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 19-21: Eurotrip

Alice and Bella hop a plane to Italy, and as flights to Italy tend to be long, we're treated to the better part of a chapter's worth of talk. Most of it involves the Volturi, and we learn that they basically function as the grand high enforcers of vamp-culture, with the only rule being to keep the existence of vampires a secret. Aside from exposition, the chapter is conveniently full of Alice's handy-dandy visions, so we get to keep tabs on Edward whether we like it or not. According to Alice, Edward is going to ask the Volturi to kill him, they're going to tell him no, and he's going to have to resort to Plan 9 from Outer Sp-- I mean, Plan B, which is to royally piss them off.

While Bella is whinging and being put upon, Alice says she thinks that everyone's being ridiculous, and she might just turn Bella vampy herself to get it over with. This works as the proverbial carrot in front of the utter ass that we all know as Bella, who brings renewed enthusiasm to the rescue effort. She and Alice get off the plane, then steal a Porsche and drive to what is essentially the Volturi Vatican City (called 'Volterra'-- oh, Shmeyer, you're just too clever for us).

Because nothing in Bella's life can go down without the most minor of inconveniences, a festival slows the mission down in Volterra. Last we've heard from Alice's visions, Edward is planning to walk out into the sun at noon, thus exposing the existence of vampires (or at the very least, body glitter) and invoking the wrath of the Volturi. Bella arrives in the main square a few minutes before noon, spots Edward across the crowd, and in what is presumably the climax of the book she arduously slogs her way through a bunch of people to stop him from getting himself killed. Suffice it to say, I don't think I can properly communicate how non-climatically the whole effort reads.

Bella stops Edward just in time (surprise, surprise), but not before he attracts the attention of two of the Volturi guard, who proceed to make trouble until one of the actual Volturi shows up and drags everyone off through some sewer tunnels to an undisclosed location.

They end up in the Volturi court, where they meet Aro, an extremely old--and rather twee--vampire who takes a particular interest in Bella. Through a brief series of tests, it turns out that Bella is not only immune to Edward's psychic 'gift', but also to the gifts of all other vampires, further reminding us that she's the MOST damned special person in the whole wide Shmeyerverse.

After Aro and the other Volturi elders confer, they decide that really the only problem is Bella, who knows about vampires and therefore must be disposed of or else become a vampire herself. Edward is still quite angsty and conflicted about the whole thing, but Alice convinces Aro that she intends to turn Bella eventually, and they're all allowed to go free after all. However, Aro advises them that the Volturi will be checking in at some point to ensure that the deed is done, OR ELSE.

Wait... was THAT supposed to be the climax? It's so hard to tell.

Anyway, as they're leaving, they pass an incoming 'tour group' of people for the Volturi to snack on, and Bella is wildly traumatized.

MATTERS OF PROBABLE IMPORTANCE:

1. If you live in the Shmeyerverse and you're motivated by love, grand theft auto has no consequences.

2. Actual, physical fights don't happen in the Shmeyerverse. Neither do climactic events.

BELLA'S TEAM: Edward.

OUR TEAM: Team Trampled by Tourists, Team Interpol, Team Tying Up Loose Ends, Team Free Scenic Tours of Volterra for People Named Bella... take your pick.

Chapters 16-18: Things Are Looking Increasingly Sparkly

Right then, toasties. On with the awful.

Bella gets saved in the nick of time by Jacob, but she's disappointed to find that he isn't Edward. He takes her back to the house to recuperate, where she falls asleep on the couch and dreams of Romeo and Juliet, and Paris, that guy no one cared about in Romeo and Juliet. This gets her contemplating giving up on her bedazzled dreamboat and just settling for Jacob. When Jake drives her home, they have a brief, awkward moment in the car before he smells vampire, and Bella notices the Mr. Dr. Cullen-mobile in front of her house. She argues with him and assures him it's okay, but he just angrily tells her not to get killed and runs off into the forest.

Bella opens the door to find Alice, who came to find her after having a vision of the cliff-diving incident. She's surprised--and slightly annoyed--but relieved to find Bella alive. Bella quickly fills her in about the Victoria problem and how Jake's a werewolf, then after getting her sufficiently concerned, she begs Alice to stay and hyperventilates until she agrees.

The next day, Alice has to 'step out for a moment' when Jacob comes over to grill Bella about whether the Cullens are coming back. He calms down and almost kisses Bella, but they're interrupted by the phone ringing. Alice then comes in looking distraught and says 'Edward', causing Bella to faint. Once she's revived, it's disclosed that Edward thinks she's dead, and is now going to Italy to get himself killed by the Volturi, those afore-mentioned royal-ish vamps. Despite Jacob's protests, Alice and Bella run off on a rescue mission.

MATTERS OF PROBABLE IMPORTANCE:

Hmm... nope, that's about it.

BELLA'S TEAM: Team Save the Edward.

OUR TEAM: Team Violent, Drunken Football Hooligans. Alice and Bella are going to have to travel across Europe, and I'm willing to bet they don't know what the Manchester United song is...

Chapters 1-3: Worse-Case Scenarios, and the Beginning of the Downhill Tumble

Here we go, toasties-- it's New Moon time. Brace yourselves, then let's jump in and allow the instant sarcasm wash over us like a tidal wave of crushed literary hopes and dreams.

The whole shebang starts with Bella having a dream (odds bodkins, this feels familiar), in which she is a crusty old bat, while Edward is still... well, Edward, the sparkling teenaged wanker who kisses her cheek and wishes her happy birthday. She awakes in a dither and remembers that it is in fact her birthday, and the dream quite expressed how she feels about turning old as dirt... or rather, 18. She spends the day in a special-occasion snit, being rude to everyone who mentions the 'black event' (her birthday, not the Million Man March) and only agreeing to go to the Cullen's for a party after much smoldering and vampy coercion courtesy of Edward and Alice. Bella manages to stave off the festivities til evening by insisting that she and Edward have to watch Romeo and Juliet for class first, which smacks loudly of foreshadowing.

Evening rolls around and everyone heads over to the Cullen house, which is very pinkly-decorated for the occasion. Bella, however, can't seem to go anywhere without manufacturing a crisis, ad she gets a bloody little boo-boo while opening a present. Jasper goes blood-crazy and slams into Edward, who has jumped protectively in front of Bella, who goes flying into the spread; the whole bit plays out rather like a perverse (and probably, quite entertaining) game of dirty croquet. Bella ends up a bleeding, glass-covered mess, so Jasper is quickly bundled out of the house, accompanied by the rest of the family, and Bella gets to cap off her fun-filled birthday evening with Mr. Dr. Cullen plucking glass out of her wounds and stitching her up sans anesthetic.

As we discovered in the first book, Edward and Bella each have their own strikingly poor ways of handling crises, and this chapter doesn't disappoint (or rather, it does... but that's hardly a surprise). The next day at school--and the days following-- Edward is aloof to the point that Bella agonizes over his behavior and even hyperventilates on her way to work one afternoon. She compulsively (conveniently, even) takes up her parents' birthday presents-- a camera and a scrapbook-- and starts obsessively documenting Forks, particularly the Edward-y parts. Soon after Bella starts her somewhat stalker-ish new hobby, though, Edward breaks the rather abrupt news that he and his family are leaving Forks to start over elsewhere, and Bella will never ever see him again. He makes her promise not to do anything reckless, plants a smooch on her forehead, and bolts away into the woods before Bella quite knows what's hit her. Always the stoic, she reacts by stumbling pitifully through the woods for hours in a blind bid to feel she's being productive, eventually slopping down against an unfamiliar tree, with nightfall and rain thrown in for extra oomph.

She's eventually found by a search party that includes Charlie, who takes her to a hitherto-unmentioned doctor (because for Bella, a doctor a day keeps the... hm, well, nevermind). While pretending to sleep after her checkup, she overhears the doctor and Charlie discussing the Cullen family's sudden disappearance, chalking it up to a very sudden job offer. They muse over the mystery of the whole thing without giving any more information at all, so Bella loses interest shortly after we do and stops narrating about it, thank heaven.

When Bella finally arrives back home, she finds that Edward has rooted through her room and removed all the pictures she took of him (not to mention the totally sweet mix-CD he made her) in an effort to remove all traces of himself from her life. Sigh... let the angst begin.

MATTERS OF PROBABLE IMPORTANCE

1. While watching Romeo and Juliet, Edward muses about vampire suicide, and how he was contemplating it during the Bella-damaging affairs of the first book. As I said... foreshadowing? Smackety smack.

2. Edward mentions the Volturi, whom he describes as being sort of like the vamp-version of the Royal family. They also happen to be the vampires Mr. Dr. Cullen stayed with in Italy all those years ago. I'm guessing they're important.

3. While stitching Bella up, the good Mr. Dr. tells her that Edward believes vampires have lost their souls, and therefore thinks that to turn Bella would be to snarfle her soul into oblivion.

4. As one of her birthday presents, the Cullens give Bella plane tickets to Jacksonville so she and Edward can visit Bella's mum. Now that Ed's gone and Bella's pouting, the fate of the plane tickets is unknown.

5. Of the search party that goes looking for Bella, several are men from the reservation. The one who actually finds her is named Sam Uley. He comes up later.

GOOD NEWS-- Edward's gone, and he's taken the dazzle with him.

BAD NEWS-- The book is from Bella's point of view.

Epilogue (or, Chapter Twenty-Five)

Apologies for the delay, toastyreaders, but seeing as I can no longer stave off the second Twilight book with wonderful excuses like, 'If I don't read the entire Harry Potter series again before the next movie, Molly Weasley might avada kedavra my sorry bum,' I can therefore no longer avoid commenting on the oozy, should-be-unnecessary blat of Shmeyerrhea that the author has gone and called an 'epilogue', presumably so it can squelch about happily in delusions of its own importance. And so, with no more ado... the final bits of Twilight.

NOT-QUITE-CHAPTER SUMMARY-- Edward shoves a thoroughly dolled-up Bella into the ol' silver Volvo, and she spends more than three pages figuring out what was painfully obvious within a few sentences (or within the first few chapters of the book, if you've been paying attention)-- Edward has duped her into going to the prom. Once she realizes what he's up to, she makes a grand fuss, but he quickly smolders her into submission. They arrive at the prom, and Edward quiets Bella's protests of supreme clumsiness by allowing her to stand on his feet while he shows off his 100-year-old dancing skills. Jacob Black shows up out of nowhere and cuts in, then explains with much embarrassment that Billy bribed him to come to the dance and ask Bella to 'please' dump Edward. He hesitantly adds, emphasizing the 'Godfather'-esque absurdity of the situation, that Billy also said to inform Bella 'we'll be watching'. They share an awkward laugh, then Smooth Eddie cuts back in and whisks Bella outside to gaze sappily into the moon. He explains that he's forced her to go to prom because he wants her to have a normal human life, even if she's with him. Normally, this would seem a touch sadistic, as he's basically telling her she deserves the same miserable high school experience everyone else gets to have, but remember that this is the Shmeyerverse-- everyone loves Bella and tries their best to make her life perfect, and anyone who doesn't has death or, at the very least, obscurity to look forward to. Bella confesses that she had initially hoped Edward had changed his mind and was going to turn her after all (because in the event of an excruciating three-day-long transformation, one should always look one's best), then in spite of Edward's protests, she insists that she really, really wants to be a vampire. Ed makes a great show of leaning in and heaving great stalker-breaths on her throat for a few seconds before he pulls back and coyly tells her 'no'. However, he recovers by saying some wildly smarmy things about 'love' and 'forever', then slobbers romantically on Bella's neck. The end.

And now, in the spirit of this monstros--ehem, book, it's time to talk about feelings.

THE IMP.TOAST OVERVIEW OF TWILIGHT--

I hate this book even more than I expected to, and with good reason-- nothing should be as poorly-worded, riddled with infuriating characters, and downright nauseating as this soggy little yarn. There are many dreadful things that can be said about Twilight, but many of them have already been said by bigger experts and better wordsmiths, so I'm simply going to express my opinion of the book, with a steaming pile of literary imagery:

Imagine being trapped at a summer camp where the climate is terrible, the weather is always the opposite of what you want it to be, and most enjoyable diversion available is getting so lost in the woods that you wander aimlessly for three or four days, fighting off the occasional rabid squirrel, before stumbling upon camp again. The camp counselors don't notice when you get back; they're all successful lobotomy patients who spend their time discussing sports that they're barely aware of. Your bunkmates are all wildly narcissistic, but simultaneously have low self-esteem to the point of being psychologically unstable. They spend every waking moment creating unnecessary drama out of thin air, and at least one of them cannot communicate without violent hyperbole. There is one toilet in camp, and it consists of a shallow hole in the ground that is invariably filled with strange and terrifying fluids that should never come out of a human body.

You and your bunkmates live in that toilet.

That toilet is Twilight.

Return of the Toast Patrol!-- A Visual Companion

1. MUFASA-- In the movie The Lion King, Mufasa dies, then later shows up in the sky. In the picture featured in this Toast Patrol, the Cullens are also in the sky.

2. BEN KENOBI-- In the movie Star Wars: Episode IV, Ben Kenobi dies, then later shows up looking all hazy (and is more or less in the sky). In the picture featured in this Toast Patrol, the Cullens are also looking all hazy (and are in the sky).

3. A DRAGON VOICED BY SEAN CONNERY-- In the movie Dragonheart, the dragon character--voiced by Sean Connery-- dies, then later shows up as the constellation Draco... in the sky. In the picture featured in this Toast Patrol, guess where the Cullens are? I think you know.

4. FUNNY GAMES-- Funny Games is a surprisingly good, psychologically-driven film (foreign, but recently remade as an American film, which I understand is shot-for-shot and therefore, in my opinion, rather pointless) in which two friendly young men dressed in white tennis-y outfits show up at a family's vacation home and proceed to play torturous, homicidal, 'funny' games with them. Unfortunately, Mr. Gumption's comment was just a joke, and neither of these young men showed up at the Cullens' in the Twilight series.

5. M SHADOWS-- Is the lead singer of the band Avenged Sevenfold. Forrest Gumption is of the opinion that his voice makes him a good candidate to emcee a Saturday morning horror show.

6. ON THE EAST SIDE. IN A CASTLE. WITH SOME PIE.-- The theme song of the 70's-80's sitcom The Jeffersons begins thusly-- Well we're movin on up/To the east side/To a deluxe apartment in the sky/Movin on up/To the east side/We finally got a piece of the pie. The Toast Patrol collective is vaguely aware of this.

Chapter Twenty-Four (In which things could have been wrapped up quickly, but then Shmeyer would've had to stop writing)

Well, toastyreaders, we've finally reached the last chapter. Don't get excited just yet, though-- a soggy epilogue is close on its heels.

CHAPTER SUMMARY-- Bella wakes up in the hospital to find Edward sitting in the corner, pretending to nap. He informs her, among other other things, that her mother is off getting coffee and will be back soon. When Bella asks how her vamp-related injuries were explained to her mother, he responds that they're saying she fell down two flights of stairs and out of a window (what's important to note is that Bella is so egregiously bad at basic physical functions that at this point, no one has a problem believing she's capable of such a tumble). The subject of James also comes up--finally--but gets brushed aside with the explanation that Emmett and Jasper 'took care of him'. Alice saw the tape of the incident, including James' long-winded exposition, and therefore knows all about her hitherto-mysterious past. At this point in the proceedings, Bella's mum returns and tells Bella that Phil (formerly known as the Not Very Good Ball Player) has been signed to a team after all, so now they get to settle down in Jacksonville, and Bella can come live with them in the heat and sunshine; however, Bella, much to the surprise of hardly anyone, insists that she's changed her mind and wants to stay in Forks, despite how much she previously raved otherwise. After a bit more fussing and whatnot, Mom takes off for some forgettable reason, and Edward tells Bella in a bit of a roundabout way that she should go live with her mother, 'somewhere he can't hurt her'. Bella, as per usual, goes completely nuts. Edward tries to call the nurse to sedate her, but Bella insists that he's just trying to leave her forever and makes him swear he'll stay. Once he's assured her he won't leave, Bella incites another argument about how he could have just let her turn into a vampire, and thus wouldn't have to worry about accidentally damaging her. The conversation gets Edward a bit huffy, especially when Bella guesses that the reason for Ed and Alice's tension--Alice has had a vision in which Bella is a vampire. Finally, Bella lets Edward order more sedatives and pain meds for her, after he's promised not to leave for the 87th time.

NOTABLE NOTES--

1. While Edward is pretending to nap, Bella's mum comments that he never leaves. We've noticed that, too. Bella shouldn't be so bleeding worried about him leaving-- if anything, she should tell him to once in a while.

2. To collaborate the story of Bella's two-staircases-and-a-window incident, it's mentioned that Alice very enthusiastically fabricated evidence at the hotel where it's supposed to have happened. I would much rather have read a chapter about that.

INTENSITY OF EDWARD'S STARE-- It's not going anywhere. It promises.

Chapter Twenty-Three (In which not many pages are spent giving not much information, and the book lets us down even harder than we thought it would)

We've finally found it-- the shortest chapter in the whole sodding book. That being said, it's not terribly informative, and it reads as if Shmeyer suddenly remembered she had a pint of ice cream waiting in the fridge and thus couldn't be bothered to properly tell us what happened in the mirror room.

CHAPTER SUMMARY-- The chapter kicks off with Bella assuring herself that she must be dead, because she hears an angel. The 'angel' turns out to be Edward--painfully obvious, since we're (unwillingly) in the Shmeyerverse, and thus Edward is the only being who could ever merit a word like 'angel', as he has so many times in this book already. Not only is the bit wildly unnecessary, it reads like the worst of pick-up lines. At any rate, as Bella comes to, she hears Edward flipping his sparkly lid as Mr. Dr. Cullen assesses her injuries-- a broken leg here, some cracked ribs there--and they finally notice she's been bitten on the hand. Bella whines about her burning boo-boo while Edward and Alice have a nice, angsty spat about what's to be done; Mr. Dr. Cullen interrupts and proposes that Edward try to suck the venom out, which sends Edward into a tizzy of angst and self-doubt. He wastes so much time commenting on his emotional tailspin that you can almost feel a noxious musical number about to happen, but he's yanked back into the thin line of the story by Mr. Dr. Cullen's insistence that he has to act quickly. Edward sucks it up (PUN) and sucks the the venom out of Bella's hand. The burning sensation recedes with it, and Bella passes out in Edward's arms.

NOTABLE NOTES--

1. Despite his importance leading into the chapter, James is entirely absent--it seems Shmeyer is so astoundingly unable to write a bit of action that she's unceremoniously stricken him from the story, in lieu of writing a coherent narrative. The only allusion to James' part in the whole messy business (presumably) is the passing mention of a faint gasoline smell.

INTENSITY OF EDWARD'S STARE-- In short, Edward sucks.

Chapter Twenty-Two (In which Bella actually does something)

Well, toastyreaders, here's another woefully lengthy chapter that demands an over-long summary. However, if you read the whole thing, you'll be rewarded, and someone will beat the flaming snot out of Bella.

CHAPTER SUMMARY-- Bella returns to the front room to find Alice mid-vision. Jasper, who's just returned from checking out of the hotel, asks what she saw, to which Alice dazedly replies 'Bella'. She then shakes it off and says it was nothing new, but Bella realizes the jig is up and Alice knows what she's going to do. There's a tense drive to the airport, wherein Alice and Bella make stunted conversation to cover the fact that Alice knows and Bella knows Alice knows (let's not forget that Jasper now knows, and can probably sense that Bella knows that they both know...). At any rate, when they get to the airport, Bella announces she's going to get 'breakfast' and takes Jasper with her instead of Alice so that she can pull the ol' Ladie's Bathroom Trick-- Jasper, a dude, has to wait outside the bathroom, so Bella leaves through the other exit and makes a run for it. Once again, Jasper and Alice have to sacrifice their established intelligence and act monumentally thick for a few moments so that Bella can have a cunning bit. Once Bella gets outside, she snatches a cab from a nice, 'tired' couple and throws some money and her mum's address at the driver, then spends the duration of the ride lost in a nauseatingly soggy daydream about Edward. Her reverie is broken (huzzah!) when the cabbie asks her to confirm the address, then dumps her at her mother's house. She follows James' directions and calls the number he's left next to the phone, at which point he tells her to go to the dance studio. You may be wondering about all this runaround when we--and practically every character in this book--have known for a while that Bella's going to end up at the dance studio, but realize that James doesn't know that we know and she knows and they know. Shmeyer, with her (alleged) degree in English literature, has invoked the idea of third-person omniscience in a first-person book and beaten us over the head with a Useful Fact to be Used Later so that even the dullest among us can feel prescient. Anyway, after some dreary and forgettable reminiscing about life, Bella trips her way to the dance studio and bursts through the doors, only to find that her mother's voice was just the VCR playing all along (you may recall that I mentioned the VCR wreaked of trap-iness a chapter or two ago... Shmeyer clearly didn't give my third-person omniscience its due credit). James then shows up to gloat about the fact that he was able to trap her with the clever use of a VCR (hell, that he was able to USE a VCR), and promptly begins monologuing--the cardinal sin of villains, yes, but he's doing it properly. Monologuing is a problem when you have a frayed bungee-cord loosely wrapped around Batman and you wax poetic about world domination with your back turned, but when you're staring down the world's clumsiest damp sock of a character and she has nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no backup, exposition has never been more fun. And at first, it is-- with his delightfully twisted politeness and friendly demeanor, James is probably the most interesting thing in this book so far. He's a top bloke, despite how he wants to eat Bella--scratch that, ESPECIALLY since he wants to eat Bella--until he goes a little too far with the exposition. At first, he's just setting up a camera to film dinner, saying how this was all too easy and he wants Edward to come after him to make things fun, but then he starts going on about his previous exploits and suddenly we've got Alice's entire mysterious back-story hurled at us from heaven-knows-where. It seems this has all happened before-- back in the 1920's, a vampire was in love with a girl who was institutionalized for having visions, and to save her from James, the vamp broke the girl out of the loony bin and turned her vampy, too. She was James' only target to have ever escaped, so in revenge he killed the vampire who turned her, and somehow Bella deduces that the girl was Alice. James then briefly dwells on the irony that he's taking Bella from the Cullens, but they still get the only prey he's ever lost. Finally, he decides to get on with things; he circles, Bella tries to run, and he kicks her into a few mirrors and breaks her leg before she realizes she's bleeding and hopes he can't toy with her much more before killing her--the best ending of any chapter so far? I think so.

NOTABLE NOTES--

1. James mentions that Bella's lack of self-preservational skills is interesting. If he'd had to read about every instance of her tripping, falling, dropping things, running into doors, and generally failing at life, I'm willing to bet he'd rethink that statement.

2. While going through Alice's backstory and whatnot, James mentions that she smelled even better than Bella. He then apologizes and assures Bella she has a very nice smell. What an oddly charming bastard.

3. After being little more than a topic of conversation the last few chapters, James is finally being interesting-- which means Shmeyer's going to kill him off very, very soon. Things that steal the spotlight from Bella aren't allowed to live (other characters' intelligence, for example).

INTENSITY OF EDWARD'S STARE-- Wonderfully absent this chapter. Wherever it is, though, God forbid it makes for a more enjoyable read-- then Shmeyer might have to blind Ed for the remainder of the series.

Toast Patrol 7: Return of the Revenge!

It's a toasty two-pack!

Forrest Gumption: Back in the lair of the tree-dwelling Robo-Pattinson…

Forrest Gumption: We all remember.

Pither: Oh, so THATS what he is in the light.

Forrest Gumption: He floats.

Pither: Sorry if this is lewd, but

Pither: what a bunch of horridly ugly people.

Forrest Gumption: This is the kind of thing his kind normally do in dark alleys or roadside rest areas.

Pither: Is he getting flagged?

Pither: In mid-float?

Pither: Was he floating without a permit?

imp.toast: I d'know...

imp.toast: It kind of just looks like he's being held back from going through with the worst scare attempt ever.

Forrest Gumption: This might be the most extreme game of two-hand touch ever.

Pither: "Does it hurt when i do this?"

Pither: "Is this where he hid the lamp?"

Pither: "Oh wow, it really is like a washboard."

Pither: "Don't push me there, I freeze in a weird hands in the air position."

Pither: "Aw jeez, and ya went and done it anyway."

imp.toast: One of my minor goals in life is now to find Rob Pattinson, grab his stomach, and see if he flails like that.

Pither: "Help, there's a girl on my back!"

Pither: "get it off get it off get it off"

imp.toast: That's not a girl, that's a disembodied pair of un-emotive eyebrows.

Pither: And a shoe.

imp.toast: Actually, the more I look, the more of a confusing mishmash of limbs this becomes.

Pither: "How'd you get up there?" "It was that Potter jerk. Thinks he's all high and mighty just because he's the name of a superior franchise."

imp.toast: "Now Rob, just because you died in that franchise..."

Pither: "NO, IT'S NOT OKAY"

imp.toast: "And you didn't get to take your shirt off..."

Pither: "I WAS GOING TO FIGHT RALPH FIENNES TOO"

imp.toast: "And I know they made you wash your hair, but really..."

Pither: "I hate being stuck up here like this. I'm so exposed to the ... the light..."

imp.toast: "Rob, you need to come down out of the tree. We won't make you bathe or act well, we promise."

Pither: (SHING SPARKLE SPARKLE)

imp.toast: "Rob, stop pretending to be a spatula. Your makeup is running."

Pither: "I want to look beautiful. What is more beautiful?"

imp.toast: Well... compared to this picture, pretty much anything.

Pither: "I have a pimple in my ear."

Pither: "You don't get to look at my hair anymore."

Forrest Gumption: So, explanations?

Forrest Gumption: They're about 20 mins into a Twilight series marathon.

Forrest Gumption: Bella is trying to look seductive.

Pither: "No, I said to stop after 5. Nine tacos is far too many, look at you now."

Forrest Gumption: Eddie Pee-Pants' hair is just off-screen.

Pither: C-c-c-c-cop a feel.

imp.toast: He thought that dropping acid would make the script make sense, but he was wrong...

Forrest Gumption: Newspaper title reads: "SMEYER to write buddy cop trilogy, 'Jacob and the Baby'."

Pither: "No, they're about to turn the fences back on..."

Forrest Gumption: I think they already have turned the fences on.

Forrest Gumption: He's remembering the last time.

Forrest Gumption: Because he looks like Tim.

imp.toast: He just found out he has to be there for the birthing scene in the last movie.

Pither: "(don't think about poop don't think about poop don't think abOUT POOOOOOooooop)"

Pither: "It's a cat... on a keyboard..... we're not in a space hotel room.. are we...?"

Pither: "OH NO"

imp.toast: He just watched his performance in The Last Airbender.

imp.toast: And so did they.

imp.toast: You can see the revulsion and pity on their faces.

Pither: He just got a coathanger rammed up his poop chute.

Pither: As I said before, I wish the guy in the back WAS M Shadows.

Pither: So he could push these sniveling rats off the screen into the abyss of evil and guns.

imp.toast: I think he's about to.

Forrest Gumption: They're looking into the abyss.

Forrest Gumption: And the evil gun-hole is looking back.

imp.toast: The other two are just handling it a lot better than Ralph McPukeface.

Pither: And the guy behind them is the master of ceremonies.

Pither: "Tonight is the night where you DIE AH HA HA HA HA HA ha ha!"

imp.toast: Now his life is flashing before his eyes, and he's not liking what he's seeing.

Pither: His past life is in fact rejecting itself and packing its bags and leaving for a better host.

imp.toast: That, or Edward peed on the carpet again.

Chapter Twenty-One (or, Nothing Interesting Happens in a Hotel Room, Pt 2)

(Or, Please Oh Please Oh Please Someone Get Me Out of This Hotel Room)

CHAPTER SUMMARY-- Still confined to the hotel room, Bella wakes up early again and wanders into the front room for no real reason. There, Alice is sketching a new room from a new vision. Bella recognizes it as a room in her mother's house, prompting Alice to immediately call the good Mr. Dr. and company. Bella hyperventilates for a bit, resisting Jasper's attempts to calm her down-- he's had to so many times over the last three chapters, she seems to have built up a tolerance. Alice hangs up and tells Bella Edward is coming to get her so he can hide her elsewhere, throwing Bella into another rant about how her protection is putting everyone in danger, and that they can't possibly protect everyone she cares about forever (which is debatable, since she's only shown evidence of giving a flaming flip about maybe three people in this book). She storms off to her room and curls up in the fetal position for several hours--yes, the fetal position, for several hours. Shmeyer wrote that. I kid you not. Anyway, Alice's phone rings, and Bella wanders into the front room again because even she can sense that this book isn't going anywhere without its frail, newly-discovered plot. Alice informs her that Ed's plane is landing in a few hours, at which point the phone rings again and everyone acts very surprised. Upon answering, Alice hands Bella the phone, saying it's her mother calling back. Bella answers the phone, and her relief at hearing her mother's voice quickly turns to horror when James gets on and explains how Bella has to somehow get away from Alice and Jasper, go to her mother's house, and call the number he leaves by the phone-- provided that Bella doesn't want something dicey to happen to Mum. After hanging up, Bella sits on her bed, resigning herself to the idea that she has to die with a whirlwind monologue evocative of all the worst bits of angst-ridden high school poetry. She then realizes that she'll also never see Edward again, and the angst-ologue starts anew. Bella returns to the front room and asks Alice if she'll take a letter to Bella's mom's house for her; Alice agrees. Bella then writes a letter to Edward instead, in which her angst reiterates itself, then wallows in its own self-pity before beating itself to death with a sorrowful farewell.

NOTABLE NOTES--

1. They're still stuck in the hotel room, did I mention? I'm sure I did, but Shmeyer brings it up so VERY many times that I felt everyone should hear it again. By the way, they're still stuck in a hotel room.

2. After the previous chapter and now this one, I feel as if I'M stuck in a hotel room with Bella, and that's one of the very last places I ever want to be. I'd really like to kill her now. Team James, anyone?

INTENSITY OF EDWARD'S STARE-- not in the chapter once again, so let's modify this section:

INTENSITY OF MY BOREDOM WITH THIS CHAPTER-- aaaaaaaaaaaaauuuughhhhh... {as I claw madly at my own head in a desperate attempt to free my brain from Shmeyer's prose}