New Moon Chapter 8

Since Bella has no skills and no knowledge whatsoever, we have an ENDLESS scene where Jacob is telling her the basics about the clutch, the brakes, blah blah blah SO DULL AND BORING.

You know, for somebody who dismisses all things technical as being "guys only," Smeyer sure seems obsessed with vehicles. She has a whole friggin' section in her shit-tastic official guide devoted to cars! I assume she thinks it's not properly feminine to be interested in cars, hence her insistence that her Sue totally isn't interested or knowledgeable about them.

Also... WHO GIVES A SHIT?

But since Bella is a girl, she's so helpless and doesn't have a clue where anything is. Awwww, the little womenfolk are trying to ride MANLY MACHINES. How cute. Gag me. So we get pages and pages of Bella just identifying different parts of the fucking motorcycle for Jacob, which is almost as fun as coating your head in papier-mâché.

“Throttle?”



Can I? Please? Pretty please?

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“Very good. I think you’ve got all the parts down. Now you just have to get it moving.”



"And if there's any luck in this world, you'll drive right off the nearest cliff."

Wait a sec, is she even wearing a helmet? I ask because I've heard no mentions of it, and you would expect a guy like Jacob to be well-versed in what happens to people who don't wear helmets. Also, it's kind of illegal not to.

And suddenly Bella is completely paralyzed by fear. In a good book, she would be seriously reconsidering her cracktastic idea and thinking that hey, maybe deliberately endangering yourself just to flip off your ex-boyfriend is a FUCKING STUPID IDEA. But no, this is another opportunity for her to wank about the horrors of being dumped: '''I’d already lived through the worst thing possible. In comparison with that, why should anything frighten me now? '''Yup, Smeyer is seriously claiming that the worst thing in the world... is being dumped by your boyfriend. Good thing she was married off to become a baby factory early, or she might have gone through "the worst thing possible" at least five or six times.

“I want you to hold down the clutch,” Jacob instructed.

I wrapped my fingers around the clutch.



"I pretended it was a sparkly penis."

Because Bella is useless, she's incapable of even starting the motorcycle. And because Jacob is poor, he magically knows how to do all this mechanical stuff even though he's apparently never ridden a motorcycle before and has no experience with it. Because apparently Stephenie Meyer thinks that motorcycles are exactly like cars, and that they don't require totally different training techniques.

So Bella keeps falling over while hanging on to the clutch, and Jacob has to start the Death Machine of Death for her. She even keeps comparing it to a wild animal. MOTORCYCLES ARE BAD AND EVIL AND IF YOU RIDE ONE, YOU WILL DIE, OKAY?

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AND THEN.... drumroll please...

“This is reckless and childish and idiotic, Bella,” the velvet voice fumed.



Gasp! Crispin Freeman is mad at Bawla!

No, actually it's supposed to be Edward's voice. Way to rip-off Jane Eyre, you hack.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TdHOFqGQhJg/VG7YKpLUxbI/AAAAAAAAEtI/suKCGHnPX_E/s400/jane%2Beyre.jpg

Reader, I burned this crappy vampire book.

This shocks Bawla so much that she immediately flips the bike over and crashes. And since she doesn't have a helmet, she ends up a drooling vegetable (well, more of one) for the rest of her days.

“Bella?” Jacob jerked the heavy bike off me with ease. “Are you hurt?”



"Stop showing concern! Guys are supposed to treat girls like crap! Tell me I'm stupid and worthless!"

“I told you so,” the perfect voice murmured, crystal clear.



You MADE her crash, you DICK. Even in hallucinations, he's an insensitive prick.

... he's a DICK.

So Bella decides that her hallucinations of Edward sneering at her are caused by Some combination of adrenaline and danger, or maybe just stupidity. Well, it's obviously not stupidity, or she would be hearing Edturd 24/7. And even though she FUCKING WIPED OUT on a motorcycle... without a HELMET... she immediately freaks out at the idea that she might have damaged the precious Death Machine of Suicide.

Being reckless was paying off better than I’d thought. Forget cheating. Maybe I’d found a way to generate the hallucinations—that was much more important.



Again, it blows my mind that there are people who say these books are a good influence because nobody has sex outside of marriage.

Now, I'm not a supporter of teenage sex. Moral issues and religious stuff aside, teenagers usually don't have the maturity and stability to make good sexual choices. And I honestly think that a lot of teenagers have sex for the wrong reasons, such as peer pressure (the belief that if you don't have sex, you're a loser). But I would rather see a book where teenagers screw occasionally than a book where they deliberately try to hurt themselves themselves because of a bizarre codependent obsessive crush on an abusive prick who dumped them.

That is SICK. That is WRONG. There is nobody for whom that is okay, and no situation where it's acceptable.

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And the worst part of it is that despite Smeyer's lip service to this being a bad idea for Bella, she obviously doesn't think so. Remember: denials aside, BELLA IS HER SUE. Bella is doing the crap Smeyer WANTS to do like bone a sparkly teenager. Bella is the person Smeyer wants to BE. She constant natters about what a super-mature, good, pure, smart, wise person Bella is, but writes in decisions like THIS which totally contradict it.

I'm not demanding that all characters be Purity Sues. I am fully in favor of characters doing things that are morally questionable, wrong or just simply stupid. But these things should be PORTRAYED as such! You don't REWARD the characters being dumb and self-destructive! You make it clear, whether by other characters or by the tone of the narrative, that THEY ARE WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

So Bella immediately wants to go again, sort of how she wants to have sex non-stop in Breaking Hymens. More unsubtle MOTORCYCLES IZ BAD MKAY? stuff, and Bella starts hallucinating.

“Do you want to kill yourself, then? Is that what this is about?” the other voice spoke again, his tone severe.



"You're not allowed to kill yourself unless I tell you so! How dare you put yourself in danger without MY PERMISSION!"

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Bella deliberately ignores it because she wants to keep hearing him sneer at her and boss her around. Yes, this is the girl that all those little idiot tweens are idolizing.

And you know how Smeyer justifies Bella's stupid-ass behavior?

Jacob wasn’t going to let anything serious happen to me.

</b>

Yes, Jacob will magically break the laws of physics and keep her from wrapping her skull around a tree. That's a TOTAL justification of ENDANGERING HERSELF.

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So Edturd's voice keeps bossing Bella around, and Bella just sits there orgasming because Edturd's voice is SO sexy. She goes zooming off at high speed… and is trying to speed up more when Edturd's voice notifies her that she's about to crash.

It distracted me enough from the speed to realize that the road was starting a slow curve to the left, and I was still going straight.

</b>

I love how completely non-panicky she is about this, and how much time Smeyer gives her to contemplate it. Having been in comparable positions, I can tell you that the only thoughts you have in this sort of situation is "OHSHITHELPGODGONNACRASHBRAKEBRAKEBRAKE!"

Jacob hadn’t told me how to turn.

</b>

I know Bella is incapable of breathing unless a man tells her to do it, but I'm pretty sure anyone who gets on a motorcycle knows how to turn the fucking thing.

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So because Bella went from LITERALLY 0 to 60… she immediately screws up her motorcycle and ends up flipping over again, DRAGGING HER ACROSS THE ROAD until it hits something. Again, this is something that a helmet might have minimized.

Is Bella hurt? Of course not! I mean, having a high-speed crash on a motorcycle while not wearing a helmet, and getting SQUASHED under the motorcycle with your FACE against an unpaved road while it continues at high speed wouldn't HURT you except for a small non-disfiguring cut on the head.

That's it. There is no possible way Smeyer can convince us that Bawla is an accident-prone magnet for trouble, and if a strong dominating male doesn't boss her around, she'll get killed by random large objects.

I was dizzy and confused. It sounded like there were three things snarling—the bike over me, the voice in my head, and something else....

</b>

Like I said, Hallucination Edturd is a prick.

Also, is this supposed to imply that Jacob is now a werewolf? Because that doesn't make sense. HE'S RIDING A MOTORCYCLE. As awesome as the idea of werewolf bikers is...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Vr-72EOwVIE/VG7s7h3XxRI/AAAAAAAAGhI/mFCvMP3zY88/s400/werewolves%2Bon%2Bwheels.jpg

Actually, that is beyond awesome.

But it remains that Smeyer's werewolves don't have the ability to ride motorcycles, so... where is the growling coming from? Is it supposed to be implied that ANOTHER werewolf is hanging around just to watch Bella wipe out? WHY WOULD THEY?

But Bella is thrilled because she's figured out how to trigger Edturd's voice whenever she feels like it. How? By endangering herself! Let's marvel at what a good role model she is because she hasn't had sex!

This had to be it, the recipe for a hallucination—adrenaline plus danger plus stupidity.

</b>

"I'm so happy! Now I can hear Edturd's voice whenever I want!"

"Bella, why are you talking to yourself?"

"All I have to do is deliberately try to kill myself, and I'll hallucinate about him!"

"Uh, do you have brain damage?"

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'''“Bella!” Jacob was crouching over me anxiously. “Bella, are you alive?”'''

“I’m great!” I enthused.

</b>

Yes, the only thing it took to make Bawla enthusiastic about SOMETHING was self-harm. And it only happens in the SECOND book.

So Bella is raring to go again. Funny how Suicidal Death Machines seem to have the same effect on her as Edward's penis. But she doesn't get to endanger herself again because it turns out she has a cut on her forehead that is bleeding quite a bit. Yeah, she got dragged face-first on the road, and all she got was a shallow cut. That's a Sue for you!

“I don’t think so.” Jacob still sounded worried. “I think I’d better drive you to the hospital first.”

</b>

"It can't be a good sign to be talking to yourself."

So Jacob gets shirtless...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-WfxOcJHjPXA/VG7YSTa_TfI/AAAAAAAAEwE/Sd_wQTDG0SQ/s400/taylor%2Blautner.jpg

Yeah, big shock there.

.... and starts getting the motorcycles back on his truck by driving them back. Bella obviously isn't very badly hurt, because she sits there ogling him for several minutes.



My eyes narrowed enviously. I was sure I hadn’t looked like that on my motorcycle.</b>

I had probably looked unintentionally graceful and elegant, but I'm going to convince myself that I'm just a clumsy doof.

My head stung a little, and my stomach was uneasy, but the cut wasn’t serious. Head wounds just bled more than most.

</b>

And of course, she would know, since she's so adorably clumsy that she's in mortal peril just by sitting in a moving vehicle.

His urgency wasn’t necessary.

</b>

Ungrateful twat.

So Jacob ushers her into the truck, and Bella just brushes off his concern. Her only interest is in making sure that Charlie doesn't figure out that she's been driving a Death Machine of Death!

“If you take me to the ER like this, Charlie is sure to hear about it.” I glanced down at the sand and dirt caked into my jeans.

</b>

Yes, because the only way you end up hurting yourself and getting dirt on your pants is if you crash a motorcycle. LOGIC!

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It's especially dumb because Smeyer established in the previous book that Bella is ALWAYS getting serious injuries due to her life-threatening klutziness (and not because she always has to be the center of attention). I wouldn't expect that Charlie would even notice anymore.

Bella claims that after they drop off the bikes at his house, they will "make a stop at my house so I can dispose of the evidence before we go to the hospital.” WHAT evidence? Her dirty pants?! Charlie ain't Sherlock Holmes, bitch - he'll look at those pants and assume you fell down the hill. He won't be able to figure out WHERE you were or WHAT you were doing.

“Trust me. I’m an easy bleeder. It’s not nearly as dire as it looks.”

</b>

"Now quit being concerned about me, and tell me I'm stupid and worthless!"

So while Jacob chauffeurs her majesty around, Bella is practically bouncing with joy. Not only has she managed to flip off her asshole ex, but she also managed to learn how she can hallucinate about said asshole ex! I don't think Smeyer has any idea that this not only makes Bella seem creepy and insane, but also really, really pathetic. "I have nothing better to do with my life that try to hallucinate about the guy who dumped me!"

I’d cheated—broken my promise. I’d been needlessly reckless. I felt a little less pathetic now that the promises had been broken on both sides.

</b>

Her entire life still revolves around a guy who dumped her ass and left without a second thought months ago. That's about as pathetic as it gets, and no amount of motorcycle riding will cure that.

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And then to discover the key to the hallucinations! At least, I hoped I had.

</b>

Our heroine. She rejoices at how danger allows her to hallucinate about her ex-boyfriend.

Just pretend that a friend of yours said that. How would you react?

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I was going to test the theory as soon as possible. Maybe they’d get through with me quickly in the ER, and I could try again tonight.

</b>

I couldn't wait to douse myself in lighter fluid and set myself on fire!

So it turns out that Bella doesn't really like the Suicide Death Machine Of Death - it just reminds her of riding  Edward's sparkledong  piggyback in the woods. And it still boggles my mind at how incredibly unvampiresque that is.

“By the way,” he added. “I’m going to disconnect your foot brake tonight.”

</b>

How about you just siphon out all the gas and give her a bike with training wheels instead?

So Bella looks at herself when she's at home, and she's covered in mud and blood. But it's okay! The girl who fainted dead away at the sight/smell of a SINGLE DROP OF BLOOD in the previous book is just fine with the profuse bleeding as long as she breathes through her mouth! She also hides her dirty clothes and puts on some clean ones.... which is pretty stupid, since anyone who SEES the head wound will immediately know that she must have changed.

What is she trying to hide by hiding her clothes? She talks about "evidence" and "nothing incriminating," but I'm still not sure what she's trying to hide. She's trying to hide that she was bleeding? Sorry, the head injury and STITCHES might give that away. The dirt? Dirt isn't incriminating! There are large quantities of it all over the place!

<b>“But do I look like I tripped in your garage and hit my head on a hammer?”

</b>

Haha! She's lying to her dad again! Isn't it charming?

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And again, why is she coming up with an explanation that requires lying? Just say she fell while she was off in the woods with Jacob. Bella's not only a habitual liar, but she's a really bad one.

<b>We were halfway to the hospital when I realized he was still shirtless.

</b>

"Since I crave supernatural penis, I saw nothing wrong with this."

But being shirtless doesn't bother Jacob because it's a werewolf's natural state of EPIC FORESHADOWING. Jacob is plenty warm even though it's friggin' Washington in the winter.

<b>Jacob really did look older than sixteen—not quite forty,

</b>

Yes, because there is nothing between 16 and 40. You go straight from the teen years to MIDDLE AGE.

<b>but maybe older than me.

</b>

"Physically, that is. Don't forget, I'm middle-aged, boring, fusty and proud of it!"

So Bella sits there ogling Jacob's  little "wolf"  hawt muscles for like five minutes, and mentions that His skin was such a pretty color, it made me jealous.

"But not jealous in the sense of wanting to HAVE non-paste-colored skin! I don't want THAT!"

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Seriously, I wonder if Smeyer's editor insisted on that line, because it really doesn't fit with the rest of Bella's character. The only people we've ever seen her physically admire are the Cullens, who are depicted as completely flawless and superhumanly attractive. Not to mention paste-white. Everyone else she just looks down on as being NOT AS GOOD AS THE CULLENS.

<b>

“I just hadn’t realized before. Did you know, you’re sort of beautiful?”</b>

"Like, did you know you're like totally sort of beautiful and stuff? Like, not as pretty as my sparkly boyfriend who dumped me, but you'll kinda do if there's no one around who like totally sparkles!"

You know, the other day a twit fangirl actually argued that Smeyer should get every book award possible. She really argued that. Just look at that line, and TELL ME she should.

So Jacob is obviously embarrassed by this, but Bella doesn't pick up on it because, well, she's a total sociopath.

<b>I had to have seven stitches to close the cut on my forehead.

</b>

Unfortunately, they said my enormous head would have to unswell on its own.

<b>After the sting of the local anesthetic, there was no pain in the procedure.

</b>

Don't worry, I'm sure she still found a way to whine about it.

<b>Jacob held my hand while Dr. Snow was sewing, and I tried not to think about why that was ironic.

</b>

... ironic?



I don't know what Smeyer thinks it means, but she's doing it wrong.

So since Smeyer is almost as bored of this non-conflict as I am, Bawla mentions that she dropped off Jacob and went home to cook for Charlie, since men can't possibly cook since it's a WOMAN'S place to cook for all the resident penises. Even if the woman has suffered a massive head injury from crashing on a motorcycle, she must cater to the menfolk!

And since Edturd hasn't been mentioned in the last few paragraphs, Bella rambles about her bleeding chest hole and her nightmares and blah blah blah blah.

<b>The next Wednesday, before I could get home from the ER, Dr. Gerandy called to warn my father that I might possibly have a concussion and advised him to wake me up every two hours through the night to make sure it wasn’t serious.

</b>

And because he's really, really lazy, he waited a whole week to make that call instead of notifying Charlie that very night. After all, concussions NEVER hit until several days afterwards!

<b>Charlie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at my weak explanation about tripping again.

</b>

WHAT? Smeyer said less than a page ago that Charlie completely bought the story! And now, days after the fact, he doesn't? HELLO, EDITOR, ARE YOU THERE?

<b>“Maybe you should just stay out of the garage altogether, Bella,” he suggested that night during dinner.

</b>

Uh-oh, Charlie just found the condom wrappers!

So it turns out that Smeyer, epic wordsmith that she is, actually meant that Bella ended up in the ER a second time. But the way it's written, it really does seem like Charlie has randomly developed suspicions and the doctor is so lazy he could give lazy lessons to Garfield.

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<b>I panicked, worried that Charlie was about to lay down some kind of edict that would prohibit La Push, and consequently my motorcycle. And I wasn’t giving it up—I’d had the most amazing hallucination today. My velvet-voiced delusion had yelled at me for almost five minutes before I’d hit the brake too abruptly and launched myself into the tree. I’d take whatever pain that would cause me tonight without complaint.

</b>

...

...

...

Just... look at that paragraph. Just look at it. How can you actually look at those words and not want to tie the person talking like that to a shrink's couch? If you had a friend who said THAT after her boyfriend dumped her ass, would you assume she was

<ol><li>in troo lurv</li> <li>mentally ill</li> <li>self-destructive</li> <li>2&amp;3 both, but never 1?</li> </ol>

So Bella keeps openly lying to her dad without the slightest sign of a conscience or any remorse. Nor does she care that if she somehow manages to damage her tiny brain and becomes even MORE of a drooling vegetable, Daddy will have to pay for her to be hooked up to a feeding tube.

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<b>“We were hiking, and I tripped over a rock.”

</b>

"Fortunately Jacob's penis broke my fall!"

<b>“Working at Newton’s was bound to rub off sometime,” I pointed out. “Spend every day selling all the virtues of the outdoors, eventually you get curious.”

</b>

HAHA, Charlie is so stupid and gullible! Everyone knows that Bella is interested only in sparkly vampires! She has no interest in this icky "nature" thing that doesn't reflect how awesome she is!

Charlie is obviously not buying Bella's lies, and Bella keeps blithely lying... again, no sign of any conscience. She doesn't even have a throwaway line where she feels bad about feeding Charlie line after line of bullshit. Nope, she keeps lying over and over.

And then we have...

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Charlie asks Bella to please keep close to town because the cops have been getting "wildlife complaints" about the giant mutant bear that is roaming around, but nobody seems very concerned about. This is also the first time in the whole scene when Bella isn't lying like a rug.

You know, it shows how totally delusional Smeyer is that she doesn't realize how BAD this scene makes her Sue look. I mean, look at poor Charlie. He's obviously REALLY worried about his daughter who went completely catatonic for MONTHS because her boyfriend dumped her, and then suddenly is coming home with new major injuries ALMOST EVERY DAY. And that daughter is just lying to him CONSTANTLY, and she doesn't care how HE feels at all.

She isn't even pretending she cares how he feels. It's all about POOOOOOOOR emo Bella and her feelings, and Charlie can just suck it.

In fact, she's such a selfish bitch that the very next scene involves her whining “Charlie’s getting nosy" the following Friday. Jacob suggests that maybe she should take a week off the motorcycle crashes... wait, how come he hasn't suggested that maybe she should actually LEARN how to ride a motorcycle and get a LICENSE before she tries to ride it for real?! Has he just been sitting there watching while she crashes into stationary objects?

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-w8yXE150cQQ/VG70Qx4SXPI/AAAAAAAAILY/pCB9clq4pcM/s400/motiv%2B-%2Binsanity%2Bdefinition.jpg

Bella of course is horrified by the idea of not deliberately crashing so she can hear Edward jeering at her, and she acts like a spoiled brat. Naturally.

<b>I thought about that for a minute—about what I wanted.

</b>

"I wanted a sparkling penis! And immortality! And unlimited money! Just those three things, really."

So Bella starts contemplating ways to endanger herself, because God forbid she go for more than a day without hearing Edturd bossing her around.

<b>If I couldn’t have the bikes, I was going to have to find some other avenue to the danger and the adrenaline, and that was going to take serious thought and creativity.

</b>

"Hey Bella, you have smoke pouring out of your ears. What are you doing?"

<b>Doing nothing in the meantime was not appealing. Suppose I got depressed again, even with Jake? I had to keep occupied.

</b>

So... how about actually DOING something? Like work in a soup kitchen, get a pet, learn some skills, find out how to cook something that DOESN'T cause heart attacks, take the SATs, discover the planet does not revolve around your lazy ass, take up a hobby like ventriloquism, read some books that AREN'T by Bronte or Austen, explore fashion, get an internship, help the homeless, help the impoverished in your community, help save the environment, learn to knit, learn to crochet, collect something, write a book, learn to dance...

In short, DO SOMETHING that doesn't focus on your worthless selfish ass!

<b>The house had been a mistake, certainly.

</b>

A HUGE mistake. I mean, they gutted a beautiful old house of all the period detail!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-C-wW-X0Vcfk/VG7zXx9iPWI/AAAAAAAAH_Y/U1EP8lOp1Tw/s400/no%2Bi%2527m%2Bnot%2Bkidding.jpg

<b>But his presence must be stamped somewhere, somewhere other than inside me.

</b>

That depends. Was he not-banging anyone else in town?

<b>There had to be a place where he seemed more real than among all the familiar landmarks that were crowded with other human memories.

</b>

Of course, her bedroom! Where they spent countless hours dry-humping and spooning!

No, she actually means the meadow where Edward first admitted he was a vampire and he wanted to eat her, or some shit like that.

<b>I could think of one place where that might hold true. One place that would always belong to him and no one else.

</b>

... until it was turned into a prime real estate site and affordable townhouses were built there.

<b>A magic place, full of light.

</b>

And weed. Lots of weed.

<b>The beautiful meadow I’d seen only once in my life, lit by sunshine and the sparkle of his skin.

</b>

I later got Lyme Disease from all the ticks in that meadow. But it was totally worth it to see my boyfriend sparkle like a disco ball!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-iXuRQuV456k/VG7xu7IyhtI/AAAAAAAAHpU/eNP6h49q67g/s400/disco%2Bball%2Bhead.jpg

<b>This idea had a huge potential for backfiring—it might be dangerously painful.

</b>

Pain is not dangerous. It's supposed to notify you when something is dangerous.

Also, I don't know why she thinks hanging around the meadow is going to magically make her hear Edturd's voice. We've already established that she ONLY hallucinates when she's in danger. So why go to the meadow? DOES. NOT. COMPUTE.

So Bella immediately starts teetering around moping about how painful her life is, blahblahblah. And Jacob doesn't seem to really notice. I can't help but imagine Bella oozing all over the place, wailing, "Life is paaaaaain! Life is EEEEMPTY without sparkly diiiiick!" and Jacob is just sitting there reading a book.

<b>“We could use a compass and a grid pattern,” Jacob said with confident helpfulness. “Do you know where you started from?”

</b>

Bella is completely useless. Edward is completely useless. Why isn't Jacob the lead character?!

<b>“Yes, just below the trailhead where the one-ten ends. I was going mostly south, I think.”

</b>

"Or north. Or east. Or west. I spent most of the hike staring at Edward's ass."

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-AJcQI-fvMEI/VIVWMhoAzvI/AAAAAAAAJNg/C-N7yLAGqYw/s400/frolicking%2Bwith%2Bundead%2Bboy.gif

<b>As always, Jacob was game for anything I wanted. No matter how strange it was.

</b>

Going for a hike to a pretty place is not strange. Telling him to put on a crab suit and make love to an octopus is weird.

You can tell that Stephenie Meyer is a very boring person whenever she describes something Bella does as "strange."

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-qmRMwo1QBbg/VG7Lvn5U_eI/AAAAAAAAEGw/1va_TH8Xzhg/s400/spinny%2Bshiny%2Bthing.gif

<b>So, Saturday afternoon, I tied on my new hiking boots—purchased that morning using my twenty-percent-off employee discount for the first time

</b>

And she wonders why Charlie thinks she's lying about hiking.

<b>first, Jacob sprawled across the living room floor—taking up the whole room—

</b>

Holy fuck, just how huge is he supposed to be? Has Smeyer ever seen a living room?! Is he supposed to be the Incredible Hulk?!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Opl31ube1zA/VG7sn2rFpFI/AAAAAAAAGbQ/qzb3aOnRE8Y/s400/incredible%2Bhulk.jpg

"Jacob jealous! Jacob SMASH sparkly asshole!"

So Jacob is planning their hike, and Bella is trying to keep Charlie from finding out about their proposed hike because she thinks he'll forbid it. Yeah. Right.

Which reminds me: how come Bella isn't seeking out the super-bear-that-isn't-a-bear-because-these-people-are-idiots-who-can't-tell-a-bear-and-a-wolf-apart? I mean, it's been established that there's a giant freakish predator in the area, which is dangerous. But for some reason the girl who likes crashing into things on a motorcycle hasn't even contemplated the possibility of endangering herself via wildlife. WOW, SHE'S STUPID.

<b>I glanced at Billy swiftly, fearing a Charlie-style reaction.

</b>

.... so she's fearing a depressed lack of action, coupled with the helpless impotent air of a man who is ignored and lied to all the time?

<b>But Billy just laughed at his son. “Maybe you should take a jar of honey, just in case.”

</b>

"Just be sure to smear it all over Bella and trip her up. I've had as much of the emo act as I can take."

<b>Jake chuckled. “Hope your new boots are fast, Bella. One little jar isn’t going to keep a hungry bear occupied for long.”

“I only have to be faster than you.”

</b>

Has Smeyer totally forgotten that Bella is not only supposed to be fatally clumsy, but also totally out of shape? Also, this is the girl who, when confronted by potential GANG-RAPE, just sat there drooling on herself until a man rescued her.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4A2oAioPTwA/VVQxPs32cUI/AAAAAAAAJg0/6lJwGhOc8Fc/s400/run%2Baway%2Brun%2Baway.gif

<b>Charlie was not a hard person to live with, but it looked to me like Jacob had it even easier than I did.

</b>

"Like, my dad is so totally lame, he's like CONCERNED when I keep ending up in the hospital and stuff, because like, he claims he like LOVES me and stuff! And I'm like O.M.G. Charlie, you're totally like BOTHERING me with all that personal concern and stuff. Like, you should totally just give me money when I want it and do whatever I say, and not give me any of that stupid advice to keep me safe. TCHAH!"

So even though we've established that Bella ONLY hears Edturd when she's in danger, she's convinced that going to the meadow will allow her to magically hear him again. So she and Jacob go trotting off into the woods.

<b>“I would have figured you for a trail kind of girl.”

</b>

"Partly because you're a coward, and partly because you're lazy."

<b>“Not me.” I smiled bleakly. “I’m a rebel.”

</b>

"Sometimes I wear baggy khakis instead of shapeless mom jeans!"

So it turns out that Jacob is in great shape and an expert at finding things with a map and compass. Again, why is Bella the main character? She has no skills, virtues or talents, and he's made of awesome.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_7VaCsOn4BQ/VVqw2jz5w8I/AAAAAAAAJro/B3ntaXeBLKI/s400/i%2Bhave%2Bno%2Binterests%2Band%2Bno%2Btalent.jpg

So they wander around in the woods, with Bella being emo, useless and self-indulgent, and Jacob being awesome.

<b>He really looked like he knew what he was doing.

</b>

Imagine that! A teenager who doesn't read a few books and figure he/she's now smarter than everyone else in the world, and who actually develops SKILLS and KNOWLEDGE!

<b>I was going to compliment him, but I caught myself. No doubt he’d add another few years to his inflated age.

</b>

Plus, he didn't sparkle. You should only lavish praise on people who sparkle. And rich people!

Since this scene is boring even for Smeyer, she decides to insert random conversation.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-f_gBzmz2JqY/VG7ozmbdYgI/AAAAAAAAFpM/jtLTn8K-fM8/s400/stop%2Btalking.gif

I'll sum it up: Bella asks if Embry is still with Sam. Jacob says yes. He cries for awhile about how his boyfriend abandoned him. Bella asks if the gang is still treating Jacob weirdly. Jacob says yes.

<b>“Our couch is always open,” I offered.

</b>

"You can totally sneak up to my room ! I mean, it's not like I have a Mormon vampire in there NOT having sex with me! Haha! Just an example!"

So they wander of in various directions until it's getting dark out, but they don't find the meadow. I have the horrible feeling that Smeyer is trying to insert some horrible symbolism here - like O.M.G. the meadow is totally Bella's happiness because it's all about Edward and he took her there, and she tries to find it with Jacob but she CAN'T because he's totally not rich, white and sparkly, and blah blah blah...

<b>“We’ll save hiking for Sundays from now on. I didn’t know you were that slow.”

</b>

"Also, you spent the whole hike trying to lie down and spoon with rocks."

So Bella gets in a huff, and since the Li'l Womenfolk are so KEWT when they act all mad at the Big Strong Menfolk, Jacob is merely amused by her being angry at him. Someone needs to tell Smeyer that when a teenage boy wants to score with a teenage girl, he doesn't chuckle and shake his head indulgently when a girl is pissed at him. No, he tries to FIX that, because otherwise he will be spending many lonely nights masturbating in his room... especially if he treats all women like that!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bergluLdgkk/VHLigOV3DHI/AAAAAAAAIow/f9OrB6PoQJg/s400/you%2527re%2Bsad%2Blonely%2Band%2Bnobody%2Bis%2Bgoing%2Bto%2Blove%2Byou.gif

They decide to go hiking again the next day.

<b>“Sure. Unless you want to go without me so I don’t tie you down to my gimpy pace.”

</b>

Boy, Bella is a bitch. Now she's trying to claim she's handicapped too?

Jacob then suggests that Bella pick up some moleskin for whatever blisters she might have developed.

<b>“A little,” I confessed. It felt like I had more blisters than I had space to fit them.

</b>

BULL. SHIT. I've had hiking blisters, and they hurt like a MOTHERFUCKER. It feels like your skin is peeling off, and every single step is absolute agony because of the friction against the parts where your SKIN has gotten puffed out. You can tell the only hiking Smeyer does is hiking from the couch to the fridge and back.

<b>“Bears don’t want to eat people. We don’t taste that good.” He grinned at me in the dark cab. “Of course, you might be an exception. I bet you’d taste good.”

“Thanks so much,” I said, looking away. He wasn’t the first person to tell me that.

</b>

I bet he isn't.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0aFmQOXHaUA/VVqzpQ2vj6I/AAAAAAAAJr8/rtB7QDC6pW0/s400/sexual%2Binnuendos.jpg

Seriously, does Smeyer not have the faintest idea that that sounds JUST like an oral sex joke?! It's a teenage BOY telling a teenage GIRL that he thinks she'd TASTE GOOD. I'm assuming it wasn't meant to be a subtle pun, because Smeyer's sense of humor is as subtle as Thor's hammer to the face, and she didn't EXPLAIN the joke.

So I can just assume that she's sooooooooo sheltered that she doesn't realize how it sounds. She's like Christopher Paolini 2.0, but with less entertaining stories.