As you probably know, the book is narrated by Bella Swan, so I shall give you what I know of her thus far:
Bella Swan is a something-teen-year-old, who has "ivory" or "almost translucent" skin (Side note: Stephenie Meyer isn't the only author I've seen do this, but it continually bothers me to see any form of the adjective "translucent" used to describe the skin of a human character. When was the last time you saw a living, breathing person who was so pale you could say their skin was practically clear? This is the first physical impossibility of Bella Swan), and does not have red hair or blue eyes, but rather dark hair (brown or black is yet to be determined--perhaps chapter four will tell?) and as-of-yet undiscovered colored eyes. She is five-foot-four and "slender" without being athletic or athletically-inclined in the least--the second physical impossibility of Bella Swan; I know of no one who is as sedentary as Bella Swan is (which she is--she's a reader, not a player) who is also "slender" without the added bonus of being not-short. This is not to say that my shorter friends/acquaintances are fat, merely that "slender" is a very specific adjective that I would not be able to apply to that type of person. Bella Swan must have a truly enviable metabolism.
Bella has nobly exiled herself to the little town of Forks to live with her father so that her mother can travel around with her Minor League boyfriend. The standing explanation as to why that was necessary was that Bella wants to take care of her mother and make her happy; I'm holding out for a more detailed and plausible explanation, seeing as how if her school life as described thus far is anything to go by, she'd probably get a better education on the road with her mother and step...boyfriend than at Forks Highschool, her mother seems perfectly happy to be with her daughter and therefor probably wouldn't mind her daughter travelling with them, and Bella would really rather not be in Forks/with her father at all.
As far as I can tell Bella dislikes the cold, rain, snow (snipe), wet, ice, fog, clouds and cloudy days, idle chit chat, sports and most physical activity, math, being the topic of conversation, and Forks. She likes reading, sunlight (presumably, since it's the only weather they haven't had as of yet in Forks and the only weather she hasn't complained about), the truck her dad got her, and Edward Cullen. This last one is particularly random because she has had all of two conversations with one Edward Cullen, and one of them was an argument that left her so angry she literally says she couldn't move for a few minutes. By the second chapter she's become completely obsessed with this boy--he consumes her thoughts during the school day when he doesn't return for a week after their first meeting--and it's all only because he's a beautiful kid. He doesn't speak a word to her until page 43 and by page 26 she's already focused her thoughts almost completely on the mysterious enigma that is Edward Cullen.
I do not like Bella Swan.
I'm actually surprised, since usually I'm very readily able to relate to main characters (especially if it's a first person narrative, as in Twilight). But thus far Bella is just a disgruntled, angsty teenager who seems determined to be unhappy with everything. She says "Ew." when it starts snowing. And you, dear reader, know how I feel about snow. It isn't even because she doesn't like driving in it--she just plain doesn't like it. She is unhappy when she first comes to Forks because she is afraid everything will treat her as an oddity and think she's a freak; but when people are perfectly nice to her and treat her like a normal person she calls them "overhelpful" and doesn't even make an effort to remember most of their names. Her classmates seem to be a nuisance to her; if her father, Charlie, doesn't leave her completely alone then he is an embarrassment and bothers her because she can tell he never got over her mother; and everything at school except for Trigonometry is stuff she already knows. And I simply cannot fathom the way she thinks at times.
For example, here's an excerpt detailing the first person in school who talks to her (skipping short sections of the narrative that are irrelevant to the point I'm making):
When the bell rang, a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with skin problems and hair as black as an oil slick [Severus Snape?] leaned across the aisle to talk to me.
"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?" He looked like the overly helpful, chess club type. [If he has a sweater vest back off Bella, I want some]
"Bella," I corrected. [...]
"Where's your next class?" he asked.
[...] "Um, Government, with Jefferson [teehee...oh Stephenie], in building six."
[...] "I'm headed toward building four, I could show you the way..." Definitely overhelpful [yeah seriously dude, backupoff. Give a girl room to use her tiny lady-brain]. "I'm Eric," he added.
So that was a pretty friendly, normal introduction. As are most of her other introductions to the students. The part that confused me was when she met Mike, another friendly boy--asks her her name, much like Eric and everyone else, introduces himself, much like Eric and everyone else, etc.:
[Mike asked,]"Do you need help finding your next class?"
"I'm headed to the gym, actually. I think I can find it."
"That's my next class, too." [...]
We walked to class together; he was a chatterer [myeah, a bit awkward, and not a word but okay]--he supplied most of the conversation, which made it easy for me. He'd lived in California till he was ten, so he knew how I felt about the sun [I think that's the clue that she likes the sun (aside from her general grumbles)]. It turned out he was in my English class also. He was the nicest person I'd met today.
...
I can't for the life of me figure out what was so different about dear Mike and that conversation that made him the "nicest" person you'd met that day, Bella.
I also can't help but notice that even though she has little time to pay attention to any of her classmates, she seems to have even less time for the girls. They're the ones who's names she can't remember. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and think it's a coincidence.
So yeah, don't like Bella. The highlight of her stay thus far as been staring at the uberly attractive Cullens, specifically Edward.
Edward seems a nice enough guy so far. Aside from being a bit bi-polar, which I think is due partly to the fact that Bella's trying to "figure him out" and is therefor devoting more attention than is normal to his every minute action, expression, and mood. But (after initially acting like he had the trots when he was sitting next to her in their first biology class) he said hi to her, and drew her out about her mom and why she was at Forks, etc. So he doesn't really have a personality yet, but he's nice.
And despite what Miss Swan thinks about Forks, I think it sounds basically awesome. It's all forest and such (even Bella, between her complaining, says she must admit that it's beautiful), and the town itself is one of those small towns where everyone knows everyone and the police chief (Charlie, coincidentally) still wears a gun belt and boots, everybody seems really nice, especially the highschool kids. I mean really, how many places have nice highschool kids? Bella hasn't even crossed paths with a token catty blond yet. I think I'd really like living in Forks--come now, rain and fog are beautiful too. A little wet, but that's what umbrellas are for, right? And you get to wear wellies.
For the most part I'm reserving judgement on the writing until I at least get further into it--suffice it to say that there are some things irking me, but I'm seeing if they smooth out and/or leaving room for improvement. But I will highlight this one thing: someone needs to both take the thesaurus away from Stephanie Meyer and tell her that there are better thesauruses out there.
You see, Stephenie Meyer (hereafter to be referred to as Smeyer, cordially, for convenience's sake) wants to make it abundantly clear that the Cullens are attractive. She does this in two ways. The first is by using either neutral, or, more commonly, downright unflattering descriptions of every other highschooler Bella meets (see description of poor, overly helpful Eric Snape). The second is by using every single synonym for "attractive" she can find; except apparently that's not enough, because she uses the handful of adjectives she collected way more than she should. She goes on for about two pages describing how beautiful the Cullens are in every way when she first introduces them--okay, that's fine. When you're introducing character descriptions it's okay to get it all out there. Yes, Smeyer, I see, the Cullens are beautiful and attractive and graceful. Oooh-aaaah. The problem is that it doesn't stop.
- Bronze-haired
- Muscular
- Fluid
- Attractive (most commonly used, once to describe his voice)
- Musical (describing his voice)
- Like velvet (voice)
- Absurdly handsome
- Dazzling
- Flawless (lips. Psh.)
- Enchanting (laugh)
- Beautiful
Those are only describing Edward. And only in one chapter. Also not even the whole chapter, as I got bored of paying attention to all the ways in which Edward is apparently the smokinest thang since turkey bacon. Any one of those adjectives was used at least twice, usually to describe two different features of that beautiful creature, Edward Cullen.
Well, dear reader, I'm only three chapters in. I'm optimistic that Bella might improve as a person (I've read plenty of stories/series where the main character starts out as a jerk and becomes a better person--Artemis Fowl, The Merlin Conspiracy...), and that Smeyer will finally rest assured that her readers know that the Cullens are the only attractive people in Forks.
Back into the fray!
