Reading New Moon as a 19 year old who knows better.

Hey and howdy.

I want to say last year, but it wasn’t actually last year it was 2019 which is terrifying. Where has time gone? Anyways, back in 2019 I re-read Twilight for science and did a whole post chit-chatting about the experience of re-reading the book that was my entire life as a kid.

The plan back then was to continue on and re-read the rest of the series. It’s now 2021 and I’m only just getting around to the second book so you can see how well that plan turned out.

Yes, today I’m going to start New Moon. All I remember from this sequel is that Jasper tries to devour Bella like I devour a cheese-cake, Edward says “peace out motherfucker I’m off”, Bella becomes a depressed adrenaline junkie and Jacob starts the process of becoming a furry.

I’m pretty sure I read the book back when I was a kid. I had a physical copy of the first book but e-books on my old Kindle for the rest of the series so I remember little to nothing about the book itself.

This time around I’m more prepared. I have tabs and a google doc at the ready and waiting so I’ll be back in hopefully a couple of days, I don’t want to spend too long reading this book, with all my thoughts and feelings 😋😊

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Less then 24 hours later …

Ok I’ve finished the book 😂 I was not expecting to read this entire thing in 24 hours. I don’t know how I did this. I don’t know why I did this but here we are. Please enjoy my thoughts and feelings regarding New Moon 🙂

Bella needs therapy. Like … a lot of therapy.

The main takeaway from this book, for me, is that Bella Swan needs a shit load of therapy. This poor girl is drowning in anxiety, PTSD and abandonment issues and I can see why!

She grows up only seeing her dad over the summer, her mum seemingly forgets about her when she moves to Forks and literally changes her room into a gym or yoga studio or whatever it was, and then her boyfriend disappears for six months after abandoning her in a forest. That’s without taking into consideration the PTSD she’s experiencing from the first book, or the anxiety symptoms she shows throughout.

Charlie, being the legend that he is, actually suggest she go see someone at the start of the book, and this is why we stan. I will say though, that him threatening to send her back to Jacksonville with her mum and letting her do all the cooking/cleaning probably isn’t helping the situation either.

Edward is a motherfucking idiot.

How can a man who’s lived for 100 years be so stupid? Carlisle needs to start making sure the people he turns have two working brain cells to rub together before he gives them immortality.

Some examples of Edward Cullens stupidity throughout this book include:

1. Casually mentioning to Bella that he’d had to think of ways he’d be able to kill himself when he thought she was dead a couple of months ago. He did this on HER BIRTHDAY!! Edward, there’s a time and a place and that was not it sis.
2. Letting Alice plan Bella a birthday party, despite Bella not wanting to celebrate in any way. The girl’s already having an internal crisis over being older then you, the last thing she needs is a vampire birthday party!
3. Taking Bella to the forest to break up with her. Why? And then saying he doesn’t want her and he’ll have plenty of distractions away from her. What was the reason??
4. Thinking Bella would be safe even though two vampires you’d pissed off were still out there. Like what, did he think Victoria and Laurent were just gonna keep calm and carry on after he brutally killed James??
5. Not taking a minute before going to Italy to die.
6. Asking why Bella believed him when he said he didn’t love her and would be easily distracted. Dude, why wouldn’t she believe you? You left without a trace for six months and even before that she was insecure in the relationship and wondered why you were with her. Don’t turn this back around on Bella.

This was actually quite cleverly written.

I was reading this and thought “oh that was quite clever” a fair few times while reading this book. The chapters of Bella’s depression just being the months is iconic, Jake’s stomach flu is actually his fever from turning into a werewolf, and even the miscommunication that lead to Edward thinking Bella was deceased.

I want to read more about Alice’s life of crime.

With all her talk of forging passports and stealing cars left right and centre, you can’t convince me that Alice Cullen doesn’t moonlight as a famous cat burglar.

Jacob.

I really enjoyed reading the friendship between Jacob and Bella and I wish this same energy was kept throughout the rest of the books. I’m not saying I’m Team Edward™ over Team Jacob™, to be honest I’m not a big shipper of either couples, but Bella and Jacob were doomed from the start.

Bella was too heartbroken over Edward and no matter how the relationship developed, she was using him as a distraction and using him so she could see Edward again.

And just personally, I like their friendship more then the romance. (again, this is not me being Team Edward™)

So those were my thoughts & feelings on New Moon. I expected this to drag and this post to never see past the introduction and then I read it in less then a day. My poor friend has received Twilight Renaissance meme’s and Tumblr posts all week 😂

Thanks so much for reason, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings on anything Twilight related. I’d like to say I’ll be reading Eclipse soon but I said that after reading the first book and there’s two years between posts lol

Elli xx