Chapters 22-Epilogue: Just d'awwwwful

Well, dear friends and esteemed onlookers, we're almost to the end. It's here, and it's queer (get that knot out of your knickers, it means 'odd'). Actually, odd isn't quite the right description; I was just going for the rhyme and light mockery of protest group chants. The last few chapters of this book are horribly, almost unethically, bland. Do pay attention, because I'm only going to revisit them this once...

Bella and co. hop a plane back to Forks, where Charlie finally starts acting the dad and blames Edward for everything bad that has ever happened in the world. Did I mention what a sympathetic character Charlie's suddenly shaping up to be?

When Bella wakes up from sleeping off her ordeal, Edward is there to explain that he never really wanted to leave and wouldn't have if he'd known how sad and stupid Bella would be about it, and how he 'can't live in a world where [she doesn't] exist'. He describes lying in the fetal position in meadows and generally poncing about in agony--apparently, he was sad and stupid about her, too. Don't mind that squelching sound, it's just my brain trying to escape again. Silly brain... you couldn't get away during the meadow scene, so you're certainly not going to manage it now. Settle down and let's get this over with.

Edward then vows that he'll never leave again, and that Victoria will die for trying to make Tender Vittles out of Bella. Unfortunately, there's only a chapter left for him to accomplish this in, so... he doesn't. I guess that's supposed to be the big hook for the next installment, but for now it's just further proof that Shmeyer can't write anything close to a critical scene without first dancing around in big, poorly-worded circles for several hundred pages.

In the last chapter. Bella calls a little pow-wow with the Cullen clan, concerning the Volturi's threat to check in and snarfle her if she's still human. The majority votes to turn her, but Edward throws a hissy until she agrees to wait until after her high school graduation. Later, Edward makes blackmail romantic by offering to turn Bella himself if she'll marry him.

My only note for the rest of the chapter reads 'together forever'. I can't remember specifically what that refers to, but my guess is that my brain wiped itself overnight to stave off life in a padded cell just a bit longer, and I'm not one to thank my own mind so shabbily as to read the chapter again. You're welcome, brain.

Finally, the epilogue-- Bella goes back to school, as do Edward and Alice. The Cullens somehow explain why they've abruptly moved back to where they abruptly left so recently, and it's waved off without much to-do. Bella is sickeningly happy with her re-instated loverboy--even if her father isn't--but she secretly keeps trying to get a hold of Jacob, who's also rather un-ecstatic about Edward's return. In fact, Jake is in such a snit that he drops off Bella's motorcycle for Charlie to find and subsequently have a cow over. Bella--with Eddie in tow as supporting wet-blanket--confronts Jacob in the woods, and he reminds Ed that the Sucky Mythical-Creature Treaty is broken if a human is bitten. With that damper put on Bella's tidy post-graduation plans, Jacob informs her that they can't be BFFs anymore before running off to continue not wearing a shirt.

The book ends with Bella friendless and grounded for life without parole, but she has Edward, and that seems to be enough for her.

BELLA'S TEAM: Eddie-kins 4 evah. Oh, joy.

OUR TEAM: Chuck that, the book is done! Over! Finished! Read to the end, thrown across the room, and then bricked up in a dark, damp corner where it can never hurt anyone ever again! Well, one copy at least. Stay tuned for closing thoughts...

Chapters 13-15: Spring Break Shark Attack!

... If only.

I'm tired of this book, and that really needs no introduction. Let's go.

Bella hurries over to La Push to warn Jacob that people are trying to kill him and his werewolf posse, and to ask him if he and his werewolf posse been killing people. Jacob assures her that vampires are the ones who have been killing people, and that the werewolves have only been killing vampires. Bella approves.

Jacob then calls a meeting of the gang, basically by using his feelings. The boys show up and aren't very happy about Bella being around (No Girls Allowed! It says it right on our clubhouse, dude!). One of them, a 'Paul', gets so huffy that he and Jacob throw down and have a wolf-fight right there, more for our benefit than anyone else's (... they're werewolves, did you notice? Did you?). Sam tells the others to take Bella to his fiancee Emily's house while he tries to break up the kerfuffle.

They head over to Emily's, and Sam, Jake, and Pissy Paul show up soon after. The gang quickly turns out to be one big happy family, all giving off that same vague likableness as Jacob, at least compared to every other character in this damned series. Jake explains that their now-arch-nemesis Victoria is after Bella, which earns our hated heroine a security detail.

Bella spends pretty much all of her spring break (which it conveniently is, at this point in the story) in La Push. Jacob and the gang are still off hunting Victoria most of the time, so the majority of Chapter 15 is devoted to Bella brooding about boys, and Jake's safety (but mostly boys). Jacob gets a day off and promises to finally take Bella cliff-diving, but they get a hot lead on Victoria, and he has to skive off to try to save the day. Bella decides to take herself cliff-diving, and the chapter ends with her starting to drown, then hallucinating about Edward, then continuing to drown.

Spoiler alert--She doesn't drown after all. What a tease.

MATTERS OF PROBABLE IMPORTANCE:

1. Jake's friend Quil may or may not turn into a werewolf, but there's been much discussion about it. MUCH discussion. In fact, if he doesn't have some sort of absolutely ridiculous crisis soon, it's going to be a real letdown.

2. Werewolves don't REALLY turn at the full moon, you historically- and mythologically-accurate nerds. They turn when they get angry or upset and can't calm themselves down... Hulk rules, basically, but with fur instead of verdancy.

3. Werewolves also have higher temperatures than normal people, so they don't like wearing shirts.

4. Bella spends a lot of time 'not being able to breathe'.

BELLA'S TEAM: Team Jacob, but then she went all Team Edward toward the end there.

OUR TEAM: Team Drown. Drown you poorly-conceived, chagrin-filled, soul-sucking wench! DROWN! Sigh... it's hopeless, isn't it?

Chapters 10-12: In Which Our Super-Sleuth Sockling Unravels a Not-So-Mysterious Mystery

Good news, toasties-- we've reached double-digit chapters. I think this also means we're halfway through, but I'm increasingly convinced that this book is interminable.

After making herself a complete bother results in no more information about Jacob's mystery {COUGH sputter hack} condition, Bella's back to the internet to find out what's wrong. This time, though, Shmeyer put off the moment of realization for later, so even her brilliant little Bella still can't figure it out. She leaves Jacob--and Billy--alone for a week, and we're treated to another abrupt spiral into pitiful, pining despair. Her ridiculousness just worsens when she finds out that Jake's all better but is out with friends other than her, which she takes as conclusive evidence that he just doesn't care anymore.

After more brooding than I ever care to remember, she decides to try to find the meadow herself, and wouldn't you know it, she succeeds. Upon realizing that the meadow is just one more disappointment, though, she assumes the fetal position and starts hyperventilating (NOTE: I've read ahead. Get used this reaction). Laurent, of all people--or rather, vampires--shows up, and after giving off overt serial-killer vibes throughout an over-long conversation, he tells Bella that Victoria sent him to find her. Victoria wants revenge for the Hunting and Subsequent Ripping-Up and Burning of James Affair from the first book, but Laurent informs Bella that he's rather thirsty, so he's going to eat her instead, Victoria's wrath be damned. Luckily and conveniently for Bella, a pack of giant wolves show up and chase Laurent off into the woods. Bella trips her way back home, tells Charlie that the bears everyone's been worried about aren't bears (oh yes, everyone's been worried about bears, did I mention?), and heads to bed, where she thinks about how Victoria's coming for her. Oh, by the way--that makes her hyperventilate again.

A few more days go by, and still no word from Jacob. Bella mopes increasingly. In one of her fits of sanctimonious victimhood, she tells herself (and therefore us, le sigh) that he's safer if she just stays away anyway. However, she suddenly remembers the Sam Uley gang and quickly decides that Sam and company have gotten a hold of Jacob, and that she's going to rescue him. She heads to La Push and finds Jacob, but sure enough, he's with his new posse--and quite hostile, to boot. After receiving a less-than-warm welcome, Bella argues with Jacob for a while, at which point he goes all sulky-sensitive and tells Bella he's not good enough to be her friend anymore, runs into his house, and pulls all the shades closed.

Later that night, while Bella's trying to sleep, she hears a-scratching at her window. Assuming it's Victoria coming to get her, Bella very nearly drops dead of her own terrified accord, but it turns out to be Jacob coming to apologize. They talk briefly about something being wrong with Jake, and Bella utterly fails to deduce what it could be. After Jake leaves, Bella has a dream in which he turns into one of the wolves who snuffed Laurent. Mystery solved. Who knew dreams could be so literal? Next person to have a dream about curing cancer wins at life.

Bella wakes up to the news that a reward is being offered for shooting giant wolves, which distresses her greatly for a page or two. We're then left with her pondering whether werewolves are bad people.

MATTERS OF PROBABLE IMPORTANCE:

...Jacob's a werewolf.

BELLA'S TEAM: Increasingly Jake-y.

OUR TEAM: Team Oxygen Deprivation. Too much hyperventilation is bad for you... and for your character development, incidentally.