The biggest hurdle Meyer faced when she decided to do this was that Twilight already existed. The cheap joke here is that she’s just repeating herself. The deep one is that Meyer is trapped in a dream she loves and can’t see the bars around her.
Why did she swap the sex of the characters? Meyer didn’t do it to explore how straight men and women approach romance or how they would with an immortal partner. She wasn’t making a statement about gender roles and she certainly didn’t want to do much more than find and replace names. She did it because she felt critics were being big ol’ meanies and she’d show them, or so she says.
Meyer could have rewritten Twilight, honestly from the ground up, and taken a chance to improve things, assuming she has the talent. But that would be admitting there were flaws with the story. Even if Meyer could(spoiler: she can’t and never will) make it better she wouldn’t. More importantly, Meyer doesn’t think she needs to change anything.
I know this because Meyer told me so. She told everyone by putting it right in her art and I offer a middle finger to anyone who says you can’t judge a celebrity from afar. The fuck you can’t. When someone makes art, terrible or not, they’ve put themselves into it. They tell you secrets they’d normally only share with whoever lays on a mattress with them.
Meyer says she’s addressing critics which is true. What she thinks they’re griping about is that Ed is a controlling dick and Bella is too weak. Meyer doesn’t believe that and thinks switching the genitals of Ed from tab to slot will show them that’s just how their romance has to go. Meyer thinks the romance is fine and people are just distracted by who’s the super powered disco leech.
Beau says that when he opened his eyes in the morning, something was different. Yes, he looked down and realized that the puberty fairy had walloped him good overnight. It’s light and gloomy outside but it was “clearer somehow”. Don’t strain yourself in lifting those heavy words out of the dictionary, Meyer. We wouldn’t want you to pull anything. Just throw up a couple of vague adjectives and hope for the best.
Yes, it’s been snowing. I know this is set in the early two thousands but weather reports via TV and the internet have been widely available for a long time. I would think that the dull as dry toast protagonist who just relocated to Washington would watch those a bit more closely than not at all. Especially since they haven’t seen or even driven in snow until recently.
Beau eats breakfast, cereal and orange juice, and the fact that Meyer spares us the brand makes her look like JD Salinger compared to PCK. He’s excited to go to school because of Edythe. He doesn’t mind the attention from the other girls but all he cares about is Edythe.
Which I still don’t get. Most boys would be thrilled to be on the receiving end of attention from girls. In a society where boys are still expected to make the first move, it’s refreshing when girls show interest. Unless Beau is completely asexual, then he should be a little flattered that these girls clearly like him.
Beau drives to school and notes how slippery it is. This is the day that Charlie put chains on the tires for Beau which shocks him as it meant Charlie was being a dad and taking care of him. This makes him feel like his life has flipped upside down. That or the fence he just plowed through just before the truck starts to roll.
Thanks to the foresight of the author and his dad, Beau makes it to school without issue. He nearly slips when getting out of the truck. He gets near the back of the truck when the minivan incident begins. We’re told that thinks aren’t moving in slow motion but that, instead because of the adrenaline, his brain is processing very fast. Which would mean that it appears to be slow motion to you, numb-nuts.
Edythe is down a few rows and everyone is looking his way. I have to ask why and how they all know to look over at entrance to the parking lot? The road is covered in black ice and a car sliding on ice doesn’t make that much noise. Is the driver honking in panic? Leaning out of the window and screaming? Or did they all get the memo from Meyer, re: an important plot point for Beau 0909 AM?
Say what you want about Meyer, I sure as fuck do, at least she gets what counts for the plot rolling early. This is only chapter three and the van accident is happening. After so many PCK books, I’ve gotten to the point where I find it a miracle that a climax appears before five chapters left in any book. Is that PCK’s whole point, to make Paolini and Meyer look good in comparison?
Just before Beau is crunched into a fine, whiny paste, something hits him and knocks him over. He sees “thin” arms hit the van and stop it and then something holds him down. Beau tries to struggle but Edythe reminds him, in what I assume to be a threatening manner, that he should remember he’s hurt. There’s some screaming and people are crying for reasons that aren’t clear. Also, the accident just happened and crying is a reaction. People haven’t had time to process and then cry but sure.
Edythe tells Beau to stay put while people are shouting to get Taylor out of the van. Yes, grab them by the neck and move them with a twisting, jerking motion. Otherwise any potential spinal injuries are made permanent. Beau mentions that Edythe was by her car. She tries to play this off as Beau was mistaken which is quite possible as memory is pretty unreliable. Being as Edythe has had decades to study this, she instantly becomes paranoid that Beau will tell everyone that Edythe transformed into the flash. I mean, it’s not like the doctors and townsfolk would write it off as confusion brought on by a head injury.
Edythe begs Beau to shut up and he will if she promises to tell him about it later. She says fine and Beau closes his stupid mouth for a few moments. When EMS arrives, they all get the van out of the way and believe Edythe when she says she’s untouched but Beau is hurt and may have suffered a concussion. How anyone would believe, for even a second, that Edythe is perfectly fine is beyond me. You’d think a century old vampire would at least fake a strain or something so it wouldn’t look suspicious. ‘Yeah, I’ve pulled my groin, I’m going to go home and put some ice on it.’ Then limp for a couple of days. But what do I know about blending in with humans?
Off Beau goes to the ER where he gets a mostly private space to hang out in. Taylor comes in and she looks bad, what with bloodstained bandages on her head. Why and how an accident victim got out of bed without anyone noticing and then found Beau’s room is beyond me. Taylor is agonizingly apologetic for nearly killing the protagonist. She had no idea she wasn’t the main character in this story. After being X-Rayed and told he’s fine, Edythe stops by to say she’s getting him released. Then the new Dr Cullen shows up.
Then a doctor walked around the corner, and my mouth fell open. She was young, she was blond… and she was more beautiful than any movie star I’d ever seen. Like someone sliced up Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Marilyn Monroe, took the best parts, and glued them together to form one goddess. She was pale, though, and tired-looking, with circles under her dark eyes. From Charlie’s description, this had to be Edythe’s mom.
While the concept of stitching together all those actressess puts me in the mind of Frankenhooker, it’s the latter part of the description that gets me. How does a vampire, who Meyere takes pains to remind us have perfect skin, have the dark circles under her eyes? Unless she’s wearing makeup to look tired, which would be smart but isn’t within Meyer’s thought process, then someone’s forgotten she made perfect living statues.
The good doctor says Beau is good to go but should come back if complications arise like any terminal stupidity that wasn’t present before. Beau then whispers that he wants to talk to Edythe alone. This is where Bella/Beau demands an explanation like they’re actually owed one. For a moment Ed/Edythe plays is off as merely the confusion from after a head injury. Until Bella/Beau says they know what happened and while they won’t tell anybody they just got to know.
Edythe says that he can have fun waiting for an explanation that won’t be coming. Beau attempts to stare her down but his boner is too distracting. He keeps thinking how beautiful she is when she’s angry. He says it doesn’t work because it was like “trying to stare down a destroying angel”. Which is not a perfectly normal saying but I bet you’d like it to be, Meyer.
After Edythe wanders away, Beau head to the waiting room to meet Charlie. Being a concerned father, he tries to rush to Beau’s side. Beau, being an obnoxious teen, yells that there’s nothing wrong with him. He also notices that his friends are starting to approach him and wants to leave right now. Screw your friends who’ve been waiting who knows how long to see if you’re alright. They are, after all, merely distractions until the real story starts.
Beau waves goodbye at his “friends” as Charlie walks him out. He’s still stuck on Edythe and is convinced that her behavior is covering up something. Once they get home, Charlie mentions that Beau should call Renee. Beau is mortified that the other half of his genetic contributions would be informed of an emergency. What kind of dipshit father tells the mom that their kid has been in an accident? Probably some upstanding, goody-goody. Do you want a father of the year away, police chief Charlie?
Beau calls his mom and whines about how worried she is. He has to talk her down from the ledge a couple of times before she finally accepts that he is, in fact, alive and not a clone made from the splattered biomass that was her son a few hours ago. When Renee asks Beau to come home, he finds his burgeoning erection at the thought of mounting the Venus de Milo a ward for his mom’s pleas.
That makes him figure he’d like to go to bed early and takes a few aspirin. Charlie watches him for a awhile, which bothers him for no articulate reason. If Meyer had put in that it made Bella/Beau feel like a little kid again, I’d understand. Otherwise they’re just bitching about their parents being parents which makes them eminently punch-able. This ends up being the first time Beau dreams about Edythe and that’s the cliffhanger.
Vivisector's Writ 