“That’s my fault, isn’t it?”
“Of course not,” I lied smoothly.

… and precisely how would it be this vampire girl's fault that Eddie is emo about a lame-duck like Bawla? So if she weren't romantically interested in him, he would magically get over his weird preoccupation with a super-tasty human?

Ah but she's a WOMAN, which means EVERYTHING is her fault. It's her duty to take the blame for whatever Edward doesn't want to blame himself for. Plus, she's blonde, which makes her even more evil.


Don’t be a gentleman. I smiled.

Don't worry, Tanya. He won't. He doesn't even know how.



Anyway, she says that she makes him uncomfortable, and he insists at first that she doesn't, then admits that she does. Yeah. A hot chick with no discernible defects and several attractive qualities - plus a good personality and a kind heart - has been chasing him across Alaska so she can show her attraction to him... and she makes him "uncomfortable."

It's official: Edward is gay.



Seriously I don't know WHAT Smeyer is trying to convey about Edward. Probably her message is that people should be utterly sexless and feel no attraction to anyone but their destined soulmate, because being attracted to someone OTHER than your soulmate means you're a whore. Hence why both Bella and Edward not only don't date before they meet each other, but they claim to have never been attracted to anyone.

But let's review Edward's behavior. We are barely into the second chapter in his head, and here's a few of the things we know about him... besides him being a dick.

• He's specifically mentioned as never having shown ANY interest in any girl at his school, and implicitly EVER.
• He's shown being repulsed by a sexy blonde, and tries to avoid her for no adequately explained reason.
• His only thoughts about the girls at his school are bitchy criticism.
• He has nothing but warm compliments about big, manly, studly Emmett, while being resentful and bitchy towards Emmett's wife. Conversely, he doesn't give a damn about Jasper, and therefore is best platonic buds with Jasper's wife.
• The very first time he feels symbolic heterosexual lust, he immediately becomes angry and resentful of the girl in question.
• And of course, we all know the origin story of how he became a vampire: chosen to be the "life companion" to a well-dressed older man.

Yeah, this all kind of points a giant rainbow arrow at exactly one thing.



And before anyone starts talking about how Edward CAN'T be gay because he wants to marry Bella, consider the amount of time, excuses and effort he puts into NOT having sex with her, both before and after marriage. Yes, after having sex for the alleged FIRST TIME EVER, he wants to STOP doing it.

Furthermore, even if he finds Bella sexually attractive - which is debatable - there are actually a lot of gay men out there who will feel attraction to a SPECIFIC woman, or a few specific women. They often still identify as gay, even if they spend the rest of their lives with the woman. Same thing with lesbians.


“You’re a thousand times lovelier than the stars, Tanya. Of course, you’re already well aware of that. Don’t let my stubbornness undermine your confidence.” I chuckled at the unlikeliness of that.

Yeah, he's a gentleman. First time he's actually said anything real to the girl, and he's basically calling her a vain egomaniac… which is pretty ridiculous when one considers that both the main characters are infinitely worse, including their vanity.

Then again, people who have read the original book know Edward is a huge prick.


“Certainly not,” I agreed, trying with little success to block out her thoughts as she fleetingly sifted through memories of her thousands of successful conquests.

… ah, now we see why Edward keeps shrugging off a girl he admits is hotter than hot (in Smeyers head, anyway). She's an EVIL SLUTWHORE who has had sex outside of marriage, and has not waited for marriage for implied century after century. Such a perfect sparkly perfect idealized bishie cannot ever stoop to a woman who has had SEX. Stone the harlot! Stone her!



Anyway we then hear a bit about EVIL SLUTWHORE RIVAL OF BELLA!, who apparently likes to sleep with human men cuz they're warm and cuddly and there are lots of them around (evil slut! Booooooo, stone her!). Plus, you know, many human men are not gay. That may be a factor too.

Oh, and apparently she's the "original" succubus (even though succubi came from multiple mythic sources and therefore there is no "original"), thus reinforcing that she is an EVIL SLUTWHORE who hasn't abstained from sex for hundreds and hundreds of years. And unlike the perfectly perfect perfection that is the Cullens, she and her sisters used to kill lots of people and didn't develop a sense of ethics for a LOOOOOOONG time. EVIL MURDERING SLUTWHORE!

Anyway, Evil Slutbag then demonstrates that she's a much nicer person than Edward has ever been, mainly by being very nice about his problems.


“I feel horrible for toying with your expectations, Tanya."

Nope, he doesn't seem to feel horrible at all.


“Woman troubles?” she guessed, ignoring my reluctance.

"Oh you have no idea, Tanya! I feel so fat and bloated, Emmett never wants to spoon with me anymore, and my breasts are all tender!"



Anyway, Tanya understandably tries to guess the actual problem he has, and despite centuries of sex and romance with yummy humans, for some reason she doesn't guess the glaringly obvious, very simple facts of the case. Probably because she's straight and it wouldn't bother her to suddenly be attracted to the opposite sex.

Eddie, for some reason, won't talk about it at all, presumably because she's an EVIL SLUTWHORE who dares to find a perfect virginal guy like him attractive.


Where would I go? I could not think of one place on the entire planet that held any interest for me.

… because he's so speshul that everyplace on the planet is totally boring for one such as awesome as him. Never mind that he's apparently spent his vampiric life just shuttling around going to school and trying not to sparkle publicly - apparently he's done EVERYTHING worth doing and seen EVERYTHING worth seeing. What a douche.


There was nothing I wanted to see or do.

Perfect for Bawla, who hates every place but Phoenix and probably hated Phoenix when she lived there.



Because, no matter where I went, I would not be going to anywhere—I would only be running from.
I hated that. When had I become such a coward?

Squee! Obviously he's perfect for Bawla because she's a pathetic coward too! Seriously, I don't know why the uber-rich Cullens just don't move a few towns away so he won't encounter the Yummy Blood Sue.

Anyway, Evil SlutWhore continues being nice and supportive and friendly to Edward at all times, and he acts all paranoid about her because obviously a WOMAN WHO HAS HAD SEX cannot have any contact with a man without wanting to jump his sparkly bones. He gives her the lame "you're too good for me" excuse, and she says: "I wish you would be more reasonable about things, Edward.”

Stupid slut! Don't you know that you're only supposed to date your Wun Twoo Wuv, and never anyone who isn't? Now get thee to a nunnery! Except that the author's Mormon, so... uh... dunno.

So Evil SlutWhore leaves and is understandably displeased that Edward rejected her yet again, and with no real reason given. Edward continues acting like a douchebag in private, because obviously she is not worthy of his sparkly goodness.


I didn’t like hurting Tanya, though her feelings were not deep, hardly pure,

This is HILARIOUS coming from him. He and Bella have a relationship based on how she smells, how he looks, his vast quantities of money, and nothing more. It's as deep as a dried-up puddle, but less interesting. Yet a he brushes off Tanya's romantic interest because she doesn't have an ALL-CONSUMING PURE CHASTE PASSION FOR HIM.

And "hardly pure"? Bawla Wan spends the whole series trying to pogo on Edward's sparkly stick, and he knows it. Yet somehow the "gentleman" isn't bothered by her "hardly pure" intentions because she smells tasty and hasn't had sex.

You know, a lot of people praise this series because it supposedly teaches teenagers to wait until marriage for sex (actually, it teaches them to get married as young as possible so they can have sex… great message). But it also seems to have the implicit message that if you HAVE had or DO have sex, then you're a hopeless slut who can never find true love because fucking is all you'll think about. Especially if you're a woman.



and, in any case, not something I could return.

So just say "I just don't feel that way about you" instead of dangling the girl along and making her GUESS.


It still made me feel less than a gentleman.

Oh poor Eddiekins, boohoo for him. I care SO much about his feelings and how un-gentlemanly the bitchy misogynist has to feel. FEEL SORRY FOR HIS PAIN!

Anyway, he's apparently decided to go back home despite the fact that he's hallucinating about Bawla's chocolate-colored eyes, which are haunting him. Angst angst angst. It's all very dull.


I raced across the starlit snowfield, leaving no footprints.

Yep. Even in crappy vampire fiction, people find ways to rip off Lord of the Rings.



I can see Smeyer being obsessed with Tolkien's elves, even more so than Christopher Paolini. I mean, they're all pretty, immortal, they glow, evil things are repelled by them, and they're all virgins until they marry. If they were just bitchy and emo, they would be her ideal.

Also makes no sense because.... why would a vampire, especially one with DIAMOND SKIN, be light enough to not leave footprints on snow?!



We finally cut to the dreaded school, where all Edward's "siblings" are basically waiting for him to go berserk and start sucking blood. Given his crazy-ass behavior in the previous chapter, I'm not surprised - the guy is a total sociopath.


If I wasn’t positive that I could handle this moment, I would have stayed home.

If he could handle it, he wouldn't have run away to another STATE in the first place. He wanted to kill his whole class just so he could slurp Bella's yummy blood, so obviously not handling it well.

Speaking of her tasty blood, why is it that only Edward seems to be on the edge of going berserk right now? I mean, his "siblings" have apparently been close enough to Bawla that she could see droplets in their hair, yet they not only didn't go crazy over her apple-pie yumminess but couldn't smell her at all? I mean, other vampires in the series comment on how she smells, so clearly they're not totally immune to the ridiculous obsessive effect it has on Edturd.

Or is this just some kind of really, REALLY stupid symbolism on Meyers' part? Probably.

Anyway, Edward is being a jerkass (SHOCK!) to his siblings because they actually are being nice to him, and he's making huge deal of how SUPERSUPER stressed he is, rather than being bored witless by the school he doesn't have to attend.


There was only one sense that I kept locked down, refused to use. Smell, of course. I didn’t breathe.

Okay, if he could avoid breathing and thus smelling, why the Mello Dramahz? He could have stopped smelling stuff long ago, and thus avoided mass murder. Oh wait, then he couldn't be EMO.


I was expecting to hear more about the Cullens in the thoughts that I sifted through.

Self-absorbed douche. What makes him think that his family is so fascinating?



Anyway, apparently everybody here is thinking about Bawla and how awesome/smart/speshul/cool/amazing she is, like you'd expect from any Sue. Yes, they've actually gotten to know her and are inexplicably STILL interested.


No one noticed the five vampires in the cafeteria,

Nobody notices vampires if they don't know that the pale antisocial weirdos ARE vampires. For all they know, you're just really into RPGs.


Had she said nothing to anyone about me?

WAAAA! I'm not on the cover of the school paper! Headline: Edward Cullen is a sexually frustrated psycho! Spends week away from school! Is he a serial killer?

… and why would she talk about him to other people? Precisely what has he done, aside from acting like a sexually frustrated freak, that merits Bawla talking about him? Oh wait, he's so awesome that she's supposed to automatically care.



There was no way that she had not noticed my black, murderous glare. I had seen her react to it.

… so? With her personality, I imagine she gets those looks all the time.

And what does he expect from that? Even if Bawla threw herself the length and breadth of the school, wailing, "Edward Cullen gave me a black, murderous glare!", I doubt it would linger more than a few seconds in people's minds. Like Bawla, Edward seriously overestimates his importance.


Surely, I’d scared her silly.

… NO! Could it be that Eddie isn't as scawy as he thinks he is? Awwwww, is the wittle vampire not spooking people?



I had been convinced that she would have mentioned it to someone, maybe even exaggerated the story a bit to make it better. Given me a few menacing lines.

Great. In addition to being an insensitive sociopathic prudish stuck-up dick of a sparklepire, Edward is now disappointed that he's not an urban legend for the aforementioned behavior.


A normal girl would have asked around, compared her experience to others, looked for common ground that would explain my behavior so she didn’t feel singled out.

… unlike Bella, who assumes that she (being the only Awesome Speshul Smart Sue in the books) can be the only cause of his behavior. Because everybody else is just stupid and boring.



Humans were constantly desperate to feel normal, to fit in. To blend in with everyone else around them, like a featureless flock of sheep.

… sez the emo vampire who goes to a high school for no discernible reason, whose family tries to "blend in" with the featureless flock of sheep, and who is basically indistinguishable from every other emo teen in fiction. Yawn.


But no one at all took any notice of us sitting here, at our normal table. Bella must be exceptionally shy, if she’d confided in no one.

Funny how he doesn't assume that maybe, just maybe, Bella assumed that he was the resident psycho with his creepy reclusive family who doesn't talk to anyone, have no friends and spend all their time with each other. Or maybe she just assumed that he's a creepy antisocial dickhead, which he is.

Anyway, Edward is getting very disappointed that Bella apparently hasn't trumpeted it from the rooftops that EDWARD MADE A MEAN FACE AT MEEEEEEEE!, and Emmett points out that maybe Eddie isn't as scary as he thinks he is. Uh, he's basically a sparkly pouting Abercrombie and Fitch model. What's scary about that?



“She’s coming in,” Alice murmured then. I felt my body go rigid. “Try to look human.”

… and how, pray, does one look "human"?

So Emmett and Alice promptly do the exact opposite by batting a chunk of ice around until it breaks a brick wall. Amazingly, nobody in the cafeteria seems even vaguely alarmed that SUPERSONIC ICE CHUNKS are flying around, nor do they seem to be worried about the possibility of it happening again. In fact, they look for a "culprit"… because everybody knows high school kids can fling ice hard enough to shatter BRICK.

Then Bawla comes in, with seraphs serenading her, trumpets blowing, and flower petals (imported specially from the paradise of Phoenix) sprinkled from the sky. Apparently Jessica is getting sick of Bawla daydreaming about Edward's sparkly perfection all the time, but that doesn't matter because she's a designated bitch.

I knew I liked Jessica.


I pulled in short, shallow breaths, ready to quit breathing if any hint of her scent touched the air near me.

I thought he stopped breathing already. Why is he starting again if he doesn't need to?

Anyway, when he isn't busy doing Lamaze, Eddie starts getting pissed because Mike is daring to develop a crush on Bella… presumably because he's a hardcore masochist who enjoys being treated like crap. And after all, Mike is unworthy of the Sullen Goddess that is Bella. So Edward dribbles for awhile about how she's delicate and might be sick, blah blah blah.

Emmett says that it's no big deal if he kills one human, and Eddie just snarls at him. This whole emo-moral vampire thing is getting kind of old, because it's already been established by Meyers that Edward apparently has no moral compunction toward killing - a chapter ago he was just complaining about how it was sooooo inconvenient to have to move again, even as he planned how he would kill his ENTIRE CLASS.



So yeah, I'm not buying the "I'm too moral a vampire to EVER kill a person."

1. For one thing, it makes Eddie look and sound even lamer than he is.
2. For another, we know he's not. We've seen it, in this book and in others.
3. He's already specified that he only avoids killing humans because he doesn't like how it makes him look, and it would disappoint his lover Carlisle.
4. The Cullens' whole lifestyle choice is not based on morals. I don't know what it's based on, but it sure isn't based on that.

Then since Alice is quirky, she decides to start an ice fight so they will look all happy, fun and pleasant to Bella. It seems like a pretty stupid plan, especially since the whole idea of them being at school seems to require that they NOT draw attention to themselves.

But of course, Bawla starts staring at them for the forty-seventh time in a row, and Edward stares right back at her, so Bawla does her Ghostly Japanese Girl impression and hides in her hair. She must look like Cousin It.


The frustration seemed to be getting more acute as time went on, rather than dulling.

"I need to get laid! I'm totally frustrated over here!"



So Eddie sits there trying to eavesdrop on Bawla's thoughts, and listening to Jessica being pissed off because everybody pays attention to Bawla. I can see why - Bella isn't pretty, smart, pleasant or even socially outgoing, yet somehow everybody is hypnotized by her. I wonder if she's working some kind of mass hypnosis. Or using black magic.


There was no hint of her jealous irritation in her tone. Jessica seemed to be skilled at feigning friendship.

Edward really is bitchier than any girl, isn't he? Oh, and Edward, that "feigning" is called having social skills - you should get some.


So she had noticed my wild reaction last week. Of course she had.

I'm just SO scary and creepy and predatory! ROWR! Cower in fear, mortals! I will GLARE at you! Fear me!

Edward continues being creepy and stalkery while the girls talk, and Bawla is so overwhelmed by sorrow that he DOESN'T LIKE HER OH WOOOOEEEEEE that she has to rest her head on something, while Eddie freaks out because he can't instantly eavesdrop on her mind. What a douche.


“The Cullens don’t like anybody,” Jess reassured her. “Well, they don’t notice anybody enough to like them.”

Of course not. After all, Sues can only be attracted to other Sues, or Suefied characters. How could rich, hot, snotty people ever speak to mere plebeians?



But since Jessica is a Designated Bitch (who probably actually thinks about SEX, the hussy!) she gripes about how the Cullens never paid attention to anyone else before. And Edward spends the rest of the lunch period sitting there whining about Bawla and actually LISTENING to her footsteps because she's so thrillingly unique that she must sound different!

And then he wangsts about whether he should go to class and huff Bella's yummy smell, and his family has a squabble about whether he should go to class or stay out.


“What’s the big deal?” Emmett disagreed. “Either he will or he won’t kill her. Might as well get it over with, either way.”

I'm starting to like Emmett, mainly because he doesn't pretend to be a Super-Moral-and-Superior-Being while also secretly planning to commit mass murder. He just goes with the vampiric thing minus wangst.


“I don’t want to move yet,” Rosalie complained. “I don’t want to start over. We’re almost out of high school, Emmett. Finally.”

This would honestly be more impressive if we didn't later find out that they've attended college and even GRAD SCHOOL. So subjecting themselves to the drag that is high school seems… not just pointless but downright masochistic. If they're able to pass as college students or grad students, and nobody suspects that they're actually several decades old why do high school at ALL?

Oh wait, it's so Eddiekins can encounter the smelliest girl in high school. She can't be a grad student, because those people are over 17 and thus are aged hags. Makes sense.

Anyway, Eddie just sits there and wangsts about whether he should go to school - basically he can risk pissing off his "family," but he also wants to drool over Bawla's yummy odorous self. Then he decides that he's angry at himself for being curious about her, so he decides to… give in to that curiosity. A page from the Anita Blake book, huh?



I didn’t want to uproot my family. None of them would thank me for that.

Note how the morals are conspicuously absent. It's all about convenience.


“It’s...firming up. I’m ninety-three percent sure that nothing bad will happen if he goes to class.”

… why "ninety-three percent"? Does Alice have a calculator in her head as part of her Quirky Cutesy Self?


Would curiosity be enough to keep Bella Swan alive?

If there's any justice in this world, no.

So Eddie stomps off to class and sits next to Bawla, who is drawling puffy hearts with "Mrs Bella Cullen" inside them, sits there creepily watching her every move and generally acts like a freaky stalker who probably steals her sandwich wrappers.


I took one last deep breath at the door of the classroom, and then held it in my lungs as I walked into the small, warm space.

… having actually attended biology class in the past, I would not describe a biology lab room as either warm or small.


“Hello,” I said in the quiet voice I used when I wanted to make humans more comfortable, forming a polite smile with my lips that would not show any teeth.

Dunno why he bothers keeping his teeth hidden, since Meyers has established that her sparklepires don't have any fangs. Because, y'know, fangs aren't Suey and pretty and perfect. Fangs are reserved for people of color!



And then seeing Bawla's befuddled derpface magically makes Edward stop hating her, so he sits there drooling on himself and trying not to smell how yummy she is.


“How do you know my name?” she demanded, and her voice shook just a little.

… which is kind of ridiculous. As we know from Twilight, Bella considers herself a local celebrity and expects everybody to lavish attention on her - so why would she be SHOCKED that a guy at her school would know her name?

And Edward coos inwardly about how pathetically fragile and skeered she is, and how he feels vaguely guilty about this. I suspect his guilt won't last long. He is a sadistic twat, after all.


I laughed gently—it was a sound that I knew made humans more at ease. Again, I was careful about my teeth.

… I'm trying to imagine someone laughing without showing their teeth, and all I can think of is a creepy guy laughing through his nose. Or laughing with his lips drawn down. Either way, WEIRDO.

And anyway Edward informs her that she IS a local celebrity - she's SO famous she's the center of attention in the ENTIRE TOWN, and EVERYONE knows her name, and they've been EAGERLY ANTICIPATING the arrival of a sullen plain snob to liven up their pathetic little lives.

Of course Bella, being a faux-humble Sue, is displeased by this. And Edward is amazed that this shy little flower doesn't want to be in the spotlight like all the stupid boring "uniform" sheep… mainly because it's a DRAAAAAGGGGG to be popular and have people acknowledge your existence. Of course, you know Bawla would be whining about the rude small-town people of Forks if they ignored her by FAILING to shine a spotlight on her. As she does in the second book, where she's shocked and hurt that people are now avoiding her and ignoring her.

Anyway, Bawla asks why he calls her that, and whines that everybody knows her as "Isabella" and it must be her dumb dad's fault. That's pretty stupid, because teachers generally use full first names unless told to do otherwise, and the students usually follow suit. But no! There is clearly a conspiracy here! And it must be all Charlie's fault!


I didn’t understand. Surely, she’d made her preference clear many times that first day. Were all humans this incomprehensible without the mental context as a guide?

… and here we have conclusive proof that Edward is totally devoid of any social skills. Apparently he's incapable of interacting with anybody unless he can read their mind so he can mock their stupidity.


I’d just realized what her questions meant: I had slipped up—made an error. If I hadn’t been eavesdropping on all the others that first day, then I would have addressed her initially by her full name, just like everyone else. She’d noticed the difference.

OH HORRORZ. He called her by… the nickname that all her friends use, and which she demanded a guy use while a THE ENTIRE CLASSROOM LISTENED AVIDLY. She's already told just about everybody to call her Bella, and THAT is what her classmates are calling her.

And since EVERYBODY is fascinated by her, I imagine everybody in Forks knows by now - along with her favorite condiments, her preferred mattress firmness, and any other fascinating facts about the Great And Glorious Bawla Wan..



It was very quick of her to pick up on my slip. Quite astute, especially for someone who was supposed to be terrified by my nearness.

Yeah yeah, Bawla is a giant towering blob of intellectual quickness. Edward's giving her more credit than she deserves. No seriously, he is. In the book, Bawla is busy agonizing about how dumb she sounds.

And then Edward encounters a truly horrific problem… HE HAS TO BREATHE IN HER YUMMY STENCH! Even though it's been established earlier in the fucking book that he doesn't HAVE to breathe, and can stop for an hour or more if he wants. But continuity is for lesser authors, so he inhales and starts dribbling like Pavlov's dog because she smells so tasty. Ah, true love.

But despite being soooooo distracted by how much she smells like freshly roasted beef freesias, Edward keeps looking at her face, eyes and expressions. And then, to show the true passionate intensity of Stephenie Meyers' epic love story… we're treated to a seemingly endless biology lab involving … cell mitosis.

Yup, mitosis. Sooooo hawt and sexy, with all that sensual suggestive cell division and explicit gene duplication. Snicker snicker!


For one second, the heat of her skin burned into mine. It was like an electric pulse—surely much hotter than a mere ninety-eight point six degrees.

Bella Swan: so Suey, even her body temperature is above average.



So they keep looking at slides while Eddie wangsts about how gross his hand must feel to Bawla… which would be a nice bit of character development except for two problems:

1. You would expect that a guy who's a CENTURY OLD would have slightly more perspective than your average wangsting teen girlyboy.
2. It's already been established that Eddie despises all human beings and basically sees them as inferior creatures, sort of how humans regard cows. Does any human being really CARE how gross they come across to chickens or cows?

So Eddie sits there getting hot'n'bothered (literally) and acting like barely-interacting during a biology lab is somehow speshul and erotic. He's also decided that he hates Mike for daring to have a crush on Bawla, which is boringly predictable.


Wish he’d stayed wherever he went, Mike thought, eyeing me sulfurously.

How does one look sulfurously? I mean, sulfur is a chemical element that smells funky, not an emotion.


I looked down at the girl again, bemused by the wide range of havoc and upheaval that, despite her ordinary, unthreatening appearance, she was wreaking on my life.

All because she smells like flowers.


She was actually rather pretty...in an unusual way. Better than being beautiful, her face was interesting.

I think we can all guess what people told Ms. Meyers during her ugly duckling years.


Not quite symmetrical—her narrow chin out of balance with her wide cheekbones

So basically her chin goes off to the side. I hate to break it to you Ms. Meyer, but asymmetry is something ALL people have. It's not a superspeshul characteristic you alone have.


extreme in the coloring—the light and dark contrast of her skin and her hair

Mousy brown hair and pasty skin. Oh, how romantic.


and then there were the eyes, brimming over with silent secrets...

… "silent secrets"? Do secrets usually talk? And what guy actually TALKS like this?



And then suddenly Bawla asks if Edward is wearing contacts, and he starts freaking out because he spent the entire weekend killing God's creatures and drinking elk blood, so his eyes have changed color. You would think that Mr. Secretive Vampire WOULD wear contacts to hide their color, but noooooooo.

And yes. We're meant to think that this is the first time in THE YEARS the Cullens have been here that ANYONE has noticed their eye color. Sure, one of them is a top doctor, four of them go to school, and they are known to saunter around the town at other times where hundreds of people would see them... but not a single person has ever noticed, "Hey, they have gold eyes."


Why did it have to be this girl who would see too much?

Because she's a Sue, silly little man!

Anyway, the teacher saunters by and Bawla reaffirms that she is SOOPER-SMART AND KNOWLEDGEABLE, coming from the bastion of learning that is the Phoenix public school system. Of course, she's done all this biology crap becayuse she's SMART and ADVANCED and WAY AWESOME.


“Yes.” She was advanced then, intelligent for a human. This did not surprise me.

1. Intelligent for a human? There's been absolutely no indication that vampires are smarter than humans - in fact, they're depicted as being just as dumb.
2. Example: in the fourth book, a teenager who dropped out of high school manages to come up with an obvious solution that none of them can. INCLUDING A FUCKING DOCTOR.
3. So now Eddie thinks he's abnormally smart as well as super-pretty, super-strong, super-scary and super-awesome.
4. And why doesn't this surprise him? He's spoken to her for two minutes, and at least half that time has been devoted to mitosis. It's not like she's actually said anything intelligent or insightful, except what passes for smart in Meyerville.

“I guess it’s good you two are lab partners.” He turned and walked away mumbling, “So the other kids can get a chance to learn something for themselves,” under his breath.

Yes, our Suey protagonists are SO smart and wonderful that everyone else just rides their coattails! Even though Edward talks to no one so nobody could learn anything from him, and Bella just arrived, everyone else they would work with would just sponge off them!

I doubted the girl could hear that. She began scrawling loops across her folder again.

BELLA + EDWARD 4EVER!

Bella Cullen

Mrs. Bella Cullen

Mrs. Edward Cullen

...and maybe the ridiculous names of their future kids.

So Eddie keeps vastly overestimating Bella's intellect, worrying about what she's figured out and deciding that he needs to impress her by being charming. She, of course, is probably thinking, "Duuuuuhhhh…. Edward's hot. I'm smart. Forks sucks. Duuuuuuhhhh…"

So they have an incredibly boring conversation about the weather and how Bella hates cold, wet, dark… basically anything but continuous sunshine and heat LIKE IN PHOENIX OH SHUT UP YOU BITCH, WE'RE SICK OF HEARING ABOUT ARIZONA!


A boring, standard topic of conversation. The weather—always safe.
She stared at me with obvious doubt in her eyes—an abnormal reaction to my very normal words.

No, I think doubt is a very normal reaction if a rich snot suddenly starts prattling about the weather to you. Amazingly, most people don't like to talk about the weather unless there's a specific reason to mention it. It's a "normal" topic in the sense that people who have nothing better to talk about talk about that. What, does Edward think "normal" people sit around talking about the current atmospheric conditions?



Sometimes I wonder if Smeyers has ever actually MET other people, or if she lives in a concrete bunker somewhere.

Anyway, Eddie drools about how she should go away, and how I would always remember the scent of her blood—was there any guarantee that I wouldn’t eventually follow after her? Besides, if she left, her mind would forever remain a mystery. A constant, nagging puzzle. Chalk that up as an unintentionally funny moment, because there's nothing mysterious or puzzling about Bella - she thinks about herself, how people see her, how much they bother her, how unworthy Forks and her classmates are of her, blah blah blah. You could list every thought that passed through her head on one sheet of paper. Not a big sheet either.

And Eddie is going nuts because OOOOOOO he can't stand the suspense of knowing… knowing WHY the great Bella… would live somewhere she doesn't LIKE. I mean, wouldn't the US government build her a villa in whatever city she chose to grace with her presence?

So Bella starts rambling about how her mother got remarried and stuff about her husband whom we hardly ever see, blah blah blah very boring.


She wasn’t like other humans. Maybe the silence of her thoughts and the perfume of her scent were not the only unusual things about her.

SHE'S SO SPESHUL. Not only does she smell like peppermint and have an awesome unreadable mind, but she's so UNPREDICTABLE. Unlike all the commonfolk who are unworthy of Edward's attentions.


I saw in that one word where she ranked herself among her own priorities.

Is there a number higher than 1 on that list?


Unlike most humans, her own needs were far down the list. She was selfless

Selfless.

….

….

….

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Okay, Smeyers is now officially drawing from the LKH Book of Virtues - say your heroine is brave/smart/cool/sexy enough times, and maybe people will actually believe it. The problem is that eventually people start seeing what an ugly repulsive person the character is.



As we all know from Twilight, Bella is anything but selfless. She's selfish, whiny, demanding, contemptuous, antisocial and generally a huge bitch to be around - and the whole "self-exile" thing is hugely out of character for her because after that she just lies around whining and moaning and being a huge drama queen about tiny things.


She laughed, but there was no amusement the sound. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you? Life isn’t fair.”

Oh how wise! So she's not only gorgeous and selfless and smart, but she's also WORLD-WISE despite being an upper-middle-class brat who's never had to do anything for herself.


“You put on a good show.” I spoke slowly, still considering this next hypothesis. “But I’d be willing to bet that you’re suffering more than you let anyone see.”

"So come relieve yourself in my bed… I mean my lap… I mean my arms! I'm ALWAYS here for when the suffering of… living in a cold damp town becomes too much to bear! And when you come to unburden yourself of the torment of living, bring condoms."


She wasn’t the average martyr—she didn’t want an audience to her pain.

Yeah, that would explain Twilight, which is basically Bella whining from beginning to end. Not even getting into New Moon. The only reason that Bawla wouldn't want an audience is because it might mean some pesky people would bother her with their unworthy attentions.

And yes, she wants an audience. But only an audience of rich sparkly assholes whom she can leech off.

So Bella takes a page from first-graders everywhere and pretends she doesn't hear Edward. Oh, marvel at her maturity! Edward, meanwhile, gets all snooty and "vampires are too awesome to care about any of that HUMAN stuff," which just makes me want to pour acid on his overheated crotch.


Something about her frustrated expression was humorous. The whole situation, the whole conversation was humorous.

No, not really. It's more… boring and bland. Kind of like eating a whole loaf of stale white bread.



No one had ever been in more danger from me than this little girl

Can I mention how creepy it is that he refers to this chick he has the hots for as a "little girl"? Not that it's out of sync with his other behavior towards her, or Smeyer's freaky pedophilic subtexts...


“Not exactly,” she told me. “I’m more annoyed at myself. My face is so easy to read—my mother always calls me her open book.” She frowned, disgruntled.

Well when you pout and sulk in public all the time, it's not too difficult. At all.


I did not truly have a life.

You got that right, sparkleboy.



They keep talking in a totally bland boring way, and Edward marvels that Bawla is not scared away by him the way all the common sheep do. Of course, this is assuming that they're repelled due to fear, and not due to revulsion at his personality. Since Bawla is equally self-absorbed, I'm sure she wouldn't notice because she's busy focusing on herself.

Oh, and he shows off his gleaming, razor-sharp vampire teeth. Which sounds way cooler than it is, because apparently these teeth aren't fangs, just teeth. They don't actually LOOK any different from human teeth, Meyers doesn't specify why they are supposed to be speshul, and Bella fails to notice that THESE TEETH ARE GLEAMING AND CAN RIP OUT YOUR THROAT! Maybe she just assumed he had the same dentist as Michelle Obama.

And due to one of the most boring conversations in literary history, Eddie is suddenly obsessed with every single detail of Bella's like. You know, like a stalker is. But she smells so yummy that he has to run out of the room.


I’d already made two minor slips today. Would I make a third, one that was not minor?

So either ship your miserable self to a remote boarding school (preferably an all-boys one, so you can finally come out of your vampire closet), or kill her and put us out of our misery.


Again, I gasped at the clean, wet air outside like it was a healing attar.

… has Meyers forgotten what age range she's writing for? Or was "attar" on her word-a-day calendar? Or is she just pretending she understands what esoteric words mean while mispelling "mote"?

So Eddie goes and hangs out with Emmett, who basically tells him not to sweat it because hey, they're vampires and it's no big deal if they guzzle a human or two. See? This is why I like him: no pretensions. Edward is basically an arrogant egomaniacal dick who still pretends he has morals - either be a huge dick or have morals, but don't pretend to do both.

Oh, and we get a flashback to when Emmett drank some freshly-squeezed human juice from some random woman who smelled super-yummy. Apparently Bella smells even yummier than that woman. So Eddie goes and sits in his car, eavesdropping on various people in the school and listening to Mike thinking about Bawla and how she probably isn't interested in Edward. Iron-clad morals, huh?

So Edward does what any allegedly mature, hyperintelligent century-old being would do: I put a CD of violent music into the stereo, and then turned it up until it drowned out other voices.

Two thoughts on that.

1. Isn't that what ORDINARY teen boys do? Couldn't he do something slightly more mature than that, like meditate?
2. From any other author I'd assume that he was listening to thrash or death metal or something like that. But given that Meyers is allegedly a pretty devout Mormon, and given what music most hardcore religious people listen to, I'm gonna assume that "violent" means it has a beat and a bass guitar.

And apparently Meyers doesn't realize how CREEPY IT IS that her alleged hero is sitting out in his car listening in on stuff about his new crush. Of course when Bawla gets out, he sits there gawping at her as she gets into her car, fingercombs her hair, and almost has a car accident because she's busy GAAAAAAAZING into his eyes.

And then after an almost-accident, the Sparkly Douchebag starts laughing at Bella exercising basic automative caution. You know, rather than just barreling Das Truck out of the parking space and steamrolling some innocent students.



It was like she thought she was dangerous in her decrepit truck.

…. which cannot possibly be as pathetic as Edward thinking that everyone at school is terrified of his oooooooooohscary predator aura.


The thought of Bella Swan being dangerous to anyone, no matter what she was driving, had me laughing while the girl drove past me, staring straight ahead.

Wow, let's marvel at Edward's intellect. Apparently he's unaware that ANYBODY driving virtually ANY CAR can be dangerous to someone. Basic physics will tell you why. But then again, maybe Edward is too smart for basic physics… he haz vampiyur brainz!