The Twilight Experiment--Breaking Dawn, Chapters 1-15

I'm going to have nightmares.

Someone, please, please tell me when the book in my hand transmorgaphied from part of a popular teenage vampire romance saga into a Gothic horror psychodrama. I have no idea how this happened. The wedding was fine. The wedding was normal. The wedding was Twilight: Bella being unutterably blase to the point where you wonder if she can actually have a soul and still be so apathetic about the fact that she's getting married; Bella realizing as she walks down the aisle (better late than never) that hm, wait, wedded bliss applies here; joy, glory flowers; Jacob--fight; off to our honeymoon!

And then of course, I felt deceived again, because though it's true that Smeyer doesn't actually write in-the-moment honeymoon activity descriptions, she is more-than relishing being as eloquent as possible with the before and after. Which is quite sufficient for me to wish I could un-read that. Also, Bedward honeymoon on the Cullens own private island. Really? My Suspension of Disbelief threw her hands up in despair and left to make herself a panini (yeah, my SOD has a panini maker and I don't. I'm jealous too.)

And yet...and yet...that now seems comparatively small after getting this far. Around the end of chapter 7 marks the entire world of Twilight turning on it's side (as if it wasn't hard enough to deal with right-side-up).

Bella is pregnant. I will overlook the fact that while I don't know a lot of biology, I'm pretty sure that since Edward is technically dead all his bodily human processes have completely halted (like his heart beating, etc.) and therefor really shouldn't...be able...to do that...

Anyway.

Bella figures out she's pregnant about two weeks or something after they first, ahem, conceive, and is already showing common pregnancy symptoms (morning sickness, cravings, tiredness) and a bump. So basically the baby's growing at a rate of like one week per day. By the end of a month Bella is heavily pregnant and dying because the baby is sucking the life out of her and making her body reject any and all nourishment--she's literally starving to death. To top if off the baby is so strong that she has bruises all over her belly, and at one point it breaks a rib.

Do you want to know what's really wrong? Edward's immediate reaction to learning Bella was pregnant, before he even knew Bella was in any real danger whatsoever, was as follows:

"'We're going to get that thing out of you...'"

That was his first thought upon hearing that he was going to have a child. And the thought doesn't change; not when Bella decides to keep the baby, not when he realizes how much it means to her, not ever. I know that the relationship between a husband and wife is a singular, exclusive, binding one, but it's not supposed to be to the exclusion of all other life.


And the solution to getting Bella to actually get nutrients: she has to drink human blood the Cullens had in case she got bad enough to need transfusions, because they figure out that's what the baby wants and the reason it won't let her take in anything else.


The whole situation is just disgusting and repulsive and wrong from every angle. On the one hand, Bella has a parasitical monster incubating inside her; on the other hand, it's a baby and the first thought on the majority of everyone's minds is to get rid of it. The only people on Bella's side are Esme, Carlisle (because Esme is), and Rosalie--and Rosalie only because she's always wanted babies, and since vampires can't conceive she's all set for Bella to kick the bucket and take the baby herself! Oh yes, and Edward convinces Jacob to offer to whore himself--basically tell her "If you want babies that much let me offer my services to give you a few totally healthy ones"--in an effort to once again try to get Bella to get rid of the baby. Which he does. Let us skip over the sick immorality of this idea, since it's just painfully obvious and really goes without saying; can you imagine what kind of a psychological impact that arrangement would have on the resulting children? "Yeah...I'm alive because my mom got rid of my older sibling, and my real dad's nonexistent 'cept for when Mom's feeling amorous, and my stand-in dad is totally apathetic to my existence because he only cares about my mom." That is just a lovely family arrangement, yes?


People, it's not just one life you have to consider here! Can we all stop taking crazy pills and consider that there are two people in danger at the moment?!


It's horrific. Terms like Rosemary's Baby and Hush come to mind. I'm pretty sure I saw an episode of Charmed like this once. 


I literally feel like this is a dream I'm having whenever I read it. It's too weird.


Important developments in the plot: first person point-of-view switch from Bella to Jacob. It isn't that much more interesting in the kids head; just a lot of anger and angst and "Oh Bella, you're tearing me apart when you're not even here." The werewolf pack decides to take Bella and Baby out rather than risk the danger of it being born upon hearing of Bella's pregnancy (Jacob went to see her because he was afraid she'd already been turned, and found out the whole story), and Jacob is actually rational for once and splits off from the pack because he won't attack the Cullens unprovoked or kill Bella. Eventually Seth the Baby Werewolf and Leah the Unnecessary Werewolf join him. So now there's a split in the werewolf pack and the Nice Werewolves are patrolling around the Cullens' house to protect Bella from the Mean Werewolves. 


Also Bella's getting better because of all the blood she's drinking.


The silver lining, I guess, is that there's a distinct pro-life message in the whole mess--however, I fervently wish that she'd picked a better medium for it. A worlds better medium. It's just so creepsauce. My hands a literally shaking from thinking about it...