In the last chapter we saw the aftermath of Bella's birthday party boo-boo when Jasper went crazy with blood lust. It was okay though, because Carlisle is a doctor so he was able to patch her up. Then Edward took her home to bed.
Today's chapter is number three: The End.
What Happens?
Not a whole lot really! Things are awkward between Bella and
Edward. Oh, and Bella tries out her new camera and scrapbook at last.
Thoughts as I read:
I've had spoilers for this book so I've got a funny feeling I know
what's coming. With a title like 'The End' coming not even a quarter of the way
through the book, I'm fairly certain we're about to witness a Bella/Edward break
up somewhere in the next thirty pages.
As is traditional, the chapter begins with Bella waking up in the
morning. Edward heads out quickly and meets up with her at school.
Edward was waiting for me at school, as usual, but his face
was still wrong. There was something buried in his eyes that I couldn't be sure
of – and it scared me. I didn't want to bring up last night, but I wasn't sure
if avoiding the subject would be worse.
Bella's wondering about how everyone is after the events of the
previous day. I hope she actually gives voice to some of these questions because
I'm wondering much the same thing myself. We have to wait for her to run into
Alice to ask them though. Unfortunately she's off school today because she's had
to go away someplace with Jasper.
Do they have vampire rehab? It sounds like the sort of place
Jasper would end up going. Edward isn't giving away very much information other
than the fact that they were trying to get Jasper to go stay with another little
group of vampires in Denali. So not vampire rehab, but hopefully a group of
vampires who live without trying to drain every human who gets a paper cut in
their vicinity.
The development with Jasper has made things awkward between Bella
and Edward. It's not a huge change really since I usually feel like things are
pretty awkward between them. Bella's realised that Edward is feeling down about
the fact all his family is having to go away and it's mostly because of her.
Well, Alice and Jasper are really the only ones who have gone away because of
her. Emmett and Rosalie might have gone away too but I think that's more because
they just don't age and people will notice if they hang around too long.
That's got me wondering, if a vampire wanted to stay in a place
for a long time, do you think they would have to use some sort of prosthetics to
make it look like they were aging?
While I've been wondering about that, Bella's been thinking about
seeing members of the Cullen family. She can't imagine Alice staying away from
Charlie because there's some sort of weird relationship between her friend and
her father; plus she'll need to go to hospital fairly often, so she'll still see
Carlisle. She just can't go to their house anymore.
How did Jasper cope at school every day then? I mean, surely
people at school got paper cuts and nose bleeds and other injuries that caused
them to bleed. How did he handle those?
The chapter continues giving us a little recap of what happened to
Bella the summer before. We read that book so we can skip past that. Bella
continues wondering about whether it wouldn't be better to just go away with
Edward and let his family all return to their home the way it was before. Apparently this will be better for him than his family being scattered all over
the country. Um, perhaps Edward would rather be at home with some of his family
than halfway across the country with none of his family.
We skip over Bella's time at work and barely a paragraph later
she's on her way home, to find Edward's car parked outside her house. This is
strange because normally he sneaks in through her window. What's even stranger
is that Charlie and Edward are just hanging out watching sports on TV. This is
one of those 'we need to talk' moments.
While she waits for Edward to join her, Bella starts looking at
her birthday presents. She's starting to think that the best place for her to be
is away from his family and suddenly she's feeling quite sad at the thought of
leaving Forks. She's even beginning to appreciate the camera and scrapbook.
Regardless, I snapped a picture of my room. There wasn't
much else I could do tonight – it was too dark outside – and the feeling was
growing stronger, it was almost a compulsion now. I would record everything
about Forks before I had to leave it.
I have a funny feeling that's you're not the one who's going to be
leaving, Bella. She goes on to ramble about how perfect things are right now,
I'm guessing she means before she got the paper cut because things the last few
days haven't exactly been great for her.
All the same, she gets in a little photo session with Edward and
Charlie. Then Edward gets up to go, telling Bella that he won't be stopping
tonight. I have no idea what any of this is actually about. And considering the
fact Bella then goes to bed, I'm surprised that the chapter doesn't end
there.
I actually took a break from reading before continuing on with this book. It's such a long chapter that I felt the need to fortify myself with a relaxing bath and a healthy snack so I could keep reading. Anyway, Bella's been taking more photos and contemplating how much she will miss all the green stuff that she spent most of the first book complaining about.
Bella's still on another planet thinking about Edward and her vagueness is making me feel rather ambivalent about the whole story. The writing also feels kind of clunky:
At lunch, the silence continued. I felt like I was going to
start screaming at any moment, so, to distract myself, I leaned across the
table's invisible line and spoke to Jessica.
"Hey, Jess?"
"Hey, Jess?"
I can't help but think that there might have been a better way of
writing this bit. I mean, I can't exactly talk. I've never had a book published,
let alone one that's been turned into a series of blockbuster hits, but still, I
like to think if I did, I'd manage to edit out any of the really clunky bits
like this.
Serious, this chapter feels like there's an awful lot of nothing
happening right now. This is followed by Bella's friends taking photos with her
camera, using up all her film and then it jumping to the end of the school day.
Honestly, what was the point in that?
We do learn that Edward shows up in photos, which prompts the
usual diversion into how wonderful Edward looks. We've heard it all before so I
don't think we need to go into all that again. Anyway, she flicks through the
pictures and Edward ends up looking colder and colder as she goes. Plus compared
to him, she looks decidedly average. This is yet another nail in the coffin of
Bella remaining mortal. For her and Edward to be happy together she obviously
needs to become a vampire.
Bella works on her scrapbook for a while and even remembers to
send her mum a thank you note, showing that her skills have improved somewhat
since the last book, when she ignored her mum's emails. And so ends another
day.
Since that's how these chapters often end, that seems like a good
place to stop until next week.
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