On Generation and Corruption (Pg. 307-308)

The regrettably, and laughably bad (but entertaining) movie Dracula 2000 gave us two new ideas for vampire movies: the first, according to one of the producers, is that all vampire movies need a little girl on girl action. Which is funny because the movie will subsequently break that rule. The second is how an atheist vampire reacts to the display of the cross. In this case Omar Epps just slaps it away, and I always thought that the presentation was about the faith of the presenter not the nature of the beast.

Wes Craven, whose name is attached to the movie as...i don't know what his role was, probably producer, gave us an interesting twist on the origin of Dracula and then subsequently all Vampires. In this film, he his not Vlad Tepes/Dracul, originally he is Judas Iscariot the one whom betrayed Jesus of Nazareth. Because of his guilt at turning over his mentor to the authorities he hung himself, but the vindictive Old Testament God wasn't done yet and cursed him as the sun set to be a vampire. It may not be kosher, but it's real story and a new one as well.

So we wonder how Meyer will handle this one. Up until now the story really has been resting on the shoulders of an annoying protagonist, possible the most unlikable one since Holden Caulfield.* No Meyer has got some spinning to do, for once it can't just be about date night between human and vampire or angsty whining and self loathing. Now Meyer has to do something creative and that is describe the origin of these blood sucking creatures.

First off let's establish that there are other vampires, "The others--the majority of our kind who are quite content with out lot--they, too, wonder at how we live. But you see just because we've been...dealt a certain hand...doesn't mean that we can't choose to rise above-."

What I want to point out is the odd phrasing that Edward makes, "dealt a certain hand." He's taking the stoic demeanor, which normally is what I have desired in this character. This time it doesn't make any sense. That phrase usually refers to fate. As in, I've been dealt the hand of dashing good looks and now I have to deal with it. However this places the blame in the wrong spot. All of the vampires in Meyer's world...or any world that possesses vampires, fate didn't deal anyone that hand. Another vampire did it, unless you put stock in strict predetermination. The Stoic outlook is slightly misplaced here.

"So where did it all start?" It's a good point that Bella oddly makes. Her question hearkens over to one of Aquinas' Cosmological proofs of God's existence: the Prime Mover Argument. If Carlisle made Edward, someone had to make Carlisle, etc. It's a normal chain of causation argument. Whereas Clive Barker gave us one definite point of origin for his vampire, now is the time for Meyer to do so.

"Or, if you believe that all this world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?"

First off, let's deal with the obvious anti-big bang theory slip in. This is a betrayal of the Mormon religion of the author. I'm actually impressed with the subtlety she put into it. She has Edward say it dismissively and then move right on to the supernatural explanation. Yet there is something nefarious about what she is doing. It's important to note that she is having Edward make the comment and then he points out, "which is hard for me to accept myself." In other words, Dreamy McVampire, can't believe in the theory so why should the millions of girls that are reading this story and being told that he is admirable won't either. Religion can literally poison anything,** even an already bad character.

The real issue is that Meyer completely ignores the origin story's consequences. Most vampires, according to her are human blood drinkers. Only a small minority are like the Cullens, protecting humanity and not preying on them. This means that the creative force behind everything created a parasite like the vampire that has in its nature to drink the blood of the other sentient beings. Truly this force cannot be considered the epitome of good.***

Edward's analogy also fails as well. Sure the killer whale and the seal both exist, and of course the orca eats the seal. The difference is that in order to propagate its own species the Free Willy doesn't turn the seal into one of its own. Even viruses don't do this. What kind of force does Edward think is responsible? Because the entire world of ethics has just been flipped on its head.
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*That's not hyperbole either, I'm not sure which narrator I like the least.

**It's funny to me that this book is so endorsed by the Mormon religion and so condemned by the fundamentalist right wing who have called for its ban in many school districts.

***Not to get into a religious argument here so I'll offer this disclaimer: I'm not talking about any religion's prime deity, only the deity in Meyer's fictional world.

Character Creation (Pg. 290-307)

I remember in the early days of the video game console revolution, when the NES was king with that usurper the Sega Master System approaching from behind, there were the epic length role playing games that came over unsullied from Japan. These games were long, 48 hours worth of story long, not today's bullshit random item collection hunt to pad out the length of the game (Gears of War). One of the things that always intrigues me about getting them, and then always getting disappointed, was the character customization portion. It promised that you would be creating a character from scratch but in the long run all you really did was pick a name and a job for it. I didn't understand the limitations on memory and computing power then, but I do now. Books, however have no such limitation even though they hold only about 1mb of data. The writer can literally do anything with their pen/keyboard.*

Good writers learn restraint, so as not to actually do anything they want. Which is why this book completely ruins one of the few decent dialogues between Edward and Bella with this, "She knows things. She sees things--things that might happen, things that are coming. But it's very subjective. The future isn't set in stone."

Alice is the Pythia, this is getting to be too much. Not only do these vampires have no real weaknesses but now they have special powers that extend beyond just the "normal" vampire advantages. This only indicates that Meyer was getting bored so she had to mix the story up a bit by adding mystery into the plot. Now that everyone has superpowers they can each apply them into suspenseful situations that will come up specifically because of their powers. For instance Edward being attracted to the only person for whom he can't read the mind of, even though his mental powers have contributed nothing to the story thus far.**

Alice, having precognition is going to hamper the story more than it is going to help, because now, everything that happens we have to ask ourselves, 'why didn't Alice see it coming?' Especially because, as Edward explains, that her power is more accurate when dealing with their own kind. So any vampire problems or conflicts she should anticipate, and since she's supportive of the relationship she is a powerful ally. Of course, in order to maintain any sort of suspense the power will only be brought up when convenient, just like the ship's counselor on Star Trek: The Next Generation.***

My other problem with Alice's new powers is that it is so obviously cribbed from Yoda's description of the same in Empire Strikes Back. "Always emotion the future is," emotion being purely subjective which is exactly what Edward is saying now. Which of course doesn't make sense since the future is a set of events, it can't be subjective.

The whole description is self-contradicting. If she can see what is coming then she is seeing the future, which means that it is set in stone, if it were to come true. If it doesn't come true because we have the ability to master fate, then her power is useless. In either case subjectivity is not possible, if it's up to interpretation she's no better than a Roman soothsayer or Sylvia Browne--accurate only based on what people want to hear.

The worst thing is how they squander their talents. Edward could be a world class Chess player provided he never plays computers, and Alice could run a psychic network or a gambling house, but instead they are in a little town playing high school. The other Cullens must have powers too right? Well they do and I'll summarize in list form, skipping Alice and Edward: Dr. Carlisle: compassion, Esme: Passion, Rosalie: Stubborness, Emmet: Strength, and Jasper: Can implant emotions in people.

"Carlisle has a theory...he believes that we all bring something of our strongest traits with us into the next life where they are intensified--like our minds and our senses."

Carlisle's theory makes a good deal of sense. Since everything else is heightened in vampirism their strength, speed, hearing, etc. why not add to that? Of course his theory is only good at explaining the ridiculous. Some of the Cullens have legitimate powers Alice, Edward, and Jasper; but their powers aren't explained by Carlisle's theory. Alice it seems must have been a little psychic before becoming a Vampire and is now full blown. That's like explaining why gravity works by dropping something...we know things fall, we need to know why they do. Alice was already psychic that's why she's psychic now? It's not an explanation it's just a rephrasing of the question.

Jasper's ability makes a bit more sense, Edward explains that he must have been charismatic as a human which explains his ability to inspire crowds or individuals. I'll buy that, but how charismatic could he have been at 16 during the Great Depression? Or Edward, his telepathy can't be explained by normal human ability. He was good at paying attention to people's reactions? Or is he telepathic because he was slightly telepathic as a human. I'm just looking for consistency here, not realism, although I'm finding neither.

The others' powers aren't really powers though. How is Carlisle "super-compassionate?" Aside from his ability to stalk Chicago high schools looking for teenage boys to sink his teeth into I'm not understanding what Meyer means. Same with Esme, and her ability to "love passionately." What does that mean? Is her passion just limited to love, or if she gets angry she's Hulk-like?

Rosalie gets it the worst though, being stubborn isn't a super power. Unless she becomes a literal immovable object she has no advantage over me when it comes to fixing my mind. Ooooh, she won't bend her will-how unlike a two year old. Emmet, yeah super strength is a good thing, but then don't all vampires have that? Or is he strong beyond them?

The best thing about the list is that you can see from it who is going to be of future use in the story. The ones with useful powers are going to be protagonists and the ones that are useless are either non-entities or antagonists. I'm guessing that Rosalie was against the relationship as was Emmet. That family has a bit of dysfunction in it, because what Jasper wants I'm sure he just implants. Unless the deus ex machina of the author comes down and limits that power to humans. Of course he could probably get a good job working political rallies, but then again all of these abilities are indications that one thing vampirism didn't give them was super-intelligence.
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*I put this to the test when I was just of grad school, by attempting to write the most implausible science fiction story ever. I threw in every cliche I could think of from zombies to cyborgs (and even the hybrid "zomborg"), to AI cities and Vampire/Angel wars. The trouble that I had was that the story was getting out of hand for me, I found myself writing ten page back stories for certain characters attempting to explain their powers and where they came from. I actually have a fifty page back story that explains one character which takes place 10,000 years before the main work. The trouble is that each cliche reminds the reader that they are reading a story.

**If you think about it, even his finding of Bella in Port Angeles was based on a guess. There is no way that Bella's possible attackers could have known who they were stalking, therefore Edward couldn't have known even by reading their thoughts. The only thing he did know is what they were possibly going to do.

***Seriously, what kind of contribution did she ever have aside from stating the obvious? "I feel anger," she remarks to the Captain as the enemy ship has just cut off communications and powered up their weapons.

Creepiness (Pg. 290-296)

Aristotle remarked that " for the man who is very ugly in appearance...is not very likely to be happy" (The Nicomachean Ethics ch. 8). It sucks for the ugly people, and in this age of 'everyone is beautiful on the inside' it may seem like heresy to agree with the ancient Greek. However the bald fact of the matter is that he's right. The better looking a person is, the easier their life is going to be. People want to help beautiful people, and they are forgiven more for transgressions than uglies. I bring it up because I wonder how much shit Bella would tolerate from Edward if he weren't so angelic in appearance.

One of the minor mysteries of the story so far has been how Edward was able to retrieve Bella's truck a week ago (in book terms of course) without having a key. That mystery is solved, Edward has been in her house, spying on her for quite sometime. Which she regards as something other than what we would normally expect, "You spied on me?' But somehow I couldn't infuse my voice with the proper outrage. I was flattered."

Let me repeat the important/troublesome part, "I was flattered."

For the entire time that I have been doing this series, I have wondered what exactly the appeal of Edward could be. I don't want to hazard a guess at how many female readers I have but if just one of them wants to explain his appeal on an other-than-physical level I would gladly repost it as an article update. The reason is that I really have no idea why anyone should like him.

This whole spying on her is more like the behavior a stalker exhibits before making the final leap to serial killer. Bella, being the intelligent person we are supposed to believe that she is, knows that it's weird/wrong but can't quite get mad at him. She was flattered which means she obviously thinks that she is unworthy of his attention but still getting it anyway. However, he just watched her enter the house from the bushes right? It's not like he's standing over her while she sleeps.

"You're interesting when you sleep." Oh, wait he does. He watches her sleep because he finds it interesting, and because he's bored after all, "What else is there to do at night?"

I don't know Ed, how about not sneaking into people's rooms and watching them sleep. That's the very least you could do so that you don't come across as a creepy, obsessive, nut job; and the best part about not doing it? It requires no effort, as it's a negative action. The only good part is that it does let us know that Meyer's vampires can enter a premises without being invited. I always thought that limitation on the Vampire was a clever way of forcing civility on them.

Let's assume that Edward looks less like Christopher Lee's Dracula (with the charm, manner, and looks) and more like Max Schreck's Count Orlock from the movie Nosferatu. Now what would Bella think if she knew that person was watching her sleep at night? Or ladies, what would you think?

I've seen it in bars numerous times. Beautiful girl catches guy looking at her and her reaction is always dependent on what the guy looks like. It varies between a smile and quick look away, to a disgusted head shake. It's nothing to be ashamed or angry about, it's human nature and we are all wired like this. Yet there's a line most of us have that even an attractive person can cross and it involves hovering over a person while they are asleep. Unless I'm missing something that women secretly want but are afraid to mention it, although I seriously doubt that this is what they idolize in these books.

The other thing about the stalker behavior is that it shows a complete lack of control of Dr. Carlisle over his progeny. We know that Edward has been doing this for a long while, and his family has only approved of his relationship for a short time. In the meantime Edward has been about the town stalking women apparently under the nose of his maker.

Charlie comes home and Edward vanishes, because for some reason that we aren't told Bella thinks that she needs to keep the relationship with Edward secret. I've mentioned why I think this is so in the past and here adds only more evidence to the pile. Charlie comes in after a long day of fishing and is "bushed." I had no idea people still used that word in that way but it's indicative of Charlie's age. He asks Bella to make him some of the lasagna that she's having and then, "Charlie sat in the chair, and contrast between him and its former occupant was comical."

She's contrasting the physical appearance between her father and her boyfriend...that's just weird. Charlie, thankfully plays no part in creepy Electra relationship this time. I always thought girls were supposed to think that their boyfriends were cooler than their dads, not this. Looks shouldn't be a consideration because of the generation gap, but here Bella laughs at her dad's appearance compared to Edward's. That means she puts them on the same plane, which isn't right.

Then, just like before, Meyer realizes what she has done with the two and snaps back into reality, "No, Dad, I just want to get some sleep."

I relish those few times that Bella uses the word "Dad" because it means that the creepiness is at least temporarily gone as Meyer goes back to the only natural power relationship in the state of nature. It must be doubly confusing for Bella who races upstairs, showers, and changes so that she can fool her dad into thinking she's going to bed only to meet Edward in her room. From one relationship to the other. Good thing that the she's running to the better looking one.

Family (Pg. 283-290)

With the sun setting, the date is over because apparently Edward has to get inside before the sun goes down. I guess that's unfair since repeatedly he warns Bella to be careful, that there are other dangers aside from him in the woods. It begs the question of why he never mentions it straight, instead hinting cryptically about it. We know, because we've read the prologue, but Bella doesn't. It seems queer that he never spits it out, unless he's referring to his own family. While that makes some sense it still doesn't make enough for his odd muteness on the subject.

After a brief fight over who is going to drive, Bella dazzled from her kiss with Edward can't drive according to him. He takes her home in the truck, he turns the radio to an oldies station and sings along. This amazes Bella because Edward knows all of the words. Which means only one thing: that she's never listened to an oldies station in her life!

This is indicative of nothing. Oldies stations are like Top 40s stations in that they have a predetermined set list, the only difference is that eventually a Top 40 station will phase out some of their music after a time. The other radio station won't, they're run by and for people who think that music attained perfection in the 50s and 60s utterly refusing to update their lists because every album compiled after they were in high school is a mere mockery. Every city has at least one station and their set list is made up of these bands: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Cream, Clapton, Pre-Phil Collins Genesis, Elvis, a slew of One Hit Wonders, and any band who lost a member to a drug overdose but the drug was legal at the time, repeat. The newest song they play is one that Aerosmith did for a movie soundtrack. It's also important to note that they aren't going to be playing obscure songs from those bands either, no B-sides and no early stuff. The Beatles set list is limited solely to the White Album and while you will hear Dazed and Confused by Zeppelin, you only hear "Stairway to Heaven" once a year when they do their obligatory 100 greatest songs of all time. I could sing along to all of this, so it's not a great mystery that Edward can. What's more important to note is that Bella can't. Which means her parents either let her keep control of the radio in the car or they were one of those "staying hip" parents that just come across as desperate.

"Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties, or the seventies, ugh!" I didn't think that shots at disco were still relevant, but the comment is important because it leads Bella to asking a question I've been dying for her to ask, exactly how old is Edward?

"I was born in Chicago in 1901...Carlisle found me in a hospital in the Summer of 1918. I was seventeen and dying of the Spanish Influenza."

If Edward was born in the earliest of the 20th century then why not have him listen to music from that era? There could be a whole conversation about how he was sitting at the Chicago Opera House listening to the first recordings of Wagner's Ring Cycle or something. I also question the phrase "a hospital" instead of "the hospital." Not for grammatical reasons, but it gives me the impression that Carlisle was just stalking places looking for victims. He wasn't treating Edward, so he just changed him because Edward was dying.

The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 is akin to the Black Plague of the middle ages in that it was one of the factors that led to the end of WWI as so many people were infected with the disease they couldn't fight anymore. Even Woodrow Wilson was infected when he was negotiating the treaty of Versailles. Some estimates put it at 20% of the world's population was infected with the bug. It's a nice touch because it makes Carlisle compassionate, he didn't murder Edward and raise him up like some Necromancer, he saved him from the new plague. Edward is lucky that he was 17 in that a couple months later he would have had to register for the draft and ship out to fight the Kaiser. I wonder if this was a conscious decision by our author, to have Edward skip out on the Great War. It begs another question as well, what did they all do during the drafts for WWII* and Vietnam? Damn draft dodgers.

"I do remember how it felt, when Carlisle saved me. It's not an easy thing, not something you could forget." I'm not going to bitch about the sentiment here, but rather that a few more adjectives and verbs like "shuttered frightfully at the memory" or something would make us not wish there was a description of the method.

Edward was the first of Carlisle's creations. This goes against all impressions I have had of the family pecking order since the beginning of the book. I always thought that Edward was the youngest followed by Alice since she was in his side. The other two Emmet and Rosalie I figured to to be the oldest of the children. The order apparently is this: Edward->Esme->Rosalie->Emmet->Alice & Jasper.

I get that Esme is given more authority since she is Carlisle's wife, but why does Edward act subordinate to the others? In the glade and previously he was always acting as though he was defiant of his superior siblings' authority, but now it appears as though he's second only to the patriarch. This is what should piss off vampire fans, because there is no variance at all in the fact that Vampire hierarchy is determined by age. Edward should go back to being the Hypothetical Cool Vampire I postulated long ago in dealing with his brothers and sisters telling them to piss off when they question his decisions. His mother gets respect, but like the relationship between the Medici's and the non-Medici Popes of the renaissance it should be because of fictional position not actual authority.

We don't know where Carlisle picked up the others specifically. It seems as though they bounce around quite a bit, but why high school? "But the younger we pretend to be, the longer we can stay in any given place. Forks seemed perfect, so we all enrolled in high school."

Of the two sentences above I believe absolutely none of it save the idea that they are trying to convey information. I think nothing said above makes any sense in the light of a group of people that are trying to hide their true natures from everyone else. Sure youth has to be assumed because of their appearance, but wouldn't they be better off out of a setting where they are forced to interact with people on a close proximity? Edward's blood lust attraction to Bella is a good case for why high school isn't the place for them. Make them college age, where there aren't things like gym where they might have to go outside, no mandatory lunch time so they have to hide the fact that they don't eat, and so they won't be perpetually bored taking the same shit over and over again.

Secondly, how does being young enable them to stay in the same place longer? The only thing that would enable longer durations would be lack of exposure. The fact that they won't visibly age would be apparent in ten years but no one would notice if they weren't in school interacting with the population. If they claimed to be in their 20s, no one would really blink an eye for a long period of time since the aging process is kind of subtle then.

Forks seemed perfect? Even with the werewolves living next door who know exactly what they are. Yeah sounds perfect.

As for enrolling in high school: well I just covered why that's a stupid idea.

The good doctor isn't too bright. The Alaska life is the best idea that he's come up with yet. Too bad he made that along time ago and since then it's just been one downhill slide ever since.

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*Despite what the "Greatest Generation" would prefer us to forget, a lot of them didn't volunteer for service in WWII.

The Date pt. 2 (pg. 266-282)

As promised we are back on track with the finale to the big first date between Bella and Edward. Reviewing, the first part of the date consisted of Edward taking Bella on a hike to the middle of the woods in a secluded spot without any witnesses. Maybe I should not put it like that since everything started off well, but when Edward goes all "hulk smash" in the glade one does wonder why they had to go so far out of the way just to be alone. They could have just worked that out in the woods behind Bella's house, but I digress...sort of.

We left off last time with Edward reminding Bella, "Never forget that I am more dangerous to you than I am to anyone else."

A strange comment, because Edward is singling her out. Thus far, the only reason we have that he's any more dangerous to her than anyone else is because she's a moron who keeps hanging out with a guy who spends his time reminding her that he's so close to killing her. Ah, romance, it hasn't been like this since the classical age. My favorite part about this aspect of the relationship is that somehow this is idolized by both teenage girls who don't know any better but also by older women who ought to carrying signs saying "team Edward" or "Team Jacob." I suppose that it I started acting like a sociopath I could get women to start carrying "Team David" signs all over the place as well.

Bella, for once, thinks that Edward is being odd too. She asks why she's at risk and he answers (probably with an impatient sigh), "How do I explain?,' he mused. 'And without frightening you again...hmmmm."

Now, all of the sudden, he's concerned with scaring her? It doesn't make any sense for him to be like this, since literally the previous thing he did was to remind her that she should be afraid. It's this kind of contradictory behavior that makes me really hate this character and by proxy her for putting up with him. What follows is a strange and frustrating answer rendered all the more absurd by it's appeal to the idea of soul mates. It also serves to make the vampires in the Meyer universe even lamer than they were before, which I must say is quite a feat.

It's too long to quote but Edward having the experience of about a hundred years of life gives a series of awkward metaphors and each one of them fail. He starts with food, which he quickly apologizes for as his explanation implies that Bella is nothing more than food for him. Then he moves on to talking about locking an alcoholic in a room with cognac, which he wouldn't be able to resist...or something, which then awkwardly transforms into discussing heroin addiction. I'll tell you one thing, there's a heroine in this story I can't stand (I'm so ashamed of that pun I'm not even going to delete it). Despite the complete ineptness of Edward to explain what it is he's talking about, Bella gets it--because she's read the back cover of this book and can derive "b" to connect "a" to "c."

It's a good thing to because without her, we would have no idea what he's getting at, "So what you're saying is, I'm your brand of heroin?"

She better stop with the learnin' and the guessin' or Edward might have to break another tree. Actually he seems to be grateful that he doesn't have to come up with something more twisted and convoluted as a metaphor. Which is fortunate because the heroin metaphor, the alcohol metaphor don't really work. The food one that he started and then stopped would probably have been the best. Edward is saying that Bella's blood is his favorite, that whole first day where he hated her? That was just because he was so tempted to kill her that he could barely restrain himself. In some way I understand what he is attempting to say. He just doesn't know how, this would be cute if he was 17, but he's not so he should know how to explain it. Her blood overwhelms his normal restraint, the metaphor should be phrased as a person on a diet going to an all you can eat restaurant. They could just stop at the salad menu but would be sorely tempted to stick their mouth underneath the custard machine (yes, I've done it and I can never go back).

All of the vampires in Meyer's universe will eventually figure out their type (her pun not mine) over time. "He (Jasper) hasn't had time to grow sensitive to the differences in smell, flavor)."  Or it's a more of a wine thing. I can tell the difference between Chianti and Pinot Noire by taste, because I have experience in drinking wine. Or the difference between Jack Daniel's and Jameson because I drink Whiskey. Or the difference between Skyy and Absolut...you get the idea. Fine, different blood has different tastes, I'll give her that one.*

The whole issue is that it runs the cliche that these two are soul mates or whatever the equivalent is for vampires. It's not just that Bella is a good flavor,** because this isn't about her diet. She seems to eat whatever everyone else eats. It's also not about lifestyle since we know that she doesn't exercise being too clumsy. This is fate and it's completely unnecessary except for that fact that Meyer wrote herself into another corner. If you remember back at the beginning of the book Bella thought that Edward hated her, and now she's got to explain that away.

"I couldn't understand why. How you could hate me so quickly..." the trouble is, as I pointed out early in this series, is that his reaction was exactly what she expected. Edward didn't hate her he wanted to be away from her so that he could resist the temptation to eat her. Out of all the explanations this is pure deus ex machina. Why not just state that it was love at first sight and he couldn't risk exposing his family? After all this blood attraction makes the whole thing purely biological. It has nothing to do with her personality or her intelligence, it's all about the physical. It's worse than him worshiping her appearance, because to some extent everyone can exert some control over their appearance. Edward might as well be addicted to her spleen for all she is responsible for this attraction.

Then the chapter gets odd, odd for this book. Edward, because of his particular blood addiction decides to leave town. Every once in awhile this will happen to one of the vampires and they either drink their fill and kill the person, or they run. Edward, being a total chicken shit runs. Before you romantics object, remember this: he didn't run for her sake, he ran for his. Her life had nothing to do with his decision, it was all about self-preservation for him. It's the reason he saved her from the van, although the reason he's been stalking her hasn't been made clear yet.

Edward fights with his family for some reason. We aren't told, but it's after he's left and returned. The only explanation is that, "Now was the time?" We are never given any real context for that statement, even trying to be generous I can't figure out what that means.

Then the shit gets real. Like real, real. I've said several times in this series already, but I like to repeat it: Meyer does some great descriptions and can really build tension. However I've noticed the pattern, when she's not involving her insufferable main characters, or having anyone discuss anything she shines as a writer. Bella lays on the ground with Edward gently stroking his hand, not speaking the whole scene really works. When they are back at the van, they finally kiss, it's a good seen, "perhaps he would hesitate to prolong that moment, that ideal moment of anticipation, sometimes better than the kiss itself."

Been there before. The important thing is that she doesn't ruin it by having them talk for a bit, then they do and mercifully the chapter ends before it gets too lame, as if Bella just focused on the fact that his lips were icy. Because they wouldn't be, they would be room temperature. Death shouldn't make them cold, just not 98.6 right?

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*HBO's True Blood does this is as well in the new season as one of the kings pays humans to eat nothing but fruit for a month and then drains them for the flavor. I would imagine that blood is flavored by the amount of sugar and oxygen in a person. I won't quibble with her on this.

**I guess depression, false sense of entitlement and self-importance really spice the blood.