The Twilight Experiment--Twilight, Chapters 4-10

To quote Bella: "The next day was better...and worse."

Of course, I feel it makes much more sense than in the context she uses it--for her it's better because things are getting better at school and worse because Edward Cullen, the smexy boy she has never talked to wasn't at school. For me it's better because I'm chugging right along--there's something about the narrative that lends itself to momentum--and worse because, well, the story is getting worse.

Let me explain.

Our story thus far:


Intrepid Bella, after being thrilled by actually having a conversation with Edward, is even more obsessed with him before. Which is somewhat logical--one assumes that if a girl can become so obsessed with a person that she focuses on little else without having talked to him that she would become more obsessed with them after having an actual conversation. Prolonged exposure to Edward Cullen = copious amounts of lust, so it seems. Not necessarily unnatural, considering he's a vampire. Things are starting to look up for young Bella, and now that she's on speaking terms with Master Cullen and is pretty sure he doesn't hate her or want to vomit at the sight of her face (as his original reaction implied) she has time to waste paying attention to other people around her--like poor Eric Snape, Mike the Retriever (her nickname, not mine--charming girl, no?), and Jessica.

A subplot develops: shockingly, every male in the school wants to date her, which of course means all the girls are catty and jealous. No, Bella just assumes that about Jessica because dear Jessica likes Mike and Mike frolics around the irresistible Bella's heels. So the subplot is, Jessica likes Mike, Mike likes Bella, and Bella is beginning to feel heavily the burden of being so sought after. Gosh Bella it must be terrible to have boys actually like you; I'm sure you'd rather go back to being ignored like you were complaining about in the first chapter.

Anyway, back to the real plot: Bella goes shopping for groceries and cooks Charlie steak and potatoes. Oops, no hold on a moment....ah yes. Bella almost gets slammed into a Bellacake by a van in her school parking lot, and Edward heroically saves her. They have an argument, stretching from the asphalt at the school to the hallway at the hospital, because you see Angel Cullen here was standing at the other end of the parking lot. Oooh mysterious. Edward is kind of a jerk to her, and she's all trying not to cry she's so angry and they don't really speak after that.

I learn from this argument that I don't really understand how Edward thinks sometimes either. Specifically from this exchange:

We scowled at each other in silence. I was the first to speak, trying to keep myself focused. I was in danger of being distracted by his livid, glorious face [don't throw anything at the screen yet--it's early in the book, maybe she stops]. It was like trying to stare down a destroying angel.


"Why did you even bother?" I asked frigidly. [Speaking of him saving her]

He paused, and for a brief moment his stunning face was unexpectedly vulnerable.


"I don't know," he whispered.

Honestly Edward, if your vampire brain really was struggling with the morality behind why you saved her life, you could have at least tried to appear normal as you were striving to convince her you were and say, "Any decent person would, Gawd Bella." Because it's kind of a human reflex; not many people would openly admit that they wouldn't automatically pull someone out of the way of a charging van.

(Also please note that that's about a hundred words, and Smeyer put in three separate descriptions of how beautiful Edward is.)

Edward and Bella don't speak for a while, like I said, and Bella find school a dull dreary place; then one day in science they start blood typing and Bella becomes faint. And who should save the day but: Mike! Unfortunately his heroism thunder is rudely bethieved by Master Cullen (kick him, Mike! Kick him in the head!), who carries Bella to the nurse. They have a conversation, and basically they settle on this:

Edward: You shouldn't be friends with me.
Bella: You said that in the hospital.
Edward: Yah, but I'm dangerous.
Bella: Oh well I don't know, you saved my life and just saved me from Mike, so....
Edward: Well you shouldn't be friends with me. Wanna sit together at lunch?
Bella: Um....I thought you just said we can't be friends.
Edward: Noooo I said you shouldn't be friends with me; not that I wasn't gonna be friends with you.
Bella: O....tay.....

I actually felt a little sorry for Bella during that conversation; Edward doesn't make much sense. So they're friends la-de-da.

However, no one else likes Edward--probably because he's so much prettier than them--so when Bella goes to the beach La Push with all her when-it-suits-me friends Edward does not accompany her. Mores the pity, because he probably would have been able to keep her from falling down as much as she does. She goes for a hike with a few guys to avoid frigging Lauren (the token catty blond! Yes she showed up!), falls down like five times, and when she comes back the camp is invaded by Indians. She meets the "russet-skinned" Jacob Black, a really nice kid who she seems to be interested in making friends with. And who's brother seems to let on he knows a lot about the Cullens, saying that they "don't come here" in a very authoritative tone. Curious, Bella decides to get more information by shamelessly flirting with Jacob, who's just turned fifteen (tooootally illegal). Poor Jacob totally falls for it, and basically tells her the Cullens are vampires: that his ancestors met the Cullens a long time ago and made a treaty with them that they'd leave the vampires alone if they didn't bother their land. He doesn't believe the age-old legend, but Bella sure does.

Luckily for her (though she doesn't see it that way) the days are sunny after that and mysteriously none of the Cullens are at school (gee, I wonder why). Bella doesn't have any more chances to stare at Edward's gorgeous "ocher" eyes, so she distracts herself with a shopping trip with Jessica and Angela, the only friend she really seems to like because the girl doesn't talk very much.

During said shopping trip, Bella wanders off into the seedy side of town after dark--I don't know, I guess she was concentrating too much on not tripping to notice she was meandering down a dark alley. Anyway she's accosted by several large men-types, and abruptly rescued by Edward Cullen. Oh my gosh, it's such a surprise!

Edward takes her to dinner, and drives her home. Their conversation during that time reveals two very important things about Edward Cullen: he is a vampire and, more importantly, he's also a stalker! Yes, he followed her to her shopping trip because he apparently believes that her superpower is getting into life-threatening situations. Then he stalked her around town by reading people's minds to see where she was until she got into trouble. And apparently he's been looking out for her that way this whole time.

Creepy.

There's a brief period of time where Edward is all: "Now you know, aren't you terrified?!" and Bella is all "Well no I feel inexplicably safe around you." And then...they get to the point in their relationship where he shows up at her house randomly to drive her to school, she dreams about him all the time, and they have to literally sit on their hands in Biology to keep from making out as soon as the lights are out. Which is weird because they have plenty of alone time outside of Biology during which they could make out as much as they want in total privacy, but never feel the urge to do so. Apparently there's some sort of quality akin to an aphrodisiac in that dim, science class movie glow.

That's basically the story right now. The big cliff hanger I'm on at the moment is that now Jacob's father, Billy (who has no neck according to his description: "...a heavyset man with a memorable face--a face that overflowed, the cheeks resting against his shoulders...") knows that Bella hangs out with Edward and also knows that he's a vampire. The plot thickens.

Further developments with Edward:

Edward is starting to creep me out. His bipolarity is stilling chewing at the forefront of his newly-developing personality, and as I mentioned before he's a big giant stalker. He spends his entire time keeping track of Bella and saving her when she's in peril, and then treats her like a child. He orders her around a lot and brooks absolutely no argument; which would make sense for a centuries old vampire. The problem is that he also is basically her boyfriend. So...treating your girlfriend like a little child...creepy. Oh Edward.

Smeyer puts in far too much detail--and never the right kind of detail. Example:

I looked down, frustrated. I unrolled my silverware, picked up my fork, and carefully speared a ravioli. I put it in my mouth slowly, still looking down, chewing while I thought. The mushrooms were good. I swallowed and took another sip of Coke before I looked up.

Oh my goodness, Smeyer, we don't need to know all that! Write about what she's thinking, write about her freaking expression, just please don't write about how she eats!

She does this frequently, especially because Edward and Bella have a lot of lunchtime conversation. Ye gods.

I do like Jacob; he sounds like a sweetheart, even if he was naive enough to fall for Bella's wiles. I just hope Bella doesn't do that to him again, it's really unkind. And he's in the next chapter so I'll get to see more of him. And no, I'm not imagining him as Taylor Lautner. Give me some credit.

Anyway, next post I may have finished Twilight. Probably not. We'll see.