kippurcritiquesbadbooks | It's the infamous Spying Chapter

So, I ran Laruna through the Mary Sue Litmus test She got an eight.

Bella got a Sixty Six. Mind you half of this was guessing because I'm not Meyers. Fifty Plus is Kill It Dead.

Edward got a Seventy Four.

Chapter Fourteen: Mind Over Matter

So, Edward is driving the two of them back. Bella is amazed at his PERFECT driving abilities. He doesn't even need to look at the road while he drives. Instead he holds her hand and stares at her a lot. He likes oldies music from the fifties, better than the sixties or seventies. Eighties were good though. I'm not too sure about that one, but he's allowed to have his opinion. There's nothing wrong with that.

Bella then asks how old he is. We get a loooovely piece of purple prose.

He sighed, and then looked into my eyes, seeming to forget the road completely for a time. Whatever he saw there must have encouraged him. He looked into the sun — the light of the setting orb glittered off his skin in ruby-tinged sparkles — and spoke.

The setting ORB. Who refers to the sun as an orb? It makes me think of a giant marble in the sky. And the fact that it glistens off his skin making it ruby colored makes me think of Dorthy's ruby slippers in the Wizard of Oz. So, we have a giant flaming marble glittering on a human ruby slipper.

I'm not so sure that works.

Edward relates to us his Story Of Woe. He was born in Chicago in 1901 and dying of the Spanish Influenza in 1918. Carlisle found him and changed him into a vampire because he was an orphan. He doesn't tell us how it happened except that it hurt. Then Carlisle found his wife Esme. They found Rosalie who was supposed to be fore Edward, but he only loves her like a sister. Which is okay because she found Emmett who nearly got eaten by a bear. She was afraid she couldn't turn Emmett into a vampire herself so she ran a hundred miles back to Carlisle, the thing that kept her going? Something in Emmett's face. *sighs* Sometimes they live as a married couple, other times not and they have a wedding again every so often. It's Twu Lub.

Then there's Alice and Jasper who are Speshul. Alice was created as a vampire and woke up alone but didn't turn into a savage because she could see the future and knew that she would meet up with the Cullens.

"She saw Jasper and knew that he was looking for her before he knew it himself. She saw Carlisle and our family, and they came together to find us. She's most sensitive to non-humans. She always sees, for example, when another group of our kind is coming near. And any threat they may pose."

Um... I'm again, not really sure how that works, but okay. Also her ability is going to be useful. You just know it is. After all because she can tell when a supernatural threat is coming. This is an unsubtle bit of foreshadowing.

We learn that there aren't that many vampires and the reasons for the only can come out at night myth is probably because of their sparkliness. They live in the Olympic Peninsula because it's one of the sunless places in the world. I'm thinking this miiiight be one of those weather issues going on. STILL I honestly don't see why they can't live in a city where people are likely not to notice them. There are plenty of cities where they don't get much sun and they're less likely to get noticed. Like... St. Petersburg... or I dunno. Big Cities. And there's also MAKE UP to cover up the sparkles, I'm sure.

Here's a fun line, "It was easier to say in the darkness, knowing as I spoke how my voice would betray me, my hopeless addiction to him." You know, this isn't a good thing, Bella. No addiction is hopeless, but you're just saying you don't want to try and get away from him. She wants to be with him. Even though he's threatened her life and said she shouldn't be around him.

Of course, it gets worse. Bella discovers that Edward's been sneaking into her house. When Bella learns this:

"You spied on me?" But somehow I couldn't infuse my voice with the proper outrage. I was flattered.

He spied on you. When you were sleeping. Who knows what the hell he could have done to you. This is not something you should be flattered about. This is something that you should be screaming frightened about.

Instead she's more worried that he heard her talking in her sleep. Not sneaking into her bedroom and watching her because he finds her interesting, but hearing her talk in her sleep. This is not good and normal behavior. This is stupid and dangerous behavior. It's like asking the serial killer over for tea and complaining that he might see your dirty laundry.

Flattering is not the proper mindset. In fact she's angry with him because he hears her talk in her sleep and not because he likes watching her sleep. She stops getting upset though, when her father comes home.

When Edward asks if her dad should know he's here, she says no. So he vanishes, up into her room.