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Chapter Summary: Bella shows that she is a shallow, gold-digging bitch. And she meets Edward Cullen, douchebag extraordinaire.
Chapter 1 is titled “First Sight.” Which means that Bella will meet sparkledouche.
Bella’s mom is driving Bella to the airport. Personally, I would have killed Bella and dumped her body in the middle of the desert.
It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue.
Despite what Meyer wants us to think, Arizona is not the Garden of Eden. It is hot and dry.
I don’t get why Bella is so fond of Arizona even though she never goes out in the sun.
I was wearing my favorite shirt — sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.
I’m not sure why Meyer feels the need to tell us this. And items of clothing that you wear do not count as a “carry-on item.”
So Bella is going to live in a rainy town called Forks.
It was from this town and it’s 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. That was the year I finally put my foot down; these past three summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead.
- We have our first sign that Bella is a selfish bitch.
- I will bring this up whenever someone claims that Bella is an unselfish person.
- Bella does not care that her mother LEFT her father because it keeps her from living somewhere she doesn’t like.
- Bella’s father experienced the end of his marriage, the loss of the woman he loved AND never seeing his only child for many years.
- But Bella doesn’t give a fuck because she isn’t only thinking about HERSELF.
- And to add the cherry on top of the shit sundae, she doesn’t care if the time spent seeing her father is shorted to “two weeks”… as long as it is on her terms.
It was to Forks that I now exiled myself— an action that I took with great horror. I detested Forks.
You might be wondering why Bella is going to be living in Forks full-time. After all, Bella has bitched about how Forks is the third circle of Hell.
The alleged reason is that Bella’s mother and stepfather are doing something related to his minor-league baseball career.
Apparently, both Bella’s mom and stepdad don’t have any friends who could take care of a seventeen-year-old for a couple months.
I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the vigorous, sprawling city.
“Even though I’m whiter than snow and hate being outside.”
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? Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still…
It is bad enough that Stephenie Meyer is hell-bent on depicting Bella as a paragon of virtue. But now, Bella has to be “wise beyond her years”?
Oh hell no.
Are supposed to believe that Bella has been cooking, cleaning, and paying the bills since infancy? I find this unbelievable.
And if Bella’s mom has the IQ of a houseplant, then how did she travel from Washington from Arizona? Walking?
Bella’s mom tells her that she can come back to Phoenix at any time.
But I could see the sacrifice in her eyes behind the promise.
Here’s an idea. Bella, stop acting like a martyr. And Bella’s mom, grow up.
Flying doesn’t bother me;
At least the bitching and moaning has stopped for a second.
Her Royal Pain in the Ass is wangsting how her father is very happy about her coming to Forks.
Despite Bella having the personality of roadkill, her father has registered her for high school and plans on getting her a car.
But it was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what anyone would call verbose,
For someone who is supposedly not verbose, she loves giving whiny blithering rants.
I’d already said my goodbyes to the sun.
Quit being so melodramatic! We get it, you feel like you’re descending into hell because you are going to be living in a town that you despise.
Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks.
Bella Swan…Bella—
Bella means “beautiful”. Stephenie Meyer gave her main character a name meaning “beautiful swan.”
Within the first chapter, we have a selfish, whiny, and melodramatic girl with a Suey name. The worst is yet to come.
My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.
Whatever the brat wants, the brat gets.
God forbid Charlie says “Tough shit, Bells. You’ve got two options. You can ride in the police cruiser or you walk.”
Anyway, Bella arrives at the airport and Charlie awkwardly greets her.
I stumbled my way off the plane.
Evidently, Stephenie Meyer thinks being clumsy counts as a character flaw.
They make small talk during which Bella thinks about how she is not “allowed to call him Charlie to his face.“
Because calling him Dad would mean you are not in charge. Bella laments that she only has a few bags of clothes that fits into the trunk of the police cruiser.
Bella gets pissed off when Dad announces that he has found her a car.
“What kind of car?” I was suspicious of the way he said “good car for you” as opposed to just “good car.”
Fuck you, Bella. I’m not weeping over her Dickensian poverty.
Bella interrogates her dad where he got the truck and who owned the truck. It turns out that Bella’s car is a Chevy truck once belonged to one of Charlie’s fishing buddies who lives in the local Indian reservation. Bella then sneers that “would explain why I didn’t remember him. I do a good job of blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory.”
Her dad says that the guy is in a wheelchair and can no longer drive, so Charlie got the truck at a low price.
Bella demands to know what year it is. He says that the truck is old but has a new engine. Bella starts getting all pissy, asking “How cheap is cheap?”
Bella finally calms down once her father tells her that she doesn’t have to pay a penny and it’s a present.
Charlie wasn’t comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. I inherited that from him.
This is very hilarious since Bella has spent much of this chapter giving whiny rants. And she will be screaming her “luv” for Edward into a megaphone, having two MASSIVE emotional breakdowns in the sequel, and being an intolerable bitch to anyone who is willing to put up with her bullshit.
Bella thanks her dad.
No need to add that my being happy in Forks is an impossibility. He didn’t need to suffer along with me.
You are right, Bella. Charlie doesn’t need to suffer. When you are sleeping, he can smother you with a pillow.
So neither of them talk for a while. And since Bella whines repeatedly like a song stuck on replay, she detests the rainforest that surrounds her.
It was beautiful, of course; I couldn’t deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves. It was too green — an alien planet.
Even if someone plopped El Dorado in middle of Forks, Bella would still kvetch that isn’t Phoenix.
Surprisingly, the one thing that Bella hasn’t complained about is the truck. Bella claims that she likes it because “I could see myself in it.“
But the real reason is that she doesn’t have to either "walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chief’s cruiser.”
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact.
How dreadful! Everyone knows that a Mary Sue must have an en suite bathroom! You can’t honestly expect a Sue to SHARE! The horrors!
It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape.
I don’t give a damn about selfish and whiny little brat who hates everything and complains about everything 24/7.
I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak.
- Bella would be devastated if she wasn’t the center of attention.
- S. Meyer, this is not the 19th century. Transfer students are not freakish or peculiar. People moving into new towns are no longer a big deal.
- Bella is so humble that she assumes that everyone will give a damn about her.
But physically, I’d never fit in anywhere. I should be tan, sporty, blond — a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps — all the things that go with living in the valley of the sun.
Here is another Sue trait: being different from mere mortals! She doesn’t fit anywhere! Feel sorry for her!
Instead, 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;
- Translation: she’s pasty white and is out of shape.
- Because Bella is the author’s avatar, she must be beautiful but oblivious to it.
- I like how she makes a BIG DEAL out of not being an athlete. I think this is S. Meyer’s subtle way of telling us that athletic women are mannish and undesirable creatures while “proper” ladies should sit and do needlework.
- Apparently, Bella looks like this:
I wonder why…
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.
Evidently, S. Meyer thinks being a mega klutz is a real character flaw in an otherwise perfect person. But it isn’t. An actual flaw would being dishonest, lazy, or selfish.
I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn’t just physically that I’d never fit in.
“Poor woe is me! I’m a lonely outsider! Nobody understands me!”
I believe Meyer thinks this makes Bella a complex and unique character but she sounds like every other Mary Sue ever written. All of whom are special, too clever, too misunderstood, and too intellectual for their imbecile peers… But with no evidence to back this up.
I didn’t relate well to people my age.
It’s because you are a cold-hearted bitch who sneers at others and whines 24/7.
Maybe the truth was that I didn’t relate well to people, period.
At least Bella has something in common with most serial killers.
Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs.
Yes, she’s a Special Snowflake and nobody understands her. Bella is just like every other whiny, bitchy, emo teen.
Bella cried all night and “pulled the faded old quilt over my head, and later added the pillow, too.”
If Bella had pressed down, the story would be finally over. Unfortunately, Bella is still alive. She whines about how Forks is making her claustrophobic and good luck avoids her. Bella then balks about Dad having her school pictures on the wall.
After complaining about how her Dad is a loser, Bella decides to whine about the weather. Upon seeing shrubs around the school, she remarks: “Where was the feel of the institution? I wondered nostalgically. Where were the chain-link fences, the metal detectors?”
Where were the shanks? Where were the drug dealers? Where were the rapes? After Bella wishes the school was a prison, she walks inside. There, she meets a helpful and kind woman whom she ignores.
Bella is happy that all the other students have old cars.
I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me. I finally exhaled and stepped out of the truck.
See what Stephenie Meyer did? She talked about people biting her in a book about vampires! Truly Meyer has a dizzying intellect!
Bella tries her hardest to avoid people noticing her at all, short of wearing camouflage to blend into the wall.
It was fairly basic: Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I’d already read everything. That was comforting… and boring.
The public school system clearly failed to run the curriculum by Bella to make sure it met her standards. This is Meyer’s clumsy attempt to convince us that Bella is smarter than everyone else because she reads classic literature.
Even though those books are on the curriculum for many schools.
When the bell rang, a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with skin problems and hair black as an oil slick leaned across the aisle to talk to me. “You’re Isabella Swan, aren’t you?” He looked like the overly helpful, chess club type.
And Twilight just got its first cliched nerd. I’m surprised that Meyer didn’t give Eric a pocket protector.
“Bella,” I corrected. Everyone within a three-seat radius turned to look at me.
Because Bella is a Sue, everyone looks at her. She talks to Eric because she needs to meet her politeness quota. Bella can’t stand him and is paranoid that people are staring at her.
Now, Bella isn’t worried that people hate her or think she is a weirdo. She just wants to be ignored because being obnoxious + antisocial= humility. Eric asks Bella about Phoenix and she immediately ignores him. Isn’t she so kind?
“You don’t look very tan.”
“My mother is part albino.”
When Eric fails to appreciate her Wildean wit, she whines “It looked like clouds and a sense of humor didn’t mix. A few months of this and I’d forget how to use sarcasm.”
Bella, you need to have a sense of humor before you can lose it.
Bella complains that people spoke to her and were friendly. Bella meets a girl who she can’t be bothered remembering her name. At lunch, a girl tries to be nice to her and introduced Bella to her friends.
Bella sits with this girl and her friends at the cafeteria. And Bella doesn’t try to remember their names.
And then IT happens. She sees the sparklepires. Even though Bella bitched and moaned about people staring at her, she proceeds to gawk at the rich hot white people.
One’s a burly meatball, one’s a tall and wiry blond guy, and one’s lanky with “untidy, bronze-colored hair.” Since he’s a Gary Stu, I take it with a grain of salt.
She also remarks that they look like “they could be in college, or even teachers here rather than students.”
If that’s the case, then why are they pretending to be high school students for the billionth time?
One female sparklepire is tall and beautiful blonde while the other is pretty pixie girl who is supposed to be quirky.
And yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, the palest of all the students living in this sunless town.
Which means they look exactly like Anita Blake.
Paler than me, the albino.
Bitch, please. You wish you were unique. You’re just whiter than toilet paper from staying indoors all day.
Bella is drooling over the hot people and muses “It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful — maybe the perfect blond girl, or the bronze-haired boy.”
I don’t look through rainbow-colored glasses and immediately interpret any character interaction as being potentially queer.
But considering the fact that Bella is ogling the sparklepires and Bella will wrap herself around Alice and sniff her skin in New Moon…
I’m confident enough to say Bella is not heterosexual.
Bella asks who are the rich and hot people. They are the Cullens, adopted teenagers who live with the local doctor. Their names are Edward, Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, and Alice.
Despite knowing nothing about the sparklepires, Bella is convinced that everyone is jealous of how rich and hot the Cullens are.
Bella is extremely fascinated with auburn headed boy named Edward who ignored her except for a single second.
“That’s Edward. He’s gorgeous, of course, but don’t waste your time. He doesn’t date. Apparently, none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him.” She sniffed, a clear case of sour grapes. I wondered when he’d turned her down.
Of course, Bella would never be so petty. She’s better than all these pathetic, stupid, and ugly girls. Bella is the only one worthy to date Edward Cullen.
Then she bumps into Edward in biology class and is shocked that he looks at her angrily. The horror! Then Bella has a klutz attack.
Edward is leaning away from Bella and is “averting his face like he smelled something bad.” Like a weirdo, Bella sniffs her hair which smelled like “strawberries.” Edward spends the entire class trying to be as far away from her as possible.
And why should Bella pay attention in class? She has more important things to do like lusting after Edward.
He didn’t know me from Eve.
The cover has a half-eaten apple and the epigraph talks about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And now, Eve is mentioned.
My tiny mind can’t believe how clever and subtle Stephenie Meyer is.
He was glaring down at me again, his black eyes full of revulsion.
Thankfully, Edward hates Mary Sues too.
I sat frozen in my seat, staring blankly after him. He was so mean. It wasn’t fair.
“He’s not worshiping me! HE DOESN’T LOVE ME ON FIRST SIGHT! HE’S A MEANIE!”
This is why I don’t believe Bella hates people paying attention to her. Only ONE person won’t touch her a barge-pole. She’s furious and says that he was “mean” and whines that it isn’t “fair”.
And considering the only person ignoring her is the richest boy in the entire school… It shows that Bella is a shallow, gold-digging bitch.
Bella walks to gym with a cute and nice boy named Mike. Of course, she gives him the cold shoulder because he is not Edward Cullen.
Here, P.E. was mandatory all four years. Forks was literally my personal hell on Earth.
Two things, S. Meyer. Brava for perfectly capturing the selfish, immature, whiny, and immature attitudes of girls like Bella.
And in regards to how you use the word “literally”:
We also find out that Bella has volleyballphobia. This is supposed to show that Bella is an adorable klutz. And like a proper damsel in distress, she hates any form of strenuous exercise.
Then she encounters Edward.
I quickly picked up the gist of the argument. He was trying to trade from sixth-hour Biology to another time — any other time.
In a better story, there would be another reason why Eddy would want to change Biology to a different time.
But in bad fiction, everyone and everything revolves around the Sue.
I just couldn’t believe that this was about me. It had to be something else, something that happened before I entered the Biology room.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe the world does not revolve around you?
It was impossible that this stranger could take such a sudden, intense dislike to me.
“I’m the most beautiful, kind, and selfless girl in the world. How can he resist my charming personality?”
Edward glares at her but was "absurdly handsome.”
Bella walks to the truck. She describes the truck as the closest thing to a home in “this damp green hole.”
I headed back to Charlie’s house, fighting tears the whole way there.
“The rich and hot guy hates me! My life sucks!”
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