BLOGGING BREAKING DAWN, pt. 2: Old Soul Song (For The New World Order)

A little housekeeping: thank you to TheKelBurrows for some tech support on the last installment. Also thank you to everyone who confirmed that Mount Doom is where Frodo has to throw the ring in LOTR. I don't know what's more embarassing: that I didn't know in the first place or that so many people responded so quickly when I asked. Thanks also to everyone who is telling other people about this blog, please continue to do so. Finally, thanks to LongLiveMufasa for this:

I'm sure a lot of you are reading along, and I expect you guys to be investing this much effort all the time. Back slaps all around! Part 1 can be found here.

Chapter 1 (cont'd): Engaged

Thinking about her brokedown truck gets Bella thinking about her “favorite mechanic.” Jeez Bella, Jacob's been downgraded all the way from “best friend” to “favorite mechanic”? Harsh. But seriously, she gets all pang-y and heartsick as she drives past telephone poles plastered with flyers announcing Jacob's gone missing; in my mind's eye Jacob is moving around in the picture, scowling like Sirious Black or some shit. I can't shake it. Also: I thought Bella mentally divorced herself from Jacob at the end of the last book. Why do we still have to endure this drama? You made your choice, Bella. When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way.

Charlie's been in full-on Amber Alert mode trying to track Jacob down, and he's mad at Bella and Billy Black for not sweating it. A more skilled author would try to depict Charlie's obsession with solving the Missing Jacob Case as a valve letting the pressure off of his stress over Bella's wedding, but apparently Charlie is cool with that whole deal. We learn as much in a flashback while Bella sits in her driveway and has a smoke (I'm guessing).

Oh, first she calls Seth Clearwater for some info on Jacob. He's somewhere in Canada, doing some soul searching. Canada is the last place I would check for my soul; check New Orleans or somewhere fun! Seth is the new meta character, he's taken the “intratextual twihard” mantle from Aro. When he knows Bella is calling before she identifies herself, he laughs it off and says “I'm no Alice – you're just predictable.” Bella refers to Alice as her “nearly omniscient sister-in-law-to-be” if you're still playing catch-up. She sees the future, folks! (Elsewhere in ungainly phrases: Bella later refers to herself as Charlie's “barely-a-legal-adult daughter.” I get that you are trying to avoid the phrase “barely legal,” S. Meyer, but there are easier ways.) Anyway, I don't care about Bella's worries about Jacob. She shouldn't either! Bella's like a new recruit to the Crips wondering if she can still wear her favorite red t-shirt. No, you can't.

Anyway: the flashback. We cut back to right where Eclipse cut off, Edward and Bella are waiting for Charlie to come home. He does, they sit him down and he immediately assumes Bella is pregnant. All things considered, it's probably a good thing he went that far, so they can pull him back from the ledge and walk him to a different, lower cliff. Edward does a pretty damn good pitch:

“Charlie, I realize that I've gone about this out of order. Traditionally, I should have asked you first. I mean no disrespect, but since Bella has already said yes and I don't want to diminish her choice in the matter, instead of asking you for her hand, I'm asking for your permission. We're getting married, Charlie. I love her more than anything in the world, more than my own life, and – by some miracle – she loves me that way, too. Will you give us your blessing?”

ABC: Always Be CProposing. Charlie nearly chokes to death with rage, it works magic on Bella. “I experienced a rare moment of insight,” Bella says. Ha! You said it, girl. Charlie says he saw something like this coming, and asks what the rush is with marriage.

“So Edward will fuck me,” I said.

But seriously, Edward gives him some bullshit about not wanting to live in sin when they move to Dartmouth. Um, it's called on-campus housing. (Alice and Bella could room together. Imagine the possibilities!) But Bella sees this excuse as ironclad and apparently so does Charlie. Then he bursts out laughing, because he realizes Bella will have to tell her mother and he won't be helping her with it.

Right: Renee, the twice-married supposed enemy of marriage. She's been the source of most of Bella's wedding-anxiety; wouldn't it be kind of interesting if Renee really did get angry and not come to the wedding or something? Oh well: Renee loves the idea. Bella calls and drops the bomb, and her mother's first reaction is “why did it take you so long to tell me?” She apparently thought everything was locked down back when she and Edward visited, and is nothing but enthusiastic about their union. Renee gives Bella the same speech I've been giving her for weeks. “You've never been a teenager,” she says.

“[C]ommitment was never your problem, sweetie. You have a better chance of making this work than most forty-year-olds I know.” Renee had laughed again. "My middle-aged child. Luckily you seem to have found another old soul.”

Back in the present, Bella opens the front door and hears Charlie tell her to stay where she is. Because he's fucking Alice in the living room. Okay, so he isn't, but it seems like that for a minute.

“What's going on?” I demanded, hesitating in the doorway.
“Thirty seconds, please, Bella,” Alice told me. “I'm about to come.”

I might have modified that slightly. In reality, Alice is fitting Charlie for a tuxedo. Bella asks what the occasion is, and Alice slaps her upside the head. “Your fucking wedding, ya douche bag,” she (probably) says. She sends Bella upstairs for a final check on the wedding dress.

I stripped down to my underwear and held my arms straight out.

Hot. Alice instructs her to go to her “happy place” and Bella starts fantasizing about the wedding being over and being alone with Edward somewhere. He apparently has a top secret location in mind for their honeymoon, (so many boring mysteries running through this book so far! Will Jacob come back? What kind of car will Bella get? Where will they vacation? I'm dying!) so she's not sure where to picture it. “But I wasn't especially concerned with the where part.” After all, Edward has to keep up his end of the bargain, and by “his end of the bargain” she means his penis.

Bella says she's only vaguely aware of “Alice and the slip and slide of satin over my skin.” What is Alice DOING? Pay attention to your hot sister-in-law-to-be, please! Instead Bella's still explaining her reasoning for wanting "that one human experience” we all understood was sex five paragraphs ago. “I wanted a real honeymoon with Edward” she says. SEX. We get it. Alice continues to rub up against her (I'm guessing) while she thinks about that night.

I was with Edward in my happy place.

I'm pretty sure that sentence should be sectioned off not like [I was with Edward] [in my happy place], but rather [I was with][Edward in my happy place]. Bella's “happy place” is clearly her nickname for her vagina, right? Or am I misreading that?