Twilight, Preface and Chapter 1

Before we begin, I must say that I already know what happens.  I have read several reviews and recaps, and I have read this book once before.  This does not mean that it is any less torturous.

You guys know that I really don’t want to do this, right?  Okay, good.  Anyway, let’s go.

PREFACE

I’d never given much thought to how I would die—though I’d had reason enough in the last few months—but even if I had, I would not have imagined this.

And so it begins.

So Twilight opens with a preface.  A preface that contains the most suspenseful part of the book.  Is Meyer trying to foreshadow?  Or something?  I don’t even know.  But apparently, Bella is in a life-threatening position.  Okay.  Moving on.

There’s not much to say about this bit.  I mean, it is only a page long.  But there is this:

When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.

Um, yes it is.  It’s totally reasonable.  I mean, one of your dreams just came true.  You have been happy.  There is something wrong with you if you don’t grieve.  I mean, really!

So Bella is about to be killed.  We’re on page one, folks, and the main character is toast.  This is fun…

Turn the page and be presented with…

CHAPTER ONE

This chapter starts with Bella and her mother in the car, going to the airport.

Second paragraph:

In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds.  It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America.  It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with me when I was only a few months old.  It was in this town that I’d been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen.

Aw, it’s like she’s trying be poetic!  How cute!

Or maybe she just Goggled “most rainy town in the United States” and copy-pasted the Wikipedia entry…

Also, this:

It was to Forks that I now exiled myself—an action that I took with great horror.  I detested Forks.

So why go?  I think I’ve read this chapter about three or four times now, and it is never explained.  I just want to know why she is going!

And we get a description of Bella’s mom:

I felt a spasm of panic as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes.  How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself?

So who exactly is the mom in this relationship?  Why is Bella even worrying about this?  Bella’s mother—who we find out two pages later is named Renée—should be the concerned one.

So Bella gets on the plane and heads out to Forks.  Meyer appears to have us assume that Bella is eternally clumsy.  Her dad, Charlie, meets her at the airport on the other end of the line.  I think I might genuinely like Charlie.  He seems really nice:

“Well, honey, I kind of already bought [the truck] for you.  As a homecoming gift."  Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression.

See?  That’s nice.  That’s sweet.  That’s more than either of my parents would do for me.  And look how Bella responds:

“You didn’t need to do that, Dad.  I was going to buy myself a car.”

She doesn’t even say “thank you”.  Did she miss kindergarten, when we learned about manners, or something?  And her eternal whining is just grating!  Why come if she knows she’s going to hate it?

The truck sounds like something I’d drive: old, a worn-out red, the kind of thing that would crush any car it ran into and drive away without needing so much as a paint job.  And Bella seems genuinely grateful.  She goes up to her bedroom, and complains about how babyish it is.  Then she complains about having only one bathroom.  Then she complains about how small the school is and how everyone will be in groups and no one will talk to her.

And then we get a paragraph of description:

I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine.  I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; I didn’t have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself—and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.

Obviously, she hasn’t played enough videogames.  My hand-eye coordination sucked as a child.  I played a lot of videogames, and it got better as I got older.  Correlation?  I think so.  And in that description, we get several things she isn’t—graceful, blue-eyed, red-haired—and nothing she is.  Does she have green eyes?  Brown eyes?  Hazel eyes?  Lavender eyes?  Blonde hair?  Brown hair?  Black hair?  Can we get something to build a picture with, Meyer?

And then she goes on about how she doesn’t relate to people.  She thinks that she sees things things differently than everyone else.  Bella, sweetheart, darling, no one sees things quite the same way.  Our perceptions are biased by our experiences.  It’s, God forbid, normal to feel different.

So we get to the next morning.  Bella complains more.  Charlie leaves for work.  Bella can’t stand being in the house.  She leaves for school.

At school, I note something missing.  Bella talks to a receptionist in the main office, who is wearing a purple T-shirt.  This makes Bella feel overdressed.  Why?  I wonder.  What is Bella wearing?  Did I miss that?  I go back and spend about ten or twelve minutes reading and rereading the previous pages.  Nothing.  The only clothing of Bella’s that is mentioned is her coat.  What is she wearing that makes her overdressed?  Questions, questions.  And no answers.

More internal moaning.  Bella notices a Volvo.  My sister and I decide that we need to come up with a phrase “Volvo” would be an acronym for.  I’ll get back to you on that.

Then we find out that she is looking for building three as she finds it.  When was that mentioned?  Again, I search, and again, nothing.

And then she moans some.  And then she moans more through class.  And after class, someone comes up and talks to her.  And she moans about that.  Wasn’t she complaining earlier that she wouldn’t be able to break into the cliques?

Over the course of the day, more people are nice to Bella, and Bella is rude in return.  She doesn’t even try to listen to them.  Also, these have to be some of the nicest teenagers in the history of…well, history.  People just aren’t like that, especially not to the new kid.  I would know, I’ve been there often.

ENTER THE CULLENS.  And, apparently, the Hales.  I thought they were all supposed to be not-siblings?  Well, this is less creepy.  An improvement.  So Edward, Emmett, and Alice are supposed to be adoptive siblings, and then Rosalie and Jasper are actually siblings.  But they all live in the same house, and Jasper and Alice are dating, and Rosalie and Emmett are dating.  Meyer makes a point to say that this would cause gossip.

Woman, have you been to a high school recently?  Nobody cares.  It doesn’t make any difference whether the boyfriend and girlfriend are shagging or if they just had their first kiss.  Friends are just as happy and giggly and proud, and other people are just as likely to make crude jokes.  (I say crude in the way my mother would expect me to, JSYK.)

So the Cullens and the Hales are all inhumanly beautiful.  Which is fitting, as none of them are human.  But whatever.  Bella asks all about them and gets scanty information from one of her lunch partners.

Bella goes to Biology, and has to sit next to Edward.  Edward gets all stiff and starts making faces and Bella thinks he hates her and I’m laughing hysterically because I know that he just wants to nom her.  Because she smells tasty.

So we go through two and a half pages of her whining because Edward doesn’t like her.  So she was whining because she though no one would like her, then she whined because everyone likes her, and now she whines because one person doesn’t seem to like her.  Is she bipolar, or just determined to be dissatisfied with everything?

Then we are introduced to Mike.  Mike seems nice.  Bella should stay with Mike.  Actually, no, she shouldn't, because Mike deserves better than a whiney bitch like Bella.  And she continues questioning Mike about Edward.  Apparently, her obsession is already starting.  The two of them go to gym class.

At the end of the school day, Bella goes to the main office, where she finds Edward trying to switch his Biology class.  Bella gets all offended and things, because she totally cares about what this strange person thinks of her.  The chapter ends with this line:

I headed back to Charlie’s house, fighting tears the whole way there.

So everyone in the school is nice to her, except this one guy hates her, so her day sucks.  What.  Guys, I don’t even know.

Well, that’s all for tonight!  More tomorrow, maybe, if I can manage it.  Maybe the next one will be up Tuesday.  I’ll settle into some posting schedule or other…

OTHER CHAPTERS
Chapter 2