I read Twilight so you don't have to // CHAPTER 4: INVITATIONS
Bella gets asked out to the dance by EVERY BOY SHE KNOWS, I WISH I WAS KIDDING.
A Summary: Bella dreams of sushi, I mean, Edward Cullen, every night. She remains the center of attention at school, and gets asked out to the dance multiple times by different guys. Edward remains distant, and tells Bella that she should stay away from him (oho, we’ll get to that).
Note: Sometimes I refer to Bella as “Loca”, and it’s a reference from the second Twilight movie, New Moon, so in case you were wondering.
Random Observations:
This chapter was infuriating to read for a good handful of reasons. The book already reads like a self-insert Wattpad* story, but this chapter was especially potent.
*An online platform for writings of all kinds, but notoriously famous for fanfiction of the boyband/self-insert variety.
Every guy at school is falling over himself to ask Bella out, and she’s just over here like, ugh, not again. It doesn’t feel like natural character dynamics, it feels like wish fulfillment. Like, “what if I moved to a small town and everyone was obsessed with me, but I was too chill to care?”
It’s easy to tell when a writer didn’t go through a fanfiction phase to get this energy out of their system in middle school. (Or maybe I’m just salty they skipped the Wattpad years and still made millions. I have to respect that).
Other observations:
My Thoughts:
Chapter opens where the last one left off: with Bella dreaming of Edward Cullen. In every dream (she dreams of him every night), he’s always turned away from her, always just out of reach. Kind of like real life. Tbh, Edward’s acting like every high school boy you ever had a crush on: brooding, aloof, vaguely rude, and somehow that just makes him more appealing to Loca.
Bella goes on to describe her week, and that no one will leave her alone. Tyler—the boy who almost hit Bella with his van—won’t stop following her, and joins her, Mike, and Eric at their “now-crowded lunch table.”
Mike and Eric were even less friendly toward him than they were to each other, which made me worry that I’d gained another unwelcome fan. (pg 69, nice)
After reading two-ish more pages of Bella talking about how “miserable” and “depressed” she is that Edward’s not talking to her (pg. 70), we find out that the girls-choice spring dance is coming up in two weeks! Jessica tries to convince Bella to go, “half-heartedly”:
I suspected that Jessica enjoyed my inexplicable popularity more than my actual company. (pg 71)
I know I ragged on Bella earlier for assuming everyone’s obsessed with her and secretly jealous. But Jessica keeps showing up as that classic frenemy, where she’s friendly on the surface, but mostly invested in Bella for the attention and social currency she brings. Is Bella projecting a little? Probably. But Jessica’s not exactly proving her wrong either.
Now we get to our first “invitation”, in accordance with the title of this chapter. Mike approaches Bella after Jessica asked him to the dance. But, as it turns out, he’s hoping someone else might ask him.
Bella gives him the excuse that she’s going to Seattle that weekend, and she firmly encourages Mike to go with Jessica. He still presses her, asking her to change her trip, and during this conversation, someone is listening in, smirking all the while.
Loca and Edward have a terse conversation in Biology again, and I’m getting tired of Edward’s lips “twitching” as they “fight a smile” (pg. 74) like Bella is a silly, insignificant, human-brained dummy. Why are you a thousand years old and going to high school? You’re the dummy.
Because he’s acting like a big jerk, Bella asks why he bothered to save her if he hates her so much. This makes him steamy-mad, which makes her steamy-mad, and they don’t conclude the conversation, just stew in their mutual angst. It’s the classic “we refuse to communicate like adults until the very last 5 minutes” trope. AHbjbfjkdbkljah.
And then, this happens:
Eric asks Bella to the dance, while Edward smirks around her like a smug little goblin.
Bella declines Eric’s proposal, turns a corner, and runs into Tyler. Can you guess what he asks her?
AND CAN YOU GUESS WHAT HAPPENS RIGHT AFTER??
I cannot believe that you filled up this chapter with three of the same thing, Stephanie, I cannot. I guess she’s trying to show how desirable Bella is, but all it really shows is how redundant and lazy this chapter is. We get it. Bella’s not like other girls. But can we please move on before another teenage boy stumbles out of the bushes to ask her to the spring fling? Please?
I’m skipping the part where Bella goes home and tells Charlie about the dance, because did I say “redundant” already?
So the next day at school, Bella parks and finds Edward casually leaning on her van, surprise.
“Bella, it’s not my fault if you are exceptionally unobservant.” (Edward, pg 81)
Then, Edward asks her a question, and thank God it’s not to ask her to the dance. He asks if she needs a ride to Seattle (because of course he was listening in to all of her conversations with the boys the other day, of course, of course, what’s nuance anyway?).
“Bella, you are utterly absurd,” he said, his voice cold. (Edward, pg 82)
And then, he ends the conversation with this: “I’m tired of trying to stay away from you, Bella” (except you didn’t try at all)
And that’s Chapter 4! Hopefully something will actually happen next week. Thanks for coming along, locas.*