Previously: A million pages of Quileute legends. Also, Edward can relate to Heathcliff, further proving that he’s the actual worst.
—
Kirsti: The next day, Alice informs Bella that they’re throwing a graduation party, and also she’s only telling Bella this because she had a vision that Bella would freak the fuck out if it was a surprise. (M: HOW THE HELL is she having a vision about that if it is in no way a decision Bella is making…?) (K: Contrivance.) Bella grumbles about it, and then wants to know why they couldn’t have waited to tell her until closer to graduation. Alice is all “Uh. Graduation is a week away, girl…”
Marines: Time kind of speeds up on me all the time. I get it. But more in a, “I can’t believe it’s June!” kind of way and not this crazy reaction Bella’s having because apparently she missed the June memo entirely.
K: Bella freaks the fuck out, because “I was out of time.” She doesn’t know how to say goodbye to her parents and Jacob. In theory, apparently, everything makes sense and she’s super excited about becoming a vampire. But “In practice…being human was all I knew.” Finding out that her date is only a week away makes her “feel like [I had] a date with the firing squad.”
Catherine: I mean… then don’t do it? This is so entirely your decision that no one else even wants it.
Annie: Careful, you’re going to unravel this very, very delicate plot.
K: If we’ve learnt anything in our time on Snark Squad, it’s not to poke the plot holes.
She basically has a full on dissociative moment that lasts until Edward pulls up outside her house and asks what the fuck is going on because she’s freaking him out. She says that the date caught her off guard and that she doesn’t know what to tell Charlie about why she’s about to mysteriously vanish. Edward points out that they can wait until she’s ready, it’s her choice, “You won’t be forced into this.” Well. That’s a relief?
Mari: It almost makes you forget that he’s also kind of blackmailing her with marriage.
K: Such a dreamboat.
She mutters that Carlisle promised to turn her after graduation, and Edward points out that “after graduation” doesn’t have to mean literally after the ceremony. They have a long boring conversation about what she’s supposed to be buying him and Alice as graduation presents (Alice already foresaw it and loved it and Bella has no fucking clue what it is) that I give zero fucks about.
Catherine: This week in ‘why is this book so fucking long?’ (M: Psychic graduation gifts.)
K: Then she asks him why he doesn’t want her to be a vampire. The answer is basically that he thinks it’s ridiculously selfish of him to want her to be a vampire because it means she’ll lose her soul. But it includes the sentence “You could do so much better, Bella,” and that made me laugh a lot because #ACCURATE. So let’s stick with that as the real reason.
Annie: I mean, Bella could choose to spend the rest of her life with a rock, and she’d be doing better, so that’s the realest thing Edward has ever said.
Mari: #TeamRock
K: I’m #TeamRock but also #TeamTheRock because he’s delightful and actually seems to respect women. Unlike Edward Cullen.
Anyway, Bella heaves a sigh of relief because she thought it was because he thought she’d smell gross and look gross when she’s not squishy and breakable and a prey species. He laughs because she’s so fucking stupid. She decides that if he actually, genuinely wants her that she’ll be able to get through saying goodbye to everyone she loves. I continue to give zero fucks about any of this.
And then. THEN. We’re treated to this wonderful explanation:
“I don’t think you realize how much easier it will be for me, Bella,” he said, the echo of his humor still there in his voice, “when I don’t have to concentrate all the time on not killing you.”
SWOON. No, seriously, you guys. Edward Cullen is the epitome of all the YA romantic leads and should be placed on a fucking pedestal for not MURDERING THE PROTAGONIST EVERY TIME HE’S AROUND HER. WHAT THE FUCK EVEN IS THIS.
Mari: Oh, gosh! Good! It’s been a while since we had a nice reminder that Edward’s real attraction to Bella is a fatal one.
K: So nice of Steph to bring it up again.
Apparently he’ll miss her heartbeat and the fact that she blushes really easily, but “You’ll always be my Bella, you’ll just be a little more durable.” Wow. Sexy. I just did a Google Image search for “durable” to see what came up, and it was basically just people dropping phones in water, stabbing phones with kitchen knives, and trying to set fire to phones with cigarette lighters. So… Vamp!Bella will be a really great screen protector? Okay then.
Mari: IDK. Durable reminds me of paper towels…?
Catherine: ‘Durable’ is such a weird word choice for this. WTF is he planning on doing to her that she’s gonna need to endure?
Annie: Oh, I could tell you, but it would be a spoiler. Hint: it rhymes with harkle ween.
K: 
The never-ending-conversation-about-things-I-give-zero-fucks-about continues: Edward wants to know why Bella doesn’t want to get married. Uh, maybe because SHE’S EIGHTEEN AND YOU’VE NEVER DONE ANYTHING MORE THAN KISS WITH CLOSED MOUTHS?? But the real answer is that she doesn’t want to be “that girl” because it’s not who she is. He’s all “Wait, what?” because he thought that she wanted to be immortal more than she wanted him.
Catherine: Also, before saying she doesn’t want to be ‘that girl’ (my least favorite saying in the world, btw) she clarifies that she wants to be ‘smart’, ‘responsible’ and ‘mature’. All things she hasn’t shown any of throughout this entire series. Somewhere ‘that girl’ is just happy that she’s not Bella freaking Swan.
K: And then he tells her that he was always “that boy” who at the age of 17 would have given up his plans of being a soldier in order to propose because she’s everything he ever wanted in life and he couldn’t possibly waste a second of their time together. He smiles his crooked smile, and we all gratefully pause for some alcohol.
He reminds her to breathe, so let’s have another round for the hell of it.
Alrighty. Edward asks if she can see his side now, and she has a momentary vision of her in a long skirt and a high necked blouse and Edward in a light coloured suit sitting together on a porch swing. Then she decides that she’s having Anne of Green Gables flashbacks. Don’t you DARE compare yourself to Anne Shirley, Bella. Don’t you fucking dare. And Edward I’m-Doing-My-Best-Not-To-Kill-You Cullen is a hell of a long way from being Gilbert Blythe.
Bella informs him that “marriage and eternity are not mutually exclusive or mutually inclusive concepts” and suggests that he get with the times. He points out that she’ll be leaving her world soon, so maybe she should stop letting society influence her so much. Then he says that he’s still willing to turn her, as long as they get married first. She hums Wagner’s Wedding March and decides that it sounds “like a dirge“. Kind of appropriate, really, because the bride from Wagner’s Lohengrin dies shortly after her wedding without ever getting laid.
Annie: Seriously. Which is why I walked down the aisle to ‘I’m Yours’. But I was also not 18 and had built an actual relationship with the person I’d decided to marry. We had shared experiences, interests, gone on vacations together, lived together, had long discussions about our future and goals and plans. Like, I understand and recognize Bella’s squeamishness about getting married to someone she barely knows or likes. That makes sense to me. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me in these books, but I’m trying to be realistic about my expectations.
K: Yeah, her “WTF NO” feelings about marriage are definitely the only sensible part of these books.
Then it’s the next morning, and Bella’s freaking out about how much studying she has to do for finals. Um. Surely if there’s now less than a week until graduation, she should have HAD her finals already??? Or maybe I’m just very confused about this because I started my final exams on October 27th, finished on November 5th, and then graduated on December 8th…
BUT I DIGRESS.
She goes downstairs for breakfast and decides to flip through the paper to look for the PHONE NUMBER TO RING TO GET CONCERT TICKETS FOR EDWARD AND ALICE. Further proof that this series is set in the 90s. I haven’t had to book tickets over the phone… uh, EVER? But certainly not in 2007.
Catherine: Guaranteed those tickets are being delivered via the Pony Express with some fucking war telegrams and shit.
K: You know, provided the ponies can avoid the werewolves and vampires…
Bella gets distracted before getting to the phone number, because the newspaper’s headline is “SEATTLE TERRORIZED BY SLAYINGS“. And then we’re treated to a TWO AND A HALF PAGE newspaper article.
Are you serious right now? Am I being punked?
Ugh. Whatever. I’ll recap this shit in bullet point form because no one cares:
- 39 homicides and disappearances in Seattle in the last 3 months
- Police reluctant to believe it could be one person
- Police suspect gang activity
- No pattern between the victims
- “The victims are racially diverse: Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanics and Asians.” <– THE MOST DIVERSE MOMENT IN THIS WHOLE FUCKING SERIES.
- Bodies have been burnt to delay identification
- No forensics left behind
- Victims aren’t homeless or poor or otherwise gross
- All victims vanished at night
- Murders are getting more frequent
- “something hideous is stalking Seattle.”
Catherine: This book is so fucking long it covers SEVERAL DIFFERENT FORMATS, GUYS.
Mari: Only hits that single note when it comes to quality, though: terrible.
K: Agreed.
Edward arrives silently and Bella freaks the fuck out. She shoves the paper at him, and he says they’ll have to do something about it. Alice can’t see anything about the killings, and is starting to think her power may be disappearing. Edward suggests they skip school to talk to Jasper, and Bella agrees though she doesn’t understand what Jasper has to do with anything.
They head to Chez Cullen, where the rest of the family are watching the news about the possible serial killer. Emmett wants to go deal with it now because he’s bored. Carlisle says they’re not the Volturi so it’s not their business. Edward doesn’t want the Volturi to turn up. Esme, bless her, points out that innocent people are dying. Edward reads something out of Jasper’s head and says that Jasper’s totally right and that it changes everything. Everyone else looks confused, which is totally legit because HAVE THE CONVERSATION OUTSIDE OF YOUR HEADS, DAMMIT.
Everyone looks at Jasper, who says that it’s time Bella heard his origin story. He rolls up the sleeve of his jumper and Bella’s all “Oh! You have a vampire bite mark just like me!” Jasper pushes his sleeve higher and she realises that his entire arm is covered in overlapping bite marks. She gasps and asks what happened to him and this pointless chapter is finally over.
Em-dash count: 24
Ellipses count: 37
Next time on Eclipse: Jasper’s story may actually bring something vaguely interesting in Eclipse Chapter 13.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
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I am a 30-something year-old human woman who lives in Maine. I'm a freelance writer who mostly spends time that I should be doing that, watching T.V. I also love reading and comic books way too much.