Summary		Main	Review
01-07	08-10	11-15	16-20	21-Epilogue

Chapter 21
Alice had another vision while Bella was asleep – that of the living room of Bella’s old house, which Bella is quick to point out. There be another conversation-that-goes-so-fast-it’s-a-blur talk on the phone, and Edward is coming to get Bella and they’re going to relocate and all that bunch.

But then there’s another phone call. From Bella’s mother. Alice hocks over the phone, and it turns out Bella’s mom got kidnapped by James and I swear if you don’t pay any attention to the rest of the text and just read the dialogue, it is the creepiest fucking thing. I’m rather disappointed it got cut out of the movie. James threatens to off Bella’s mom if Bella doesn’t do exactly as he says, so after going to another room and faking a conversation with her mother, Bella agrees to escape from her vampire friends so James can chomp on her, and thus save her mother’s life.

Then Bella does something horribly stupid. She doesn’t tell her vampire friends what’s going on. If Bella had the brains to come up with her own little escape plan, certainly she should’ve had the mind to go, “Hey guys, I think we can fake him out permanently on this one. I’ll have to act as bait to save my mom, but then you guys jump his ass.”

Nope. Bella writes herself a goodbye note – disguising it as something meant for her mother, and gets ready to meet her maker.

Hopefully said maker has a blender.

Chapter 22
The writing stumbles a bit in this chapter, but nothing truly horrendous. Edward doesn’t put in an appearance except in Bella’s overactive imagination, so the weird prose associated with Edward and all Edward related things is present, but not abundant.

Bella’s a nervous wreck – especially when Alice has another vision but insists it’s nothing. There’s some talk about Bella eating breakfast, but Bella insists they put it off and they head to the airport. Edward’s flight is arriving at the busiest terminal in the place – but he’s also ten minutes early. Bella claims that hay now, the human needs food and insists Jasper escorts her instead of Alice. Jasper and Alice be a bit perplexed by this, but go with it. Bella fakes needing to go to the bathroom, and her reasoning for taking Jasper becomes clear – the bathroom has two exits, one of which would be out of Jasper’s line of sight. If Alice had gone, Alice could’ve just followed Bella into the bathroom.

Though for once, the reader has to infer this for his/her self. Once in the bathroom Bella hauls ass, not caring who she offends, and grabs a taxi back to her house. Bella spends the ride back fantasizing about Edward, about being held in his marble arms and his glittery vampire skin blah blah blah…

Once home, Bella calls James – I don’t remember him leaving her his number, I’ll have to look that up again – and he’s all “Go to the ballet school! Dance for me my swan!”

… Ok, he doesn’t say the bit about dancing. But I’m seriously having “Vampire of the Ballet Studio” flashes, as opposed to “Phantom of the Opera.”

Why didn’t Bella simply go straight there in the first place?

Bella goes to the dance studio, having flash backs of her mother and tripping over every crack and shadow on the sidewalk.

The dance studio is empty – cleared out for spring break – and for some reason unlocked. Inside Bella can hear her mother calling in alarm, which causes Bella to run across the studio, open one of the back doors and find… a video recording from when Bella was little.

I saw this in the movie already, but it was still kickass.

But James promptly lost all his coolpoints by monologueing about how his devious plan had worked. Only amateurs do that! Victoria, observations, research, blah blah blah. The main interesting bit was his talk about Alice – who in life, apparently smelled one hell of a lot more tastier than Bella does, but well, Alice already had a vampire “protector” who turned her. Alice was, at the time, simply too batshit crazy to know the difference.

Anyway, James has no intention of making it quick, and Bella finally is terrified enough for her sense of self preservation to kick in – albeit, it’s far too late. James gloats some more “I got you now my pretties! Perfect spot for a documentary ain’t it?” And there’s Bella tossing and breaking of Bella’s leg, and since the glass cuts into Bella’s skull James goes all “Hai dinner!” but then Bella passes out from the smell of blood, totally missing out on the juicy bits.

Wow, this was a short chapter. Bella spends a lot of it wondering if she’s dead and in heaven, and calling Edward an angel. Now, given that the title of this chapter is “The Angel,” this isn’t surprising, but good lord did she have to beat the dead horse on this one? The purple prose returns in full force, with gems like “blazing determination” and “sobbing tearless, broken sobs.”

Basically, Bella’s in a state of quasi-conciousness through most of it because of her injuries – she only hears the fight between Edward and James. Eventually, the entire Cullen family makes an appearance and she can hear Carlisle, Edward and Alice talking. James bit her, and Edward – after some appropriate angsting over sucking Bella’s blood – manages to get the funky vampire venom out of Bella before she grows fangs and develops a taste for raw hamburger. There’s some “don’t leave me” “I love you snookums,” and Charlisle doing his mad doctor thing, and Bella passes out.

Really. That’s it.

Chapter 24
Bella wakes up in the hospital, all tubed up and such. Edward’s there, and for once there be no flowery descriptions of how hot he is. The important part of their chit-chat involves Bella getting informed of the cover story since her mom has shown up Renee was never caught by any vampires so she has no idea that her daughter’s new beau is undead.

And in comes Renee! Edward feigns sleeping while Renee expresses her concern over her daugther’s wellbeing and talks about how … whatshisname her husband got a job on a minor team and whee Bella can come live with them in Florida now and leave dreary old Forks behind! Given Bella’s huge hissyfit with Charlie, the fact that she goes “nah, I’d rather stay in forks kthanksbai” horribly confuses her mother – who then looks over at Edward had has a lightbulb moment, only to go, “but you’re so young!” and I’m scratching my head wondering “WTF? It’s not like they’ve announced an engagement.”

So then Bella’s all “scram mom my boyfriend will take care of me” and Renee splits and Edward stops faking being asleep. He’s all “OMG u totes fer reals should go to FL where you’ll be safe!” I’m wondering “safe from what?” If Bella’s near death experience with a car is anything to judge by, the last place she should be living is Tallahassee – it’s a big college town. Some drunk frat boy will probably run her over. Then there’s several pages of conversation, that goes like this:

Bella: Make me a vampire.
Edward: No.
Bella: I’m tired of being the damsel in distress and I don’t wanna get old and fugly. Make me a vampire.
Edward: No. I’m a monster and I want you to live a natural human life as nature intended.
Bella: You’re not a monster, you’re hot and I’d totally die without you so make me a vampire!
Edward: … bugger this, I’m paging the nurse so she can drug your butt.

And lo, did le chapter close with Bella going sleepybyes.

Epilogue
So, evil vampires have been vanquished, Bella has been released from the hospital, everyone’s gone back to Forks, aaand…

everyone goes to prom. For some reason Bella thought Alice was decking her out for when Edward made her a vampire. Bella, they don’t hand out corsages for death.

Bella’s ticked because she can’t dance and so doesn’t want to go, but Edward calms her down. The other vampire sibs are already there totally hogging the center of the gym because they are Just That Pretty. Edward has Bella stepping on his feet to avoid disastrous Bella clumsiness when Jacob shows up. Edward has a classic alpha male reaction – “She’s mine bitch!” But Bella tells him to cool it so Jacob can cut in, act like a fifteen year old with a crush, and deliver a message from his grandpa – break up with Edward, and “we’ll be watching you.”

Edward swoops in, takes Bella outside, cue a repeat of the closing conversation from chapter 24, only with prom dresses. End Book.