Previously: A miracle- they figured maybe vampires like blood.
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Marines: Hi, hello there! I’m back from 1- Three business trips in a month 2- moving into a new apartment in a nearby city 3- CATCHING THE FLU and 4- having Breaking Dawn be number 247 on my list of overall priorities. Luckily for you all (?), I missed you guys and so here we are.
Annie: I don’t know if I’d use ‘lucky’ and Breaking Dawn in the same sentence, but let’s do this.
Catherine: And here I was thinking I was busy last month. Nevermind. YOU WIN AGAIN, MARI. GAWD.
Kirsti: I’m honestly surprised it’s as high as number 247, to be honest…
Mari: Yeah, whatever, I just guessed.
The chapter is titled “Good Thing I’ve Got a Strong Stomach” and the Snark Ladies all ralph in unison.
Jacob hears Carlisle and Rosalie run off to warm up some blood for Bella. He wonders if they’ve also got torture chambers, in addition to their blood fridges and NO. NO, GUYS. THIS is the moment E.L. James found Fifty Shades inspiration. I’m sure of it.
Annie: Aren’t we lucky. THANKS, MEYER!
Mari: Edward stays behind to hold Bella’s hand and look at her with dead eyes. Jacob says it looks like they are having a conversation while they just stare at each other with dead eyes. I don’t know. I’m just reporting the facts.
K: “His face was dead again,” Jacob tells us. Uh, Jake? Technically his face has been dead since 1918…
Mari: Jacob thinks about how mad Leah is that she has to see Sam and Emily all the time always. Jacob graciously says that no one blames Leah for having feelings, but only for how she handles them. Apparently she takes her anger out on all of them and tries to make them miserable. I would ask them if they are really sure that’s why Leah tries to make them miserable. All I’m saying is that there are a lot of reasons why you would be mad as hell at these guys.
Anyway, Jacob ends by saying he’ll never blame Leah again because unrequited love suxs. Bella asks Jacob if this blood drinking was all his idea. Jacob snarks that it only kind of was because Edward picked the thought out of his head. Jacob tells us he’s been standing this whole time because the vamps moved all of the furniture out of the way and also they are “stone.” Jacob’s tired, but he doesn’t say anything about it because tired is for losers.
Meanwhile, Rosalie is still running around and Edward yells, “not clear!” at her and it’s v mysterious.
Through a boring conversation, Bella gets more or less filled in on the fact that Jacob’s got his own pack now and also Leah is hanging out with them. Bella is surprised at this development because she thought Leah hated them. Jacob tries to reassure her. Leah’s in his pack now and has to follow his directives. Unless she thinks about it really hard and can break out of his pack too. He skips that part, but I think it’s important. (C: HAHAHA Don’t be ridiculous. That would be continuity.) Jacob doesn’t get how Bella can be scared of Leah but totally cool with I’m Gonna Get Cha, I’m Gonna Eat Cha And Keep Your Baby Rosalie. Bella tells him to stop being a jerk and then they share a smile over what a huge jerk he is.
Carlisle and Rosalie come back and they’ve got a plastic cup with a bendy straw. Jacob guesses that Edward yelled “not clear!” because he doesn’t want anyone to see the blood Bella is drinking. I’m glad that mystery is solved.
K: This is about the time that I confess that I finished reading this abomination of a book back in January and I don’t want to reread any of it, so all my comments are based exclusively on my post-it notes. The one on this page says “They literally gave her a sippy cup. Like a toddler.” Because it’s fun to treat pregnant 18 year olds like the infants they’re about to have??
Mari: If by fun you mean, “I would like to die,” then yes.
Rosalie helps Bella sit up and gives her the cup o’ blood. Jacob is weirded out, but he can’t leave now. Edward suggests finding another way to do this and Rosalie is like NO. BELLA DRINK IT. Bella takes a whiff of the blood, flinches and makes a face. Rosalie suggests plugging her nose and Jacob takes a break to imagine Rosalie and Edward getting into a fight where Rosalie loses a limb. Have we called Jacob a jerk in this chapter yet? (C: Not enough.)
Bella clarifies that when she flinched and made a face, it was because the blood smelled delicious. I don’t know about you but that’s always the face I make when things smell delicious.
Annie: Well, this is because Meyer doesn’t understand humans and probably doesn’t even own a face, so of course she doesn’t understand simple human things like reactions and expressions. Because she’s anti-human. Anyway.
K: I mean, if I was presented with dog shit and suddenly smelled delicious, I’d probably make that face too.
Mari: Yeah, but you would go into sniffing making a face. If it smelled good, you would flinch away at that point all EW… because it smells good…?
Anyway.
Bella asks Edward if this screws with her total and Jacob has no idea what’s going on. Me either, buddy, and I’ve been reading this crap for forever. (C: I think she means the total of people that she will kill as a vampire. She’s wondering if this counts, I guess?) Edward whispers that he’ll explain to Jacob later. Bella is apparently so busy noisy slurping, that she doesn’t hear this. That or her puny human ears just heard a soft buzzing noise. Bella asks what Edward said and he lies that he was just talking to himself. Jacob thinks how it’s going to get harder for Edward to lie to Bella when she isn’t a stupid human anymore. “He’d have to work on the honesty thing.”
Not to be less of a dick or anything, but because he won’t be able to get away with it. If you ask me, the equal power dynamic is probably Edward’s biggest aversion to turning Bell-Bell.
Edward fights a smile because Jacob’s thoughts about his pants-on-fire are hilar. Jacob notices that Bella is staring out a window as she drinks her blood. He thinks she’s pretending no one is there with her, but then he realizes that he’s the only one in the room who would be grossed out by blood drinking. In fact, the other vampires are probably struggling to not rip the cup out of her hands. Edward rolls his eyes at this AS IF we didn’t establish that a paper cut was a BFD. Like, yes, Jacob’s thoughts make sense.
Jacob wonders how anyone lives with Edward and his constant reactions to private thoughts. He kind of wishes Edward could hear Bella’s thoughts so he would annoy the crap out of her and she would get tired of him. That’s real cute, Jacob, that you think there’s anything Edward could do to Bella to make her quit him.
Edward laughs at Jacob’s thoughts and Bella asks what’s so funny. Edward says Jacob is and Bella agrees that he’s a “crack-up.” I have literally never heard anyone say that in my life. At least not anyone under the age of 85? (K: My former boss used to say “You crack me up” at least three times a day, but that’s not QUITE the same…) She finishes her cup o’ blood and she immediately looks much better. Rosalie asks if she wants more and Bella is kind of bummed because she totally does. Rosalie assures her that it’s fine to be a human drinking human blood because her body has cravings and honestly the fact that we are just sitting here casually talking about a teenage girl sucking blood to keep her vampire fetus alive just makes the most sense because of all the torture we’ve already survived to get here. Of course we’re here.
Rosalie says that anyone not okay with the girl drinking blood shouldn’t be there.
Catherine: Cool. So we can leave?
K: God, I wish. (Although some kid at work has placed a reservation on Breaking Dawn and the longer I keep it for, the more chance she’ll decide she doesn’t want to read it, so…)
Mari: Jacob knows this is all directed at him but doesn’t take the bait. Bella comments on how rough he looks and suggests he get some sleep. She offers up the beds upstairs, none of which belong to her, but okay. Rosalie grimaces and Jacob wonders WTF it is to her since she doesn’t even use the damn thing. He’s not in the know of super vampire sexy times, I guess. Better for you, Jacob. Better for you.
Jacob says he’d rather sleep on the ground outside, away from the vampire stench. I almost called this hella rude but then I remembered all the times they were like “ew Jake you smell like a dog.”
Bella quickly downs another cup of blood. She’s looking much better and can even sit up by herself now. Rosalie is so happy and says Bella should drink more blood. Carlisle suggest feeding her human side too, though. Bella wants eggs and she smiles at Edward all wink wink wink, I guess because she ate a lot of eggs on their honeymoon? I mean, eggs are a pretty common food for “remember eggs???” to be a thing, but okay.
Annie: Eggs. So romantic. One of the world’s most famous aphrodisiacs.
Catherine: They can’t reference the actual sexytimes on their honeymoon because teens so Meyer is trying to make ‘eggs’ sexy. Mmmm, eggs. The most erotic of breakfast foods.
K: Meanwhile, my page post-it says “If she eats one more fucking chicken period, I will scream.”
Mari: Edward tells Jacob to go get some sleep and promises to come find him if anything happens. Jake’s falling asleep so he agrees, thinking about how Edward owes him so he’ll definitely keep his word. Edward agrees with Jacob’s thoughts, like a creep.
Just as Jacob is leaving for nap times, he hears wolf howls. He jumps off the porch and transforms midair, shredding his shorts in the process. He’s all, “dammit. Those were my only shorts.” Sorry, the logistics of the wolves and their shorts will never not be funny. Seth, Leah and Jacob communicate via wolf telepathy. The other wolves are coming. Jacob runs all the way to them and is being all protective and other stuff that is boring and I don’t care about.
Turns out, it’s Jared in human form and Paul, Quil and Collin in wolf form. Jacob thinks this is weird for reasons that are still boring and that only make sense if you’ve somehow remember who the eff Jared, Paul, Quil and Collin are. The wolves stare at each other, because now that they aren’t in a single pack, they can’t actually hear each other. Jared is like, “uh, can we talk like humans,” and Jacob just keeps wolf staring.
Jared explains that they want Jacob back because their wolfy family is torn apart and it isn’t meant to be this way. Jared says Sam has calmed down and isn’t even going to attack the Cullens at the moment. The Jake Pack is wary of all this. Leah thinks Sam is probably just counting on Bella dying anyway and Jake being so mad, he leads the attack on the Cullens. Jacob says that sounds plausible and also, yeah, he’d be pretty pissed if Bella died and he’ll probably want to murder some faces and he’ll probably forget that the Cullens are friends not food.
The time has come to actually have a conversation instead of a wolfy stare-off. Jacob sends Leah off to do a sweep of the area. Leah says it’s whatever because she’s totally seen Jacob naked before. He says it has nothing to do with that, but then once Leah is gone, Jacob thinks a lot about how it has a lot to do with that. Nudity in the pack was less awkward before a girl came along with her breasts and vagina and stuff. Plus, Leah gets super mad if she can hear a bunch of horny wolf thoughts about her naked body, wild, right?
Annie: Leah clearly doesn’t understand her place as a woman in society. Respect is for men, women should just stand there and be glad to be included.
Catherine: Also, yeah, a bunch of teenage boys being naked around each other is totally not at all awkward. I’ve heard that about highschool locker rooms.
K: I hate literally everything about this. Partly because of the prudishness of it all and partly because of the whole “the menfolk need to talk, go take your pretty little self somewhere else.”
Mari: Jared tells Jacob to come home again, but Jake says he can’t. He can’t just stop being an alpha (…even though he kind of just started being one…) and there can’t be two alphas in a pack. Jared is like, “but Jake, you ran out of shorts so obvs you have to come home.” Wow. Infallible logic and also more mention of shorts and a reminder that Jake is having this whole conversation with his dick out.
K: Don’t be ridiculous, Mari. He’s probably holding a fig leaf in front of his junk so as not to offend anyone.
Mari: Head canon not accepted.
Seeing that this isn’t going anywhere, Jared turns to Seth and starts trying to guilt him about how lonely his mom is. Jacob is like, “dude, we’ve been a pack for shorter than a typical trip to the mall. She’s fine.” Leah comes back and Jared turns his attentions to her, saying he’s sure she doesn’t want to be there. He says Sam told Jared to beg and use his old pet name for her and everything, back from the days before he dumped her for a insta-stalker connection. That’s a terrible tactic. Leah howls and growls at them in a wolfy version of a curse out. (C: Gee, why is she so mad all the time? Between them objectifying her naked body and using her as an emotional hostage, I mean.)
Jacob tells Jared that they are all still family, but until this all gets sorted out, they should be family on different lands. Jared agrees to stay on their land, but asks Jacob what his land is. Jake says he’s homeless at the moment. He says that after this is all settled, Seth and Leah will go back and he’ll run away and find new land. Before Jared leaves, Jacob asks if Embry is okay, since he’s missing from this envoy. Jared basically tells Jake to MYOB, but Jacob can tell something is up, especially since Quil is giving him the wolfy equivalent of side-eye.
Jared walks away, but Quil hangs back to nuzzle Jacob a little. For real. (C: Can’t believe a GIRLwolf had to come in and mess up these totally hetero naked nuzzling bro times.) (K: Let’s be real – Top Gun is less homoerotic than the whole wolf pack thing. Also, Quil nods, further proving that Steph has literally no idea how canine species work.) Jacob says he misses Quil and Embry too and then Quil’s gotta go. Jacob turns back into a wolf and Leah jokes that he thought those two were going to make out. I’m awful glad we didn’t get a wolf/boy make out scene, TBH. Jacob asks if he did an okay job speaking on behalf of Leah and Seth, because he’s a nice alpha or something. Seth say he did great. Also, he thinks Embry wasn’t allowed to come because Sam was afraid he’d jump packs.
Jacob asks Seth to keep watch while he and Leah get some sleep. Seth volunteers to fill the Cullens in on their showdown, but Jacob wants to do it so he can check in on Bella again. He shares some Wolf TV with the other two, and they see Bella sipping on blood. It grosses them out a lot, though Seth does rationalize that it makes sense on account of them being vampires. Leah and Jacob make fun of him and say he was dropped on the head a lot as a baby.
…but like, they are vampires? And it does make sense?
I don’t know. Reading a chapter of this book is a lot like being dropped on the head a lot as a baby.
Next time on Breaking Dawn: The vampires are “nice” to Jacob in Chapter 14.
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.
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.