Old Ass-Hat, New Moon: Chapters 1-8

I apologize for the delay in jumping back into the Approaching Twilight project. But one must cleanse one's creative palate. I did so by diving into the multitudinous oeuvre represented in the Borders in-store catalogue; Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert, Scott Pilgrim vs the World vol. 1-3 by Bryan Lee O'Malley, and the previously pimped How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. Thus armed with my memory of quality prose and creative amusement, I sallied forth into the sequel, New Moon.

Keeping with previously established form, Meyer fails to write an introduction that gives a damn about the rest of the book. Chapter 1 reacquaints the reader with the droll, nails-on-chalkboard narrative voice of Bella and her addiction to her martyrdom, angst and demigodboyfriend. She suffers a nightmare in which Edward macks on an ancient version of herself and proceeds to fixate upon her eighteenth birthday as some form of rite of passage into old age. While a coming-of-age story would inject some literary credence to Meyer's storytelling, this lasts long enough for Bella to selfishly spazz on anyone who tries to celebrate her birthday, because being shown attention and affection when one reaches legal age is horrible!

I hate Bella.

At least the awkward birthday party at the Cullen's ends with bloodshed. Jasper, the newest recruit to vegi-vamp central, loses his shit when Bella slices her hand open on a papercut and winds up at the bottom of a WASPy dogpile. Bella flings herself into a glass table and gets stitched and preached by Doc Cullen while the others cover their mouths and noses as if Bella were a walking pile of sun-rotted diapers. (I feel this way a lot, too.) Despite all this, Bella continues to beg Edward to make her a bloodsucker so she won't have to grow old while he remains Highlander-hot and young. His response to this? Dump the bitch.

Hooray for Edward.

What follows is a surprisingly clever piece of presentation. After the initial crisis of Edward leaving her and Bella wandering Ophelia-like until being rescued, the chapter ends and the next page reads October. Turning, the next reads November, the next December, with the story not picking up until January. I liked this a lot. As someone who has survived a crisis so life-churning that reality fades into gray for months at a time, this resonates honestly.

Of course, then the story picks back up and sucks on down the block.

Chapter 4 begins with Bella's father Charlie threatening to ship Bella back to her mother in Florida, because that's how he shows he cares. Bella's autopilot begins to waver when she hallucinates Edward's voice when she waltzes into potentially dangerous situations. Clamoring for her fix, Bella flings herself into ever more dangerous situations, heedless and selfless until she discovers the true meaning of the life she so callously tried to spend on Edward carefully crafts a plan of reckless behavior so no one will notice. That's exactly how a closeted, martyr-prone teenager acts when she finally rebels. With caution.

However, as previous stated in plot-contrivance-land, her antics do fling her at rebound-boy Jacob who is more than happy to indulge her not-so wild behavior. While inching forward in her mad-cap race for Edwardian reminders, Bella starts living.

And as someone dragged along behind this train wreck of adolescence like a Pekingese tethered to a mobile home, I'm gladdened by the smoother path Bella takes up. She's proactively chasing down her future, hanging out with a living boy who likes her because she's a girl and not forbidden fruit, and recovering her solidarity a piece at a time from the shards of heartbreak.

Good for you, baby. Try not to fuck it up like you do.