“The bond forged between us was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time.
And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brilliant or perfect than me he might be, he was as irreversibly altered as I was.
As I would always belong to him, so would he always be mine.”
Summary
When I started this blog series, I really saw it going in a different direction. I expected to read this as an adult and see all of these things wrong with it. I forgot one important thing. Movies are always different than the book. The movie portrays Bella as a suicidal overly dramatic girl that does stupid stuff to put herself in danger to see hallucinations of her ex-boyfriend. That is a true and untrue statement.
In the book, we start with it being Bella's birthday. Alice throws her a birthday party and because of a papercut, Jasper loses his mind and tries to attack Bella. Edward realizes that every day, in some way or another Bella is in danger because of him. If it isn't nomad vampires, it is his own family that could one day hurt her. He starts distancing himself from her emotionally. Then he breaks up with her by saying things that would make it easy for her to hate him so she could move on.
Bella goes into a deep depression. Edward made her feel loved and wanted. He was her everything, and she was his. He made her feel special. That is now all gone. She internalizes it, starts ignoring her friends at school, and describes herself as a zombie. She continues to get good grades and she goes to work, but she is just numb and dead inside. Anyone that has suffered from depression can totally relate to this feeling. Later in the book, we find out that Charlie has had a parenting wake-up call somewhere and actually realizes that something is wrong. He almost hospitalizes her, he calls her mom to take her back to Florida hoping a change of scenery will pull her out of it. Bella freaks out and doesn't go, but at least Charlie tries in this one. He has finally had enough and confronts her. She makes plans with friends and starts seeing hallucinations of Edward brought on by adrenaline.
Bella is still far from being okay. Edward promised that it would be as if he never existed, and in return, she promised not to do anything dangerous. Well, since Edward broke his promise, she decided she was going to. Enter Jacob Black. Bella happens to find two free motorcycles and remember Jake is good at fixing cars. Once Bella starts hanging out with Jacob, she feels the hole in her chest is starting to heal. She feels better. Jacob starts to get attached and Bella knows it. She is trying really hard not to lead him on, The motorcycles are finished, and Bella realizes the perfect combo to "see" Edward.
Then Jake gets "sick". Bella tries to pass her alone time by trying to find Edward's meadow. Once it's found, Laurant is there waiting for her. He tells her Victoria's plan and tries to kill her. But the werewolves stop him. Jake reappears throwing all kinds of mood swings at Bella and reminds her of the time on the beach when he told her the Quileute legends. Bella puts two and two together and finds out Jake wasn't sick, he was a wolf. Together they figure out Victoria is after Bella. So now Bella hangs out with the wolves to keep herself and Charlie safe.
Jake promises to take her cliff diving but has to back out at the last second because the pack found Victoria. A storm starts to come in from the sea. Bella decides she doesn't want to wait for Jake and takes off on her own. She set out to find the lower diving spot, but the trail she is on leads straight to the top. She looks down and thinks that it will be as easy as jumping into a pool. So she jumps. She doesn't account for any complications of the storm, currents, waves until she is already in the water. She almost drowns but Jacob saves her.
Through a tangled web of misunderstandings, Edward thinks Bella is dead. Alice and Bella head to Italy to stop Edward from killing himself via. the Volturi. Aro tells them that Bella either becomes a vampire or she will die because she knows too much. Alice assures him that she will be one. Everyone heads back to Forks.
My thoughts:
The picture of Bella's depression, I don't think could have been any more spot on. The author did an amazing job of capturing how a depressed person thinks and acts. Bella is never "suicidal". She wants the pain to stop, but always thinks of Charlie any time her thoughts go that way.
The issue of putting herself in danger for adrenaline, I can't really say that is something a normal teen wouldn't do. Cliff jumping wasn't a far fetched idea because the kids on the reservation did it all the time. Teenagers love dirt bikes/motorcycles. My point is that Bella doesn't do anything a normal teen wouldn't try. She doesn't do any of it because she is suicidal, she does it for the rush.
With the above being said, she realizes that the rush leads to her hallucinations. She enjoys them because they are of Edward. Many times throughout the book, Bella says that they are not healthy. I think any teen that reads this is going to think that it is normal/okay and start entertaining any ideas.
My new theory is that some people may be basing their negative opinions about this series off of the movies alone. I agree that movies portray things very differently than what is in the books.
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