New Moon

New Moon

New Moon is the second book in the “Twilight Saga” written by Stephanie Meyer, it’s September 13th and Bella’s 18th birthday…a day she’s been dreading. Since the beginning of hers and Edward’s emerging love story, both Bella and Edward have been the same physical age of 17 years old. Today Bella becomes older physically than Edward and she’s having a hard time dealing with that fact. Bella has made the decision that she wants to “become” a member of the Cullen family as a vampire, but Edward is dead set against that idea, he’s set on keeping Bella human, no matter what.

The Cullen’s have a birthday party for Bella and the unthinkable happens. Opening a gift, Bella accidentally slightly slices her finger and a droplet of blood proves to be too much for Jasper to take. He lunges for Bella and is stopped by the quicker movements of Edward, but Bella is thrown across the room and is injured by broken glass. Carlisle fixes Bella’s injuries and discusses with Bella why Edward feels the way he does about “changing” her. Although Bella’s injuries were minor, Edward’s greatest fear has been realized. Bella had been put in danger again, and he felt that her being with him had been the cause of the danger. Edward makes a critical decision that Bella would be better off without him, safer without him, and so he tells Bella that they are leaving Forks and that she’d never see him again. The only request he makes of her was that she not do anything reckless or stupid to herself and he was gone.

Bella was distraught and depressed for months, going through the motions of life…going to school, going to work, but little else, she was like an empty shell. She learns that if she puts herself in a dangerous or compromising position, she hears a voice rebuking her, telling her that she’d promised not to do anything stupid to harm herself…the voice is that of her perfect Edward. Deciding that she should push her actions further, so that she will get to hear his voice again and again.

Bella picks up her friendship with Jacob Black, obtaining 2 motorcycles that had been left out for the trash and needed a lot of work. Bella knew that Jacob was mechanically inclined and would be able to fix up the bikes. She also knew that a motorcycle would be considered one of those “dangerous things” that would provoke the soft, velvety voice hallucination into chastising her actions. During the time of repairing the bikes, Bella and Jacob become very good friends, and even though she tells him that they can only be friends, his feelings for her grow into sometime much more. Jacob is her sunshine, he’d saved her when she was at her lowest, darkest moment of her life but her heart ever remained with Edward.

We learn that Jacob and his friends at La Push also have a secret existence; they are a pack of werewolves, who also call themselves “protectors” of the Quileute’s. Jacob tells us that the pack’s existence is a direct result of the return of the Cullen Coven of vampires. Even though the Cullen’s are gone, the werewolf pack grew because “things were already set in motion”. One-day Bella’s drive to hear the Edwards voice pushes her to attempt cliff diving alone at La Push while waiting for Jacob and she almost dies in the process. Alice sees this through her ability to see the future and thinks that Bella is committing suicide. Word gets to Edward who is off by himself, away from the rest of the family attempting to track Victoria. He decides that he can’t exist in the world if Bella is dead and goes to Italy to “provoke the Volturi”. The Volturi are an ancient Coven of Vampires who are described as the “royalty” of vampires. They are the ones who enforce the rules of the secret existence of vampires.

Edwards plan was to go to Italy and expose his existence to a multitude of humans who are in the town of Volterra, Italy for a local celebration. He knows that before he is allowed to “show” himself to the humans, the Volturi will eliminate him. Alice and Bella fly to Italy to rescue Edward by showing him that Bella is alive and well. In the process all 3 of them are taken to the leaders of the coven and have to talk there way out. Aro, Caius and Marcus the leaders of the Volturi Coven make an agreement with Edward, Bella and Alice that with the certainty of the addition of Bella to the immortal existence of a vampire, the 3 of them were free to leave.

Upon their return to Forks, Bella learns that Edward intends to circumvent the agreement made with the Volturi and keep Bella as a human, so she calls a vote of the Cullen Coven as to the question of her immortality, joining their “family” and is pleased that her “change” is accepted by the majority of the group.

Main Characters:

• Bella Swan – 18 year old, love interest of Edward – special ability to shield others from intruding on her thoughts

• Edward Cullen – 17 physically, love interest of Bella – special ability is reading minds, with the exception of Bella

• Charlie Swan – Bella’s father and Chief of Police of Forks WA

• Carlisle Cullen – Edward’s vampire step-father/creator – married to Esme

• Esme Cullen – Edward’s vampire step-mother – married to Carlisle

• Alice Cullen – Edward’s vampire step-sister – married to Jasper – special ability is seeing the future

• Jasper Hale – Edward’s vampire step-brother – married to Alice – special ability is to have an affect on emotions

• Rosalie Hale – Edward’s vampire step-sister – married to Emmett

• Emmett Cullen – Edward’s vampire step-brother – married to Rosalie

• Jacob Black – Bella’s Quileute Indian friend

• Billy Black – Father of Jacob Black – Quileute Elder

• Sam Uley – Alpha of the La Push Werewolf Pack, imprinted fiancé of Emily

• Emily Young – Imprinted fiancé of Sam

• Jared - part of the La Push wolfpack

• Paul - part of the La Push wolfpack

• Quil Ateara – Best friend of Jacob – part of the La Push wolfpack

• Embry Call – Best friend of Jacob – part of the La Push wolfpack

• Victoria – nomad vampire – mate to James who was killed by the Cullen’s in Twilight

• Aro – Volturi Vampire Tri-leader – special ability is to read minds – only one person at a time with physical contact and he hears every thought you’ve ever had

• Marcus – Volturi Vampire Tri-leader – special ability is to see the strength of relationships

• Caius - Volturi Vampire Tri-leader

• Demetri – Volturi vampire – special ability is he finds people/a tracker, he tracks by catching the flavor of the mind

• Jane – Volturi vampire – special ability is to bring the pain, physically with her mind

• Alec – Volturi vampire – special ability is to bring a sense of nothingness with his mind