I Read Twilight and Hate It: Chapter 3

    Bella wakes up the next morning to find that the snow has stuck, and rain from the previous day has frozen, and has some more angst about this.  Actually, she admits that it looks nice; "all the rain from yesterday had frozen solid - coating the needles on the trees in fantastic, gorgeous patterns, an making the driveway a deadly ice slick," but still complains about it.
    She then spends the rest of her morning thinking about Edward (considering how much she does that, though, it seems like it would just be a time-saver to tell the audience when she's not thinking about Edward) and how much she wants wants him.  I realize that this book was mostly meant to appeal to a female audience, but I'm sure there are some teenage boys out there who read it, and what advice about women is it giving them?  "To get girls to like you, be mean to them as soon as soon you meet them (especially if they're new and don't have any friends).  Then, start being nice, but tell some really obvious lies.  Chicks dig that."  Anyways, Bella describes this part of the chapter better than I could: "I was eager to get to school because I would see Edward Cullen.  And that was very, very stupid."  Yes, yes it was.   
    Bella makes her way to school through the snow, pondering to herself about what hot stuff she is and how all the boys want her.  When she gets to school, she realizes that her dad had put chains on her truck for her that morning.  Every time she mentions her dad, she calls him not-awkwardly-at-all by his first name, Charlie.  Because, you know, I guess it's easier for the author than showing to us that she doesn't think of him has a father figure.  And FYI; if it was that icy out, they would have just closed school.
    After getting out of her car in the parking lot, she suddenly notices something shocking.  That an out-of-control van is heading towards her?  No.  Well, there is an out-of-control van sliding on the ice towards her, but before that she notices that Edward is staring at her (along with a number of other students); staring at her because she's about to get nailed by the out-of-control van.  God knows Bella isn't going to do anything to rescue herself from the van of doom, so Edward teleports across the parking lot, knocking Bella to the ground in the process.  While she's down, Bella narrates, "a low oath made me aware that someone was with me, and the voice was impossible not to recognize." I guess Edward has the only low, attractive, soft, musical voice that she's heard.  Also, I don't know what Meyer thinks that "oath" means, but it's pretty far from it's actual definition, unless she's telling use that Bella heard Edward pledging fealty to his lord.  At this point, Edward pushes the van away.  With his bare hands.
    I'm going to take a minute here and talk about vampires.  First of all, Vampires aren't super-heroes.  It seems that every new writer who thinks that they're the coolest thing ever wants to one-handed-type up a story giving them some amazing new ability that they never had before.  Vampires don't teleport, and they don't have super-strength.  And for that matter, they don't walk around in the middle of the day without dying, overcast or not.  Originally, vampires were just mindless, unholy, reanimated corpses that hungered for human blood at night, while resting in their burial place during the day.   But, Bram Stoker had to go and write Dracula, which wasn't a bad novel per se, but it did pave the way for decades of shitty, semi-erotic vampire-fiction. The kind of vampire fiction, which reached it's nadir with Twilight, and now I'm making fun of it.
    An ambulance arrives to take Bella and Edward to the hospital, but they don't get out of there before Bella's dad (now referred to as "Chief Swan") arrives to give the ambulance a police escort.  People die in ambulances all the time, but (despite Bella's worries) very few of the deaths are by embarrassment.  Don't worry, though, Bella was fine.  Nothing but a bruised ego and a new sense of angst, this time at Edward for A)Teleporting across the parking lot and B)Not falling down himself, so he was allowed to walk into the hospital instead of being carried in on a stretcher with a neck-brace.  Conveniently, despite the fact that there was a large group of people watching the accident, no one but Bella saw Edward teleport, so he asks her to keep it a secret.
    Bella's placed in a room with the driver of the van, who has some minor cuts (or "shallow slices"), and Edward walks in to act nonchalant.  He's followed soon afterwards by Dr. Cullen.  "He was young, he was blond... and he was handsomer [sic] than any movie star I'd ever seen.  He was pale, though, and tired-looking, with circles under his eyes."  What's with all the vampires looking like people you'd see in an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue?  What happened to the good old days, when the unclean looked like this:

    Dr. Cullen pronounces Bella to be healthy, and she leaves the room to go harass Edward about his apparent super-powers.  He just brushes her off and acts like she's crazy, which she kind of is.  I mean, they're not even dating yet, and already she's being pretty possessive.  Bella then leaves, with a new-found source of angst.  She gets a ride home and continues to obsess about this guy she barely knows.
    "I was consumed by the mystery Edward presented.  And more than a little obsessed with Edward himself.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  I wasn't as eager to escape Forks as I should be, as any normal, sane person would be. ...
    That was the first night I dreamed of Edward Cullen."
    Ewwwww.  That's where chapter three ends.  I'm sure a steamy, sticky dream description soon to follow in chapter four.