kippurcritiquesbadbooks | Stare *

Chapter Twenty: Impatience

Now I have sort of mixed feelings of what Meyers did here. By taking Bella away from the action of James, we loose some of the tension and fear, the only thing Bella is worried about here, now is Edward's safety, as opposed to her own. Meyers does try to fix that with putting Bella's mother in danger, but still is almost secondary. Bella is going to be sitting around, being passive.

So, Bella wakes up in a hotel room after having been driven all night from Forks to Phoenix Arizona. At twice the legal speed. I'm surprised they weren't pulled over. Or the car didn't die on them. After all, cars aren't made to go that fast for so long. I wonder if they stopped for gas? They'd have too. Bella finds Alice's neck, despite being granite, comfortable. Maybe she has some kind of stone fetish?

The chapter is mostly Bella angsting. She basically goes around in a sort of daze of timeless boredom and why hasn't Edward called yet? It's all wait, wait wait. Jasper and Alice sit still and there is waiting. And more waiting.

We stay in the room. Alice called down to the front desk and asked them to ignore our maid service for now. The windows stayed shut, the TV on, though no one watched it. At regular intervals, food was delivered for me. The silver phone resting on Alice's bag seemed to grow bigger as the hours passed.

My babysitters handled the suspense better than I did. As I fidgeted and pace, they simply grew more still, two statues whose eyes followed me imperceptibly as I moved. I occupied myself with memorizing the room; the striped pattern of the couches, tan, peach, cream, dull gold, and tan again. Sometimes I stared at the abstract prints, randomly finding pictures in the shapes, like I'd found pictures in the clouds as a child. I traced a blue hand, a woman combing her hair, a cat stretching. But when the pale red circle became a staring eye, I looked away.

And on. And On. It goes. For eight pages.

We change topics when we learn how vampires are made.

Ahahahaaaa.... Stone Statues are supposed to be physically attractive to their prey. Truly an Adonis here.

I wonder what happens when you change a fat or/and ugly person? Or even the idea of beauty being in the eye of the beholder? What if you don't find whatever the Cullens look like as attractive? Or old even.

Meyers Vampires are venomous.

No. Really.

They are.

"The venom doesn't kill - it's merely incapacitating. It works slowly, spreading through the bloodstream, so that, once bitten, our prey is in too much physical pain to escape us. Mostly superfluous, as I said. If we're that close, the prey doesn't escape. Of course, there are always exceptions. Carlisle, for example."

She's making it sound like the venom is like a vampire's appendix. Oh, we don't need it to kill people, it's just there. And, personally, I don't think a venom that causes pain would be a good way to incapacitate a victim. Paralyzing venom would work better. I think that's how most of them work in the natural world.

And then Alice has a vision.

James will be in a room with mirrors. At first they think it's a ballet studio. There's a VCR and a TV. The presence of the VCR indicates, that yes, we're in the late 1990s. Which is confusing with the smaller phones. And I'm surprised they got reception out in the middle of Forks. At that time... I'm sorry, I think I'm paying too much attention to research details. Sorry.

Bella is wondering if they should call, but THEN with timing of Isn't That A Convenient Coincidence, the phone rings. These are supposed to be set up as ominous foreboding in books like these. In comedic situations, they'll precipitate a humorous something happening. But here there should be a sense of dread, instead it just feels... convenient.

James, sorry, the tracker is heading towards Bella.

Still Bella gets to talk to Edward and she goes all floaty. I felt the hovering cloud of despair lighten and drift back as he spoke. It's almost like a euphoric addiction, her reactions to him. She's gotten her Edward hit. In fact as soon as Edward hangs up, she gets all depressed again. Sounds like a drug to me.

James will be in a room with mirrors. At first they think it's a ballet studio. There's a VCR and a TV. The presence of the VCR indicates, that yes, we're in the late 1990s. Which is confusing with the smaller phones. And I'm surprised they got reception out in the middle of Forks. At that time... I'm sorry, I think I'm paying too much attention to research details. Sorry. Still, James is playing around with a VCR and Alice is drawing it for them so that they know what the room looks like.

Bella thinks that it might be the ballet studio that she went to which is right near her house. A bit too close for comfort so she borrows Alice's phone, after making sure it was safe to use, and tells her not to go anywhere until she talks to Bella.

Then Bella goes back to staring at the walls.