I'm sorry I'm so lazy
So forever ago I posted chapters of Twilight with my snarky commentary, and while I am proud of them over all, I saw a lot of errors, somethings I wanted to cut, somethings I wanted to add, so I'm setting a reset button, starting over and I promise I will actually finish this time.
Inscription
But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
Thou shall not eat of it,
For in the day that thou eatest thereof
Thou shalt surely die.
-Genesis 2:17
For those who do not understand why the cover has a picture of hands holding up an apple, there’s your answer. Don’t feel too bad if you didn’t see the inscription before, I’ll admit to not seeing the inscription in the last Harry Potter book till my sister said “hey, what did you think of the inscription?” That being said, what does this passage have to do with the book? The forbidden fruit is a symbol for sacred knowledge that only God is privy to. What knowledge does a non-physical higher power, or greater society, or another earth-bound power have that the characters in Twilight discover? That vampires are real? Or is it that Bella’s and Edward’s relationship will end in her death? If the latter is the case then the inscription isn’t an apt passage, since we are never shown that Edward and Bella’s relationship will end in death since Edward always saves Bella. If it’s the whole “forbidden fruit” thing, that falls apart, too since Bella and Edward’s relationship is never forbidden. Bella and Edward create all their obstacles, but I’m getting way ahead of myself. Let’s just get this show a rolling.
PREFACE
I'd never given much thought to how I would die - though I'd had reason enough in the last few months - but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.
I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me. If you’re cornered and about to die, “pleasant” doesn’t seem like a good adjective to give the person who’s about to kill you; takes intensity out of the scene.
Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved.
Noble, even. That ought to count for something.
I knew that if I'd never gone to Forks, I wouldn't be facing death now. But, terrified as I was, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision. When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end. Yes is it! We are talking about the death of 17 year old girl who is presumably in love. Greif is a very normal reaction.
The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me. “Sauntered”? Is he taking a stroll in a park on Sunday? Yes, a killer putting on a show of being kind can be really scary but since Meyer has no skills in mood building, or anything else, this whole scene just seems silly.
Also this passage should not be called a preface. A preface is a direct message the author writes to his/her audience about the book. It could be about why they wrote it, their influences, and/or who helped them along the way. This passage could be called a prologue, since a prologue is an introductory chapter.
Chapter one: FIRST SIGHT
My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix; the sky was a perfect, cloudless blue. I won’t correct every sentence, but I wanted to point out that we are only on the second sentence of the first chapter, and there is a sentence that needs correcting. I was wearing my favorite shirt - sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.
How is wearing your favorite shirt a farewell gesture? Whatever, let’s move on to the bigger issue, what 17 year old kid, of either sex, takes a long flight with only taking a parka as their carry-on? Anyone at that age that I’ve ever known would at least take their mp3 player so they could listen to music. In fact I took an 8 hour flight from Chicago to London when I was 17 and I sure as hell brought my walkman. Plus if Bella is supposed to love books as much as she does, wouldn’t she take a book to read? This would have been a good place to establish that about her, as well as the type of music she liked, showing us what makes her special, and not just telling us, with no previous hints, later.
In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America. Does the amount of rain actually make the town inconsequential? Oh, I did fact check this statement about Forks; Mobile in Alabama gets the most rainfall in the continental US. No cities in Washington State are even in the top ten. Just because a city is cloudy doesn’t mean it rains all the time. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with me when I was only a few months old. “Escaped?” Is Forks a prison? It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot down; these past three summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead. Well, that was very considerate of Charlie, wasn’t it? He clearly doesn’t have stock piles of money and it aint cheap for someone to make their way across state lines, plus they vacationed in one of the most expensive states. I bet you that Bella really appreciates that. Or she should!
It was to Forks that I now exiled myself- an action that I took with great horror.
I detested Forks. Why if she hates it so damned much? There are bad things about small towns, sure. You have to drive at least 30 minutes to get anywhere besides the local grocery store, the lack of high speed internet service, the bugs, no chain restaurants, you don’t get to meet many new people, ect. Pick a couple reasons! Let us know why you hate it there.
I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the vigorous, sprawling city. Why does she love the city? Giving some reason why she loves the city, and what actives she partook in while there, would have been good here. Just like she should have had reasons for hating Forks would have been good as well.
"Bella," my mom said to me - the last of a thousand times - before I got on the plane. "You don't have to do this."
My mom looks like me, except with short hair and laugh lines. We don’t know what Bella looks like, so this description does not service the story at all. I felt a spasm of panic as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself?
Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still…
Already my feminist sense is tingling. Her mother has to be at least in her late 30s, what woman of that age needs to have another person around to make sure all the practical necessities are taken care of? They only way I’d accept Bella’s mom being so incapable was if she had some sort of mental deficiency, but she doesn’t. Also this is not the reaction that a child should have leaving their parent. It’s like Bella is the parent to her mother, and that’s kind of messed up. But Meyer is trying to build Bella up as being such a good girl for taking care of her mother and being a trooper for not crumpling under the stress and emotional scaring of having to grow up to take care of the person who’s supposed to be taking care of her.
"I want to go," I lied. I'd always been a bad liar, but I'd been saying this lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost convincing now.
"Tell Charlie I said hi."
"I will."
"I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come home whenever you want - I'll come right back as soon as you need me."
But I could see the sacrifice in her eyes behind the promise. Huh? I think I may need some help understanding that last sentence. Is it that her Mom would be sacrificing something to bring her back home? Is that it? Whatever, it makes no damn sense.
"Don't worry about me," I urged. "It'll be great. I love you, Mom."
She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I got on the plane, and she was gone. It should be “and I was gone.” The way that is worded, it indicates that Bella is doing the leaving, not her Mom.
It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Forks. Flying doesn't bother me; the hour in the car with Charlie, though, I was a little worried about.
Charlie had really been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the first time with any degree of permanence. He'd already gotten me registered for high school and was going to help me get a car. These actions seem to warrant a better description than “fairly nice” to me.
But it was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what anyone would call verbose, and I didn't know what there was to say regardless. “Verbose” means long winded and wordy, often at the expense of succinctness. A verbose person is someone who talks just to fill silence, not a person who can talk easily. Word Usage Fail Meyer, and buckle up folks there is a lot more where that came from. I knew he was more than a little confused by my decision - like my mother before me, I hadn't made a secret of my distaste for Forks. Don’t worry Charlie, we don’t get it either.
When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen - just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun. Okay, you’re not moving to Alaska during the winter time. Cloudy =/= no sun, plus you can still go home during the summer to be with your mom.
Charlie was waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too. Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. You “refused,” really? You’re going to complain about getting something you need, a ride, even if it comes with a little inconvenience? Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.
Charlie gave me an awkward, one-armed hug when I stumbled my way off the plane. Was Charlie standing on the tarmac? Did he flash his badge to be able to get past airport security to stand and wait for his daughter on the tarmac, because that would never happen.
"It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied me. "You haven't changed much. How's Renée?"
"Mom's fine. It's good to see you, too, Dad." I wasn't allowed to call him Charlie to his face. I don’t understand why she would call him Charlie in the first place. Why does she not give him the respect of calling him “dad?” If Bella has some kind of political reason to call her parents by their first names, it’s never said, she refers to her mom by her first name later as well. And if it’s because emotionally she doesn’t see him as her father, a good reason isn’t given. She said that she and her father see each other every summer, and he rose to the occasion to her set up in Forks. He looks like a great guy from my eyes at this point in the story.
I had only a few bags. Most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable for Washington. If something is permeable that means it can be passed through and this is usually in reference to liquids or gases. It can also mean leaky or pervious. Word Usage Fail. My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty. It all fit easily into the trunk of the cruiser.
"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced when we were strapped in.
"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car for you" as opposed to just "good car." Maybe it’s just me, but I know I would have been a least a little happy to know that I didn’t have to go through the trouble of finding a car. But then I just care if my care runs.
"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."
"Where did you find it?"
"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" La Push is the tiny Indian reservation on the coast.
"No."
"He used to go fishing with us during the summer," Charlie prompted.
That would explain why I didn't remember him. I do a good job of blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory. Again, if she hates it there so damned much, why is she going to this town willingly? Having had memories of the place she considered “painful.”
"He's in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued when I didn't respond, "so he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap." Okay, so the reason why Billy is in a wheelchair is because, according to Meyer, he has diabetes. She said that the diabetes “caused nerve damage in his feet and legs. He hasn’t had to have anything amputated yet, but he’ll never walk again.” We are never told about this in the actual story, but you think we would, since Jacob has to take of him. I mean, it is a life changing disease. Plus if his diabetes is so server it causes nerve damage, wouldn’t he have other complications? Put on another buckle good people, because it will not be the only time Meyer’s astonishing lack of research in anything becomes apparent. Research Fail.
"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression that this was the question he was hoping I wouldn't ask.
"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine - it's only a few years old, really."
I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily.
"When did he buy it?"
"He bought it in 1984, I think."
"Did he buy it new?"
"Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties - or late fifties at the earliest," he admitted sheepishly.
"Ch - Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic…"
"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that anymore."
The thing, I thought to myself… it had possibilities - as a nickname, at the very least. Right little ray of sunshine, isn’t she?
"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise on.
"Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift."
Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression. How sweet, honestly. He got her a gift!
Wow. Free. Is this comment supposed to be sarcastic? That’s what it sounds like. What person of lower or middle income isn’t happy to have a car that was needed? She sounds completely ungrateful.
"You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy myself a car." She just said a she didn’t have money to get a car on her own, so she’s lying to him. If this is a knee-jerk reaction to being surprised, in a good or a bad way, by Charlie’s generosity it’s not explained. So all we know here is that she’s lying to her Dad without a reason. Plus it was a gift, the courteous thing to do is to say “thank you” and everyone I know would have been happy and grateful to have been gifted a car.
"I don't mind. I want you to be happy here." He was looking ahead at the road when he said this. Charlie wasn't comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. I inherited that from him. So I was looking straight ahead as I responded.
"That's really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it." No need to add that my being happy in Forks is an impossibility. He didn't need to suffer along with me. Wow, how selfless of you. (Unless you’re wondering, this is me being sarcastic.) There’s no description of the tone in her voice, so if she said it in a monotone voice it would make her comment sound sarcastic. She would there for be ungrateful for her father’s gift. And just how many times has she hinted that she hates Forks? At least eight at this point, Meyer, we get it already.
And I never looked a free truck in the mouth - or engine.
"Well, now, you're welcome," he mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks. Aww, what a nice guy, I feel bad for him with his daughter who’s determined to have an “I’m only happy when it rains” attitude.
We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was pretty much it for conversation. We stared out the windows in silence. It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.
Alright, I’m not an English major, but this paragraph even made me cringe. It started off as simply awkwardly worded, nothing a few tweaks couldn’t fix. Even though I’m not sure that you can use a pronoun to put in place of an adjective, “their branches hanging with a canopy of it,” it here referring back to the green of the forest. But the last sentence is just awful. “Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.” What the hell does that mean? I think she’s trying to describe what it looks like when the sun shines on the trees, and because tree leaves are translucent, the light in the trees looks green.
But is “greenly” even a word? And if you add a ly to any other color it just sounds terrible, just try it. Orangely, bluely, brownly, yellowly, blackly, whitely, redly…it sounds like someone who doesn’t know how to use English properly.
It was too green - an alien planet. Wow, leave it to Bella to have a complaint about even the inspiring beauty of nature, the transcendentalists would roll over in their graves.
Eventually we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had - the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new - well, new to me - truck. It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged - the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed. That was actually a pretty good description, I think.
"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" There’s the sincere “thank you.” Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just that much less dreadful. Seriously stop talking about how everything sucks; you’re worse than Shinji Ikari. Just keep telling yourself “I musn’t run away.” I wouldn't be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chief's cruiser.
"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed again.
It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. Here again is an opportunity for us to learn more about Bella. A person’s belongings always say a lot about them. She could have been described doing things like setting her books on the desk, standing up pictures of her friends and family, putting her CDs somewhere, ect. I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had been belonged to me since I was born. Wait a second “it had been belonged to me since I was born”?! Please tell me that is a pdf error. That is Engrish bad. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window - these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The desk now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. This was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. “This” is a demonstrative pronoun; a demonstrative pronoun can work as a determiner or has a pronoun, in this case it’s acting as a pronoun. The last noun in the last sentence was “phone jack.” So the phone jack was a stipulation from Bella’s mom. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact. Is this really worth bitching about? You have to share with one other person, how is this a big deal? One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover. He left me alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. Crying along with the rain, how clichéd. I wasn't in the mood to go on a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have to think about the coming morning. I’m choking on the angst that seems to be self-inflicted. She’s either hinted at or said flat out at least 10 times that she hates Forks and/or doesn’t want to be there. Furthermore, she hasn’t given any hints as to why she’s come to the small town. It’s hard to have sympathy for her because of this fact, it just seems like she enjoys complaining.
Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven - now fifty-eight - students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together -their grandparents had been toddlers together.
I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak. I think “freak” is a tad over dramatic. Plus, I’m sure the high school has had other new kids before. Small town people are not simple country bumpkins. They do go into the cities; you know where city people live. People of all ages like malls and movie theaters. They are aware of people who live outside of their little town; I’m sure some of them even have relatives outside of Forks.
Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could work this to my advantage. But physically, I'd never fit in anywhere. How does having dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin make it hard to fit in? And true, I’ve never been to Phoenix, but people with dark eyes and hair everywhere in the world. I should be tan, sporty, blond - a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps - all the things that go with living in the valley of the sun. First of all should “valley of the sun” be capitalized? Secondly, though I’ve never been there I know that coming from that area does not automatically make you tan and sporty. One would have to actually get outside in the sun and play sports to be like that. Bella does not play sports, instead she loves to read, an indoor activity. Also it’s as if Meyer wants to establish Bella isn’t a Sue from the sentence above. But those of us versed in too much crappy fan fiction know better. Saying “oh look she’s not anyone’s obvious standard of beauty, and she doesn’t look like a regular teen from Arizona so that makes her ZOMG unique.”
Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. Logically, this doesn’t make any sense. I’m really pale as well, so much so that my sister calls me “vampire.” But I avoid the sun as much as I can because I burn very easily, as do all people with pale skin. So unless Bella coats herself with sunscreen or has some kind of skin condition that makes her pale despite the sun it’s impossible for her to be pale and be out in the sun all the time. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself - and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.
I’m sorry but this sounds like “oh, poor me. I have dark eyes and hair! Therefore I must not be very pretty, because of how common dark eyes are hair are.” ::rolls eyes:: Please, and “soft somehow,” this implies I think, that she has curves. So you’re skinny, have curves, dark eyes and hair, have clear skin, and you’re pale. Wow, you must be really ugly.
When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my bag of bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean myself up after the day of travel. A “communal bathroom” is a bathroom that is shared by a group of relative strangers like at a bed and breakfast, a summer camp, on in military lodging. The word you should use is “shared.” Word Usage Fail. I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed through my tangled, damp hair. Maybe it was the light, but already I looked sallower, unhealthy. My skin could be pretty - it was very clear, almost translucent-looking- but it all depended on color. Meyer, you know that translucent means see-through, right? Then all of her veins would be really noticeable, and that’s kind of gross. But hey, it is a vampire novel. I had no color here. Complain, complain, complain.
Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. And if I couldn't find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were my chances here?
I didn't relate well to people my age. Me either and I’ve been aware of this fact since I was eight, but I could give actual reasons why that is. Maybe the truth was that I didn't relate well to people, period. And that is entirely your flat, Bella. You talk down to everyone and complain about everything. Who could relate to you besides other arrogant emo assholes…which is exactly what the Cullens are so there you go. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page.
Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain. Well there is therapy for that, it’s called depression. There’s medication, too. But the cause didn't matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be just the beginning.
I think that this is the first time that Meyer takes her position of the writer for granted, that we’ll just instantly buy into what she’s telling us without any previous evidence. Every teenager has angst, they are all worried about not fitting in, not being one of the in crowd. This makes Bella as common as they come, and in no way unusual. The only thing that we have gotten from Bella is a steady stream negativity; saying that she’ll never be happy here, which again is completely normal for teens, to complain. Meyer tells us Bella’s never fit in, but gives us no hint as to WHY. What is it about her that’s so different? And the fact that Bella has never fit in doesn’t get anymore convincing no matter how many ways Meyer repeats it. Telling, and not showing, as she continues to do through the whole book.
I didn't sleep well that night, even after I was done crying. The constant whooshing of the rain and wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the background. I pulled the faded old quilt over my head, and later added the pillow, too. But I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight, when the rain finally settled into a quieter drizzle.
Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like a cage. Could she complain more about being there? I’m not sure that’s possible. And for anyone wondering, it does in fact get sunny in the Pacific Northwest during the summer and fall and it’s very temperate then. I’ve found this out from livejournal users who live there. It wasn’t that hard to figure out this information.
Breakfast with Charlie was a quiet event. He wished me good luck at school. I thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me. You it’s possible that good things to happen to you, like getting a free car, but you’re too much of a wangsty brat to notice.
Charlie left first, off to the police station that was his wife and family. After he left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the three unmatching chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Unmatching is not a word, by the way. Nothing was changed. My mother had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago in an attempt to bring some sunshine into the house.
Over the small fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room was a row of pictures. First a wedding picture of Charlie and my mom in Las Vegas, then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a helpful nurse, followed by the procession of my school pictures up to last year's. Those were embarrassing to look at - I would have to see what I could do to get Charlie to put them somewhere else, at least while I was living here. Well isn’t that nice of Bella, coming into her father’s house and changing it to suit her wants.
It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that Charlie had never gotten over my mom. It made me uncomfortable. I actually think this is a bit of clever writing here, showing us that Charlie Swan has never gotten over his wife by the evidence of the state his house is in. See, belongings say a lot about the person.
I didn't want to be too early to school, but I couldn't stay in the house anymore. Shouldn’t it be “I didn’t want to stay in the house anymore?” She can in the house she just doesn’t want to because she’s uncomfortable. I donned my jacket - which had the feel of a biohazard suit urg, stop it- and headed out into the rain.
It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak me through immediately as I reached for the house key that was always hidden under the eaves by the door, and locked up. The sloshing of my new waterproof boots was unnerving. I missed the normal crunch of gravel as I walked. Does she have to complain about every little thing? And gravel still crunches even if it’s wet. I couldn't pause and admire my truck again as I wanted; I was in a hurry to get out of the misty wet that swirled around my head and clung to my hair under my hood.
Inscription
But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
Thou shall not eat of it,
For in the day that thou eatest thereof
Thou shalt surely die.
-Genesis 2:17
For those who do not understand why the cover has a picture of hands holding up an apple, there’s your answer. Don’t feel too bad if you didn’t see the inscription before, I’ll admit to not seeing the inscription in the last Harry Potter book till my sister said “hey, what did you think of the inscription?” That being said, what does this passage have to do with the book? The forbidden fruit is a symbol for sacred knowledge that only God is privy to. What knowledge does a non-physical higher power, or greater society, or another earth-bound power have that the characters in Twilight discover? That vampires are real? Or is it that Bella’s and Edward’s relationship will end in her death? If the latter is the case then the inscription isn’t an apt passage, since we are never shown that Edward and Bella’s relationship will end in death since Edward always saves Bella. If it’s the whole “forbidden fruit” thing, that falls apart, too since Bella and Edward’s relationship is never forbidden. Bella and Edward create all their obstacles, but I’m getting way ahead of myself. Let’s just get this show a rolling.
PREFACE
I'd never given much thought to how I would die - though I'd had reason enough in the last few months - but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.
I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me. If you’re cornered and about to die, “pleasant” doesn’t seem like a good adjective to give the person who’s about to kill you; takes intensity out of the scene.
Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved.
Noble, even. That ought to count for something.
I knew that if I'd never gone to Forks, I wouldn't be facing death now. But, terrified as I was, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision. When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end. Yes is it! We are talking about the death of 17 year old girl who is presumably in love. Greif is a very normal reaction.
The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me. “Sauntered”? Is he taking a stroll in a park on Sunday? Yes, a killer putting on a show of being kind can be really scary but since Meyer has no skills in mood building, or anything else, this whole scene just seems silly.
Also this passage should not be called a preface. A preface is a direct message the author writes to his/her audience about the book. It could be about why they wrote it, their influences, and/or who helped them along the way. This passage could be called a prologue, since a prologue is an introductory chapter.
Chapter one: FIRST SIGHT
My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix; the sky was a perfect, cloudless blue. I won’t correct every sentence, but I wanted to point out that we are only on the second sentence of the first chapter, and there is a sentence that needs correcting. I was wearing my favorite shirt - sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.
How is wearing your favorite shirt a farewell gesture? Whatever, let’s move on to the bigger issue, what 17 year old kid, of either sex, takes a long flight with only taking a parka as their carry-on? Anyone at that age that I’ve ever known would at least take their mp3 player so they could listen to music. In fact I took an 8 hour flight from Chicago to London when I was 17 and I sure as hell brought my walkman. Plus if Bella is supposed to love books as much as she does, wouldn’t she take a book to read? This would have been a good place to establish that about her, as well as the type of music she liked, showing us what makes her special, and not just telling us, with no previous hints, later.
In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America. Does the amount of rain actually make the town inconsequential? Oh, I did fact check this statement about Forks; Mobile in Alabama gets the most rainfall in the continental US. No cities in Washington State are even in the top ten. Just because a city is cloudy doesn’t mean it rains all the time. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with me when I was only a few months old. “Escaped?” Is Forks a prison? It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot down; these past three summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead. Well, that was very considerate of Charlie, wasn’t it? He clearly doesn’t have stock piles of money and it aint cheap for someone to make their way across state lines, plus they vacationed in one of the most expensive states. I bet you that Bella really appreciates that. Or she should!
It was to Forks that I now exiled myself- an action that I took with great horror.
I detested Forks. Why if she hates it so damned much? There are bad things about small towns, sure. You have to drive at least 30 minutes to get anywhere besides the local grocery store, the lack of high speed internet service, the bugs, no chain restaurants, you don’t get to meet many new people, ect. Pick a couple reasons! Let us know why you hate it there.
I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the vigorous, sprawling city. Why does she love the city? Giving some reason why she loves the city, and what actives she partook in while there, would have been good here. Just like she should have had reasons for hating Forks would have been good as well.
"Bella," my mom said to me - the last of a thousand times - before I got on the plane. "You don't have to do this."
My mom looks like me, except with short hair and laugh lines. We don’t know what Bella looks like, so this description does not service the story at all. I felt a spasm of panic as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself?
Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still…
Already my feminist sense is tingling. Her mother has to be at least in her late 30s, what woman of that age needs to have another person around to make sure all the practical necessities are taken care of? They only way I’d accept Bella’s mom being so incapable was if she had some sort of mental deficiency, but she doesn’t. Also this is not the reaction that a child should have leaving their parent. It’s like Bella is the parent to her mother, and that’s kind of messed up. But Meyer is trying to build Bella up as being such a good girl for taking care of her mother and being a trooper for not crumpling under the stress and emotional scaring of having to grow up to take care of the person who’s supposed to be taking care of her.
"I want to go," I lied. I'd always been a bad liar, but I'd been saying this lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost convincing now.
"Tell Charlie I said hi."
"I will."
"I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come home whenever you want - I'll come right back as soon as you need me."
But I could see the sacrifice in her eyes behind the promise. Huh? I think I may need some help understanding that last sentence. Is it that her Mom would be sacrificing something to bring her back home? Is that it? Whatever, it makes no damn sense.
"Don't worry about me," I urged. "It'll be great. I love you, Mom."
She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I got on the plane, and she was gone. It should be “and I was gone.” The way that is worded, it indicates that Bella is doing the leaving, not her Mom.
It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Forks. Flying doesn't bother me; the hour in the car with Charlie, though, I was a little worried about.
Charlie had really been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the first time with any degree of permanence. He'd already gotten me registered for high school and was going to help me get a car. These actions seem to warrant a better description than “fairly nice” to me.
But it was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what anyone would call verbose, and I didn't know what there was to say regardless. “Verbose” means long winded and wordy, often at the expense of succinctness. A verbose person is someone who talks just to fill silence, not a person who can talk easily. Word Usage Fail Meyer, and buckle up folks there is a lot more where that came from. I knew he was more than a little confused by my decision - like my mother before me, I hadn't made a secret of my distaste for Forks. Don’t worry Charlie, we don’t get it either.
When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen - just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun. Okay, you’re not moving to Alaska during the winter time. Cloudy =/= no sun, plus you can still go home during the summer to be with your mom.
Charlie was waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too. Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. You “refused,” really? You’re going to complain about getting something you need, a ride, even if it comes with a little inconvenience? Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.
Charlie gave me an awkward, one-armed hug when I stumbled my way off the plane. Was Charlie standing on the tarmac? Did he flash his badge to be able to get past airport security to stand and wait for his daughter on the tarmac, because that would never happen.
"It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied me. "You haven't changed much. How's Renée?"
"Mom's fine. It's good to see you, too, Dad." I wasn't allowed to call him Charlie to his face. I don’t understand why she would call him Charlie in the first place. Why does she not give him the respect of calling him “dad?” If Bella has some kind of political reason to call her parents by their first names, it’s never said, she refers to her mom by her first name later as well. And if it’s because emotionally she doesn’t see him as her father, a good reason isn’t given. She said that she and her father see each other every summer, and he rose to the occasion to her set up in Forks. He looks like a great guy from my eyes at this point in the story.
I had only a few bags. Most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable for Washington. If something is permeable that means it can be passed through and this is usually in reference to liquids or gases. It can also mean leaky or pervious. Word Usage Fail. My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty. It all fit easily into the trunk of the cruiser.
"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced when we were strapped in.
"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car for you" as opposed to just "good car." Maybe it’s just me, but I know I would have been a least a little happy to know that I didn’t have to go through the trouble of finding a car. But then I just care if my care runs.
"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."
"Where did you find it?"
"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" La Push is the tiny Indian reservation on the coast.
"No."
"He used to go fishing with us during the summer," Charlie prompted.
That would explain why I didn't remember him. I do a good job of blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory. Again, if she hates it there so damned much, why is she going to this town willingly? Having had memories of the place she considered “painful.”
"He's in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued when I didn't respond, "so he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap." Okay, so the reason why Billy is in a wheelchair is because, according to Meyer, he has diabetes. She said that the diabetes “caused nerve damage in his feet and legs. He hasn’t had to have anything amputated yet, but he’ll never walk again.” We are never told about this in the actual story, but you think we would, since Jacob has to take of him. I mean, it is a life changing disease. Plus if his diabetes is so server it causes nerve damage, wouldn’t he have other complications? Put on another buckle good people, because it will not be the only time Meyer’s astonishing lack of research in anything becomes apparent. Research Fail.
"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression that this was the question he was hoping I wouldn't ask.
"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine - it's only a few years old, really."
I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily.
"When did he buy it?"
"He bought it in 1984, I think."
"Did he buy it new?"
"Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties - or late fifties at the earliest," he admitted sheepishly.
"Ch - Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic…"
"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that anymore."
The thing, I thought to myself… it had possibilities - as a nickname, at the very least. Right little ray of sunshine, isn’t she?
"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise on.
"Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift."
Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression. How sweet, honestly. He got her a gift!
Wow. Free. Is this comment supposed to be sarcastic? That’s what it sounds like. What person of lower or middle income isn’t happy to have a car that was needed? She sounds completely ungrateful.
"You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy myself a car." She just said a she didn’t have money to get a car on her own, so she’s lying to him. If this is a knee-jerk reaction to being surprised, in a good or a bad way, by Charlie’s generosity it’s not explained. So all we know here is that she’s lying to her Dad without a reason. Plus it was a gift, the courteous thing to do is to say “thank you” and everyone I know would have been happy and grateful to have been gifted a car.
"I don't mind. I want you to be happy here." He was looking ahead at the road when he said this. Charlie wasn't comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. I inherited that from him. So I was looking straight ahead as I responded.
"That's really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it." No need to add that my being happy in Forks is an impossibility. He didn't need to suffer along with me. Wow, how selfless of you. (Unless you’re wondering, this is me being sarcastic.) There’s no description of the tone in her voice, so if she said it in a monotone voice it would make her comment sound sarcastic. She would there for be ungrateful for her father’s gift. And just how many times has she hinted that she hates Forks? At least eight at this point, Meyer, we get it already.
And I never looked a free truck in the mouth - or engine.
"Well, now, you're welcome," he mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks. Aww, what a nice guy, I feel bad for him with his daughter who’s determined to have an “I’m only happy when it rains” attitude.
We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was pretty much it for conversation. We stared out the windows in silence. It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.
Alright, I’m not an English major, but this paragraph even made me cringe. It started off as simply awkwardly worded, nothing a few tweaks couldn’t fix. Even though I’m not sure that you can use a pronoun to put in place of an adjective, “their branches hanging with a canopy of it,” it here referring back to the green of the forest. But the last sentence is just awful. “Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.” What the hell does that mean? I think she’s trying to describe what it looks like when the sun shines on the trees, and because tree leaves are translucent, the light in the trees looks green.
But is “greenly” even a word? And if you add a ly to any other color it just sounds terrible, just try it. Orangely, bluely, brownly, yellowly, blackly, whitely, redly…it sounds like someone who doesn’t know how to use English properly.
It was too green - an alien planet. Wow, leave it to Bella to have a complaint about even the inspiring beauty of nature, the transcendentalists would roll over in their graves.
Eventually we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had - the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new - well, new to me - truck. It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged - the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed. That was actually a pretty good description, I think.
"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" There’s the sincere “thank you.” Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just that much less dreadful. Seriously stop talking about how everything sucks; you’re worse than Shinji Ikari. Just keep telling yourself “I musn’t run away.” I wouldn't be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chief's cruiser.
"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed again.
It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. Here again is an opportunity for us to learn more about Bella. A person’s belongings always say a lot about them. She could have been described doing things like setting her books on the desk, standing up pictures of her friends and family, putting her CDs somewhere, ect. I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had been belonged to me since I was born. Wait a second “it had been belonged to me since I was born”?! Please tell me that is a pdf error. That is Engrish bad. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window - these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The desk now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. This was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. “This” is a demonstrative pronoun; a demonstrative pronoun can work as a determiner or has a pronoun, in this case it’s acting as a pronoun. The last noun in the last sentence was “phone jack.” So the phone jack was a stipulation from Bella’s mom. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact. Is this really worth bitching about? You have to share with one other person, how is this a big deal? One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover. He left me alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. Crying along with the rain, how clichéd. I wasn't in the mood to go on a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have to think about the coming morning. I’m choking on the angst that seems to be self-inflicted. She’s either hinted at or said flat out at least 10 times that she hates Forks and/or doesn’t want to be there. Furthermore, she hasn’t given any hints as to why she’s come to the small town. It’s hard to have sympathy for her because of this fact, it just seems like she enjoys complaining.
Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven - now fifty-eight - students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together -their grandparents had been toddlers together.
I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak. I think “freak” is a tad over dramatic. Plus, I’m sure the high school has had other new kids before. Small town people are not simple country bumpkins. They do go into the cities; you know where city people live. People of all ages like malls and movie theaters. They are aware of people who live outside of their little town; I’m sure some of them even have relatives outside of Forks.
Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could work this to my advantage. But physically, I'd never fit in anywhere. How does having dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin make it hard to fit in? And true, I’ve never been to Phoenix, but people with dark eyes and hair everywhere in the world. I should be tan, sporty, blond - a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps - all the things that go with living in the valley of the sun. First of all should “valley of the sun” be capitalized? Secondly, though I’ve never been there I know that coming from that area does not automatically make you tan and sporty. One would have to actually get outside in the sun and play sports to be like that. Bella does not play sports, instead she loves to read, an indoor activity. Also it’s as if Meyer wants to establish Bella isn’t a Sue from the sentence above. But those of us versed in too much crappy fan fiction know better. Saying “oh look she’s not anyone’s obvious standard of beauty, and she doesn’t look like a regular teen from Arizona so that makes her ZOMG unique.”
Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. Logically, this doesn’t make any sense. I’m really pale as well, so much so that my sister calls me “vampire.” But I avoid the sun as much as I can because I burn very easily, as do all people with pale skin. So unless Bella coats herself with sunscreen or has some kind of skin condition that makes her pale despite the sun it’s impossible for her to be pale and be out in the sun all the time. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself - and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.
I’m sorry but this sounds like “oh, poor me. I have dark eyes and hair! Therefore I must not be very pretty, because of how common dark eyes are hair are.” ::rolls eyes:: Please, and “soft somehow,” this implies I think, that she has curves. So you’re skinny, have curves, dark eyes and hair, have clear skin, and you’re pale. Wow, you must be really ugly.
When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my bag of bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean myself up after the day of travel. A “communal bathroom” is a bathroom that is shared by a group of relative strangers like at a bed and breakfast, a summer camp, on in military lodging. The word you should use is “shared.” Word Usage Fail. I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed through my tangled, damp hair. Maybe it was the light, but already I looked sallower, unhealthy. My skin could be pretty - it was very clear, almost translucent-looking- but it all depended on color. Meyer, you know that translucent means see-through, right? Then all of her veins would be really noticeable, and that’s kind of gross. But hey, it is a vampire novel. I had no color here. Complain, complain, complain.
Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. And if I couldn't find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were my chances here?
I didn't relate well to people my age. Me either and I’ve been aware of this fact since I was eight, but I could give actual reasons why that is. Maybe the truth was that I didn't relate well to people, period. And that is entirely your flat, Bella. You talk down to everyone and complain about everything. Who could relate to you besides other arrogant emo assholes…which is exactly what the Cullens are so there you go. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page.
Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain. Well there is therapy for that, it’s called depression. There’s medication, too. But the cause didn't matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be just the beginning.
I think that this is the first time that Meyer takes her position of the writer for granted, that we’ll just instantly buy into what she’s telling us without any previous evidence. Every teenager has angst, they are all worried about not fitting in, not being one of the in crowd. This makes Bella as common as they come, and in no way unusual. The only thing that we have gotten from Bella is a steady stream negativity; saying that she’ll never be happy here, which again is completely normal for teens, to complain. Meyer tells us Bella’s never fit in, but gives us no hint as to WHY. What is it about her that’s so different? And the fact that Bella has never fit in doesn’t get anymore convincing no matter how many ways Meyer repeats it. Telling, and not showing, as she continues to do through the whole book.
I didn't sleep well that night, even after I was done crying. The constant whooshing of the rain and wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the background. I pulled the faded old quilt over my head, and later added the pillow, too. But I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight, when the rain finally settled into a quieter drizzle.
Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like a cage. Could she complain more about being there? I’m not sure that’s possible. And for anyone wondering, it does in fact get sunny in the Pacific Northwest during the summer and fall and it’s very temperate then. I’ve found this out from livejournal users who live there. It wasn’t that hard to figure out this information.
Breakfast with Charlie was a quiet event. He wished me good luck at school. I thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me. You it’s possible that good things to happen to you, like getting a free car, but you’re too much of a wangsty brat to notice.
Charlie left first, off to the police station that was his wife and family. After he left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the three unmatching chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Unmatching is not a word, by the way. Nothing was changed. My mother had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago in an attempt to bring some sunshine into the house.
Over the small fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room was a row of pictures. First a wedding picture of Charlie and my mom in Las Vegas, then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a helpful nurse, followed by the procession of my school pictures up to last year's. Those were embarrassing to look at - I would have to see what I could do to get Charlie to put them somewhere else, at least while I was living here. Well isn’t that nice of Bella, coming into her father’s house and changing it to suit her wants.
It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that Charlie had never gotten over my mom. It made me uncomfortable. I actually think this is a bit of clever writing here, showing us that Charlie Swan has never gotten over his wife by the evidence of the state his house is in. See, belongings say a lot about the person.
I didn't want to be too early to school, but I couldn't stay in the house anymore. Shouldn’t it be “I didn’t want to stay in the house anymore?” She can in the house she just doesn’t want to because she’s uncomfortable. I donned my jacket - which had the feel of a biohazard suit urg, stop it- and headed out into the rain.
It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak me through immediately as I reached for the house key that was always hidden under the eaves by the door, and locked up. The sloshing of my new waterproof boots was unnerving. I missed the normal crunch of gravel as I walked. Does she have to complain about every little thing? And gravel still crunches even if it’s wet. I couldn't pause and admire my truck again as I wanted; I was in a hurry to get out of the misty wet that swirled around my head and clung to my hair under my hood.