Johnny Five Teams Up With Ben in Short Circuit 2

One of my all-time favorite movies is Short Circuit, the 1986 comedy about a government robot that magically becomes sentient during a thunderstorm. I’ve watched it countless times, enjoying the improbable situations and the vivid characters, most notably Number Five, the wide-eyed robot with an innocent outlook and a strong will to live. Recently, I rewatched Short Circuit 2, directed by Kenneth Johnson, and while my attachment to the sequel is not nearly so strong, it’s still a cute movie featuring the irrepressible robot who calls himself Johnny Five.

In this movie, Newton Crosby, the reclusive scientist who helped create Number Five, has moved to Montana with Stephanie Speck, the batty animal lover with whom the robot bonded after escaping the NOVA Robotics facility. Meanwhile, Newton’s partner, Ben (whose last name mysteriously changes from Jabituya in the first movie to Jahrvi in this), has moved to the big city to make a go of it selling tiny robot replicas. Unfortunately, mass-production is not an option with his meager resources, but when he writes to Newton and Stephanie to tell them of his troubles, they send Johnny Five his way.

In this movie, Johnny (Tim Blaney) continues his journey of self-awareness. He is considerably more well-spoken here since he’s had months to soak up all sorts of input; this makes him easier to understand but also a tad less distinctive. Still, he retains his insatiable curiosity about the world as well as his idealistic streak. All he wants is to be well-educated and respected as a genuine person. While Ben tries to keep him cooped up in the warehouse where he is speedily constructing miniature robots, Johnny soon finds his way outside and discovers that the city is a pretty cold place for a robot. If people aren’t screaming in terror or shooting him nasty looks, they’re taking advantage of his super skills and naivety. Will he ever be able to enjoy the life of an actual person?

While Johnny searches for himself, Ben is in the process of becoming an American citizen, which doesn’t make a lot of sense because in the first movie he said he was from Bakersfield, California and that his ancestors were from Pittsburgh. What’s more, he was working in a high-security government facility; would he really have been able to get such a job without being a citizen? Still, because Ben’s syntax is so ridiculous and his naivety level is almost as high as Johnny’s, it’s easy to roll with this idea even though there seems to be a continuity gap.

Additionally, while I never really noticed this until my most recent viewing, half the stuff Ben says in the first movie comes out a double entendre. The idea is that he has no idea what he’s saying, but it starts to feel like a lot of Freudian slips for a scientist who would really like a little one-on-one time with a woman. However, in the sequel, while he continues to say some pretty strange stuff, the innuendo is almost absent. While he is very lovable in the original film, he’s even sweeter here, and he just seems generally more innocent.

So innocent that he can’t see that street vendor Fred (Michael McKean), who gets him his first big sale, has the heart of a con artist. So innocent that he gets completely tongue-tied when Sandy (Cynthia Gibb), the eager young buyer for a major toy company, comes anywhere near him. Can this man whose mastery of English is so incomplete successfully pass his citizenship test? Can he avoid being taken in by shysters? And does he have any chance of winning the heart of the woman he finds so irresistible?

There’s a bit of crude language in this movie, particularly from a gang of street thugs who enlist Johnny’s aid in ripping off some cars – though Ben actually chides Johnny for repeating their off-color slogan, which made me smile. The plot is more complicated than in the first film, which is so beautifully simple. Here, we’ve got Johnny embarking on a journey of self-discovery; Ben working to become a citizen and woo Sandy; Sandy attempting to prove herself to her ornery boss; Fred trying to make a quick buck but unwittingly coming under the influence of Ben and Johnny’s noble spirits; and a bunch of low-down dirty jewel thieves doing their best to make off with several million dollars’ worth of diamonds hidden in a vault near Ben’s warehouse.

It’s a lot more involved than Robot Comes Alive, Government Tries to Capture Robot, Girl Shields Robot, and not necessarily for the better. With the big-city setting, there’s usually a lot of commotion, and it can be harder to really connect with the characters here. Additionally, some of the scenes are just plain absurd, and the climax feels even more violent than the first because the brutality is more personal. Besides that, Johnny’s vendetta toward the end of the film seems a bit at odds with his peaceful approach to life.

Still, there’s a lot to like here, particularly in the interaction among the four main characters. Three years ago, I was thrilled to see Stevens resurface on LOST in a very different sort of role, so it was fun to return to this and hear him adopt that goofy pseudo-Indian accent again. He’s such a plucky, upbeat guy that you really want him to succeed. Also, as someone who understands the way that shared references can strengthen bonds between people, I absolutely love how he uses the melodies of oldies to secretly communicate with Sandy from a distance when he is in distress – especially since the only LOST episode to heavily feature Stevens involves rigging up a phone so one man can make a life-saving call to his girlfriend.

On the back of the box our video came in, a blurb indicates that Siskel and Ebert thought this was even better than the original. I would beg to differ. However, if you loved Johnny Five and Ben the first time around, you’re likely to find plenty of entertainment value in Short Circuit 2.

Holling Hoodhood Learns About Life, Love and Literature in The Wednesday Wars

The year is 1967. Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader in Long Island, lives in a pristine house with his mother, a covert chain-smoker; his father, an architect with ruthless business principles; and his older sister, who dreams of running off to California to become a flower child. As he knows from the Walter Cronkite broadcasts that his father watches each evening, the Vietnam War is raging overseas, but to Holling, this is more of an abstraction than a pressing concern. More troubling to him is the question of what he ever did to make his teacher, Mrs. Baker, hate him.

Holling is the sometimes naïve, sometimes insightful but almost always endearing narrator of Gary Schmidt’s The Wednesday Wars, a 2007 mid-grade novel given Newbery Honor status. Mrs. Baker is a particular problem for him because every Wednesday, while half his class goes to Catechism and the other half to Hebrew school, he, the only Presbyterian in the seventh grade, must remain behind with his teacher. When the first couple months of his school year are marked by several unlikely disasters, it only adds fuel to his suspicion that she has formulated an elaborate plan to make him as miserable as possible. But when she introduces the subversive tactic of making him read Shakespeare instead of clapping erasers during their time together, Holling is sure he has the upper hand. She clearly intends to torture him with these musty tomes, but he actually is enjoying himself. Could her evil plot be failing?

The Wednesday Wars is a book that encompasses and transcends several subgenres within juvenile literature: the coming-of-age story, the historical novel, the inspirational teacher tale, the book framed by the reading of other books. The 264-page novel contains ten chapters, each covering one month in the school year, with particular focus on Wednesdays. Throughout the year, Holling immerses himself in several of Shakespeare’s plays: The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing. He becomes entranced with the rhythm of Shakespeare’s words – particularly his colorful insults, of which “pied ninny” and “toads, beetles, bats” are among his favorites – and he begins to think more deeply about his own life and the world around him as a result of his reading.

Mrs. Baker is a stern, demanding teacher cut from the same cloth as Minerva McGonagall, the severe Transfiguration professor in the Harry Potter series. She will not hand anything to her students on a silver platter. Nonetheless, Holling begins to understand that there is a human being behind that strict façade, one as capable of both agony and ecstasy as he is. And while he may miss her subtle sense of humor at first, by the end of the year, the twinkle in her eye is easier for him to identify. While Holling’s primary focus is on how she relates to him, he does pick up on her interactions with other students, each of which reveals a bit more about her personality and values. Mostly, she refrains from telling Holling what to make of a particular play, allowing him to draw conclusions for himself, but when she does chime in with her own reflections, we truly get a glimpse of what makes her tick.

Schmidt skillfully weaves his tale in such a way that although the school, and particularly Holling’s classroom, always seem bustling, we never become overwhelmed with characters. He wisely focuses on just a few classmates. Meryl Lee Kowalski, whose father is Mr. Hoodhood’s primary business rival, has a fierce affection for Holling that often manifests itself as aggression. The relationship between these two is mostly comical for the first few chapters but eventually becomes one of the most poignant elements of the book. Danny Hupfer, a lively boy preparing for his bar mitzvah, is Holling’s closest friend, while Doug Swieteck is the class troublemaker who seems to be taking after his dangerously delinquent brother. Mai Thi Huong, a solemn orphan recently brought over from Vietnam by a Catholic Relief Agency, has little to say, but she brings the impact of the war home to Holling in a powerful way.

Along with Holling’s peers are several adults of note, most of them connected with the school. Mr. Guareschi, the principal, runs his school like a dictatorship. His administrative style is mostly cause for mockery, though his lack of concern for student welfare is galling. School board member Mrs. Sidman, traumatized by her encounters with the Swietecks, finds that they have prepared her well for the unexpected challenges that come her way. Mr. Petrelli is known for his laughable insistence upon personal relevance in history projects like “The California Gold Rush and You,” while the overzealous Coach Quatrini works Holling to the bone after he wins a spot on the varsity cross-country team in one of the funniest chapters. Lunchlady Mrs. Bigio, like Mrs. Baker, has a deeply personal connection to the war; unlike Mrs. Baker, this has a detrimental impact upon how she relates to certain students. Mr. Goldman, the jovial baker whose shop is near the school, helps Holling with one predicament but lands him in another one that will haunt him for months to come.

Finally, the behavior of Meryl Lee and Danny’s parents casts a revealing light upon Holling’s dad, who expects his son to take over his architectural firm and has no qualms about putting him into embarrassing situations if it might further a future client relationship. What he won’t do is extend the smallest personal loan to help his children out of a jam or divert from his routine in order to support them in their endeavors. Ultimately the most frustrating character in the novel, he unwittingly facilitates several of its sweetest moments as others rally to make up for his indifference.

Holling’s narrative voice is wonderful, an intriguing mix of the soul of a seventh-grader and the eloquence of an adult whose early introduction to Shakespeare seems to have led to a continuing love of language. He settles into the limited viewpoint of his junior high days, and we’re certainly getting the thought process of an early teen, complete with moments of amusing cluelessness. For instance, when he begins reading The Tempest, he’s sure that Mrs. Baker has never read it, or she wouldn’t have assigned him something with such colorful language. It never seems to cross his mind that the monstrous villains of the play might have inspired the names of the class’s hideous pet rats, with which he came into startlingly close contact in the previous chapter.

At the same time, there is a certain difference between his narrative voice and his dialogue or the essays he writes for Mrs. Baker. While it’s not self-consciously reminiscent and never looks ahead to what befalls characters in later years, it does remind me a bit of the voiceovers in A Christmas Story or The Wonder Years. These are his immediate reactions, but polished just a little in the meantime. Sometimes, his observations are wryly funny: “Life got brighter, and somehow, the world suddenly got brighter, too. You know how this is? You’re walking along, and then the sun comes out from behind a cloud, and the birds start to sing, and the air is suddenly warm, and it’s like the whole world is happy because you’re happy. It’s a great feeling. But never trust it. Especially in November on Long Island.” Others are somber: “Maybe the first time that you know you really care about something is when you think about it not being there, and then you know – you really know – that the emptiness is as much inside you as outside you.” And, of course, Shakespearean quotes frequently wriggle their way into the crevices of the narrative. Perhaps my favorite: “The quality of mercy doesn’t drop much from Gym teachers.”

The book’s setting is of vital importance to the story, and the tumultuous international events of late 1967 and early 1968 are never as distant as they initially seem to Holling. The culture war divides his own family as his Beatles-loving, face-paint-wearing peacenik sister tries to assert herself against their disapproving father. Amidst looming fears of atomic warfare, the Columbia protests, the Battle of Khe Sanh and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy are among the major historical milestones that affect Holling as he becomes more keenly aware of the divisions that rend his world as surely as they did Shakespeare’s.

Over the course of the year, Holling studies, observes and even takes part in any number of wars. While the Vietnam War provides a historical backdrop and several grand Shakespearean conflicts offer literary context, he becomes more aware of the wars that surround him. Some are hysterical, like the war his class and a couple of teachers wage on the rogue Sycorax and Caliban or the ill will that develops when Holling receives a much-desired delicacy while his classmates are away. Others are inspiring, like the cross-country competition in which Danny and Holling compete. But many are cause for deep turmoil, whether it’s the ideological divide in his own family or the prejudicial attitudes that poison interpersonal relationships at school, and he begins to understand what Mrs. Baker means when she says Macbeth tells her “That we are made for more than power. That we are made for more than our desires. That pride combined with stubbornness can be disaster. And that compared with love, malice is a small and petty thing.”

Seventh grade is generally a chaotic time no matter when one enters it, but the typical insecurities, miscommunications and awkwardness that mark this age become magnified when the whole world is in upheaval. The Wednesday Wars makes grand events intimate and shows how tiny events can have far-reaching effects. “Love and hate are not far apart in the seventh grade, let me tell you,” Holling asserts. Perhaps, then, this is the perfect time to painstakingly learn how to reject the second in favor of the first. In this novel that is at once hilarious and deeply moving, Holling takes those steps and invites us to do the same.

An Anonymous Love Letter Has the Whole Town in a Tizzy

In a tiny town in New England, a love letter arrives in a bookstore. It’s addressed to no one and signed from no one. The first woman to see it assumes that it’s for her. Later, the letter passes into other hands, and each reader makes the same assumption, with the result that there’s a lot of love in the air in Loblolly by the Sea. Could unlikely relationships spring from this catalyst? And where did it come from?

This is the premise behind Peter Chan’s The Love Letter, written by Maria Maggenti. Early on, the film makes a visual reference to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the plot reminded me a bit of that, with this letter causing everyone to fall for each other instead of magic potions. Just reading those intense words has a strange effect on each recipient. It makes them feel appreciated and validated. It causes them to look at others in a new light.

I love the cozy setting of the movie. This is a picturesque little village, and cinematographer Tami Reiker consistently brings out its beauty. I often found myself wanting to step right into the screen, whether it showed the sunny streets or the charming bookstore where much of the movie takes place. The dialogue mostly matches up with that innocent small-town feel; there’s scarcely any profanity, though one self-referential slur surfaces and two characters drop an f-bomb, each of which feels totally out of place.

While most of the dialogue is pretty clean, it’s generally not that interesting. The best bits involve lusty, perpetually late bookstore employee Janet (Ellen DeGeneres), who has a tendency to prattle amusingly about inane topics, and quiet, good-natured firefighter George (a sadly mustacheless Tom Selleck), who frequents the shop. DeGeneres and Selleck easily give the most engaging performances in the movie, and their characters feel much more real than the others.

Kate Capshaw, who also produced the movie, is Helen, the emotionally repressed bookstore owner. I know she’s acting detached, but it was the actor as much as the character that felt stiff and uninteresting to me. She spends most of the movie with a bit of a grimace on her face, and at several points, she seems to forget her lines. Her delivery is just off, and it doesn’t help that a lot of her dialogue isn’t very good to begin with.

A similar complaint could be applied to Tom Everett Scott, who made such an adorable lead in That Thing You Do!. Here, as bookstore employee Johnny, he’s still cute, but his personality is less attractive and his performance is often wooden and lacking energy. Julianne Nicholson is a little livelier as Jennifer, the last of the bookstore crew, but there’s an abrasive edge to her that gets wearying after a while.

Other characters come and go, and seemingly insignificant interactions lay the groundwork for the ultimate revelation of who wrote the love letter and why, but the ending still felt somehow tacked-on and unnatural to me. The letter doesn’t get passed around town as much as it could, and after the first reading, in which Helen hears everyone she meets reciting bits of the letter as she tries to figure out who might have written it, the constant repetition of its lines gets tedious. Frankly, it’s really not that thrilling a letter, and anything so generic that anybody in town could think it applies to her or him obviously doesn’t contain a lot of specific personal sentiment.

Ultimately, then, this movie didn’t really deliver for me, in either the romance or the comedy department. There were moments I thought were sweet and moments I thought were funny, but mostly I found it rather dull and clunky. It did make me want to visit New England, and it did serve as a reminder that making assumptions can lead to absurd consequences. But if you write this Letter off, you won’t be missing too much.

Stephenie Meyer Brings the Twilight Saga to a Satisfying Conclusion with Breaking Dawn

Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final installment in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, hit shelves in the summer of 2008, just about a year after the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It wasn’t a pop culture event of quite that magnitude, but it was probably the most anticipated book of the summer, at least among my friends. Curious, but not convinced that I would ever actually pick up the series myself, I read a few reviews of the finale and found the overall reception to be negative. I felt sorry for all of the ardent devotees who had invested themselves in the series only to be let down in the end.

Of course, different people are satisfied by different things; certainly there were many fans who didn’t love Deathly Hallows as much as I did. Still, I came away from my review-reading with several spoiled plot points and even less assurance that I wanted to start reading something with an ending that would be disappointing. But once I did pick up the series for myself, I knew that I would have to see it through to the end. I’m glad I didn’t let those comments sway me; while I enjoyed the first two books in the series well enough, I much preferred the final two volumes, and for me, Breaking Dawn was just about perfect.  (I tried to avoid too many spoilers here, but I do mention a couple of rather prominent plot points, so tread carefully...)
It begins as Bella Swan, a nondescript 18-year-old living in Forks, Washington with her father Charlie, is on the verge of getting married to Edward Cullen, the man of her dreams, who just happens to be a vampire. For the first few chapters, Bella puts forth one last burst of whininess, one of her defining characteristics. It’s rather tedious to slog through her “Ugh, my fiance just bought me a bulletproof car! Blech, I’m marrying the most perfect man on the face of the planet! Gack, my sweeter-than-honey future sister-in-law is giving me the most beautiful wedding imaginable!” I mean, boy, Bella, you have it tough. The funny thing is that in her human life, the better things are for her, the more she complains. Thankfully, she seems to get over this once she becomes a vampire; she does have a rather vicious response to one revelation involving Jacob, but once the shock wears off, she comes to understand it as a fortuitous circumstance.

Yes, she does make the transformation; was there any doubt? Meyer tried to introduce nuggets of it, mostly through her relationship with Jacob, who spends half his time as a wolf and most of his time hopelessly in love with Bella. Jacob narrates the second portion of this novel himself, which I suppose muddies the waters further, since it seems at one point that Bella might not survive beyond the first half of the book. But after all that buildup, I think many fans would have been up in arms if she had chosen a human life or died before Edward could change her. And seeing her in vampire form helps to demonstrate just how unusual some of her characteristics are and how she almost seems to have been destined for this very different life all along.

Aside from a brief chapter at the end of the third novel, Bella has served as the lone narrative voice, so getting Jacob’s perspective for a couple hundred pages is a welcome change. At first, his tone is so aggressive that it’s uncomfortable to read his ramblings; even the chapter titles are sarcastic rants, as opposed to Bella’s terse one- or two-word summaries. But Jacob, who oversees the most gruesome portion of the novel, undergoes a powerful change in this book as his fondness for Bella forces him into close quarters with Edward’s vampire family. Though he’d fought alongside some of them before, it’s not until this point that he is able to really appreciate them as individuals, developing genuine affection for gentle patriarch Carlisle, his tender-hearted wife Esme and their adopted daughter Alice, whose sprightly enthusiasm makes her my favorite character in the series. It’s fascinating to watch so many of his prejudices gradually dissipate, and though her solution is unconventional, I thought Meyer’s way of firmly resolving the werewolf-vampire feud was quite clever and satisfying.

There is more adult material in this book than the others. Though celibacy is something Edward insists upon throughout the first three volumes, once they wed, he consents to consummating the marriage while Bella is still human, owing to her assumption that once she becomes a vampire, she’ll be too thirsty to think about canoodling, at least for the first few years. We see the immediate aftermath of a couple of these encounters, but Meyer really doesn’t go into any detail, mostly leaving the readers to fill in the blanks if they so choose. Edward’s fears about hurting Bella are confirmed in the worst way when he impregnates her, a feat he thought impossible. This was the element that seemed to garner the most complaints. Bella suffers through a hideously painful, albeit rapidly accelerated, pregnancy and labor. It’s an incredibly violent process that involves the infant sapping away all of Bella’s nourishment and breaking her bones from the inside. But the thing is, now that she has all the reason in the world to whine, Bella, seized by a fierce, protective love for her unborn baby, suddenly learns forbearance. And when she takes it all in such stride, it’s hard to get too grossed out by what is happening to her.

The book takes several directions that surprised me, or that would have if I hadn’t read about certain twists beforehand. The child, who even old-fashioned Edward and Carlisle immediately want to abort for fear that the pregnancy will kill Bella, turns out very differently than I expected. Bella’s parents don’t simply disappear from the book after the wedding. Jacob matures, and the trials and complications of the first three books start to feel like stepping stones instead of roadblocks. One of the reasons I decided to read the series was that it had become a topic of discussion at a couple of my favorite Harry Potter websites, and I found myself particularly reading through the lens of John Granger’s comments on literary alchemy in Looking for God in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Lectures. So many alchemical elements are present in this concluding volume, including a wedding, a death/rebirth and the merger of a “quarreling couple” - in this case the vampires and werewolves. From the beginning, the Twilight series has invited comparisons with Romeo and Juliet; happily, Meyer brings the feuding parties together without killing off most of the major characters.

At this point in the series, the main characters are well established, but some gain greater prominence, particularly Seth Clearwater, who only recently became a werewolf. Young Seth is an earnest lad of about 15, and he’s probably my favorite character in this novel next to Alice, though he isn’t as involved in the second half. He alone among his peers is able to instantly put aside the natural prejudice against vampires after their alliance with the Cullens in Eclipse. Sweet-natured and brave, he forms a lasting friendship with Edward, and his loyalty to his own people is tested when Sam, the werewolf leader, has reason to see the vampire family as a threat to be eliminated. His sister Leah, the lone female werewolf, also takes on a bigger role as she makes a clean break from the man who broke her heart and strives to find meaning in her life once again.

We’re reintroduced to the Volturi, an ancient group of vampires in Italy who serve a similar role to Harry Potter’s Ministry of Magic. Caius is hot-headed and eager to make trouble, while Aro comes across as mostly gentle and compassionate, though never quite safe. Their brother Marcus resurfaces with them but contributes so little that his presence is easy to forget. They dole out justice among immortal beings, and though the vampire world owes them much for maintaining order, these are not authorities to be trifled with. Meyer also introduces several other vampires who have associated with the Cullens in the past, and it’s interesting to see how they interact with one another. Lest all the new names become confusing, Meyer provides a list of who’s who in the back of the book.

In a series as in-depth and complex as Harry Potter, the conclusion Meyer offers might seem excessively simplistic, but for the series at hand, in which one is used to small misunderstandings blossoming into major crises and fairly one-dimensional characters falling madly in love with one another at first sight, I think it’s just right. Perhaps Meyer made things easier on herself by sidestepping a few opportunities for conflict, but as someone who’s always rooting for a happily-ever-after, I appreciated the approach she took here. At about 750 pages, this volume could still benefit from a little trimming, but I really didn’t mind the slow pace. By the time I turned the final page, I was rather sorry to say goodbye to her world but pleased to do so on an unexpectedly high note.

Edwardless Bella Turns Evel Knievel in Stephenie Meyer's New Moon

I’ve been hearing a lot about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series over the past few years, so I figured it was about time for me to read the books and see what all the fuss was about. I recently finished New Moon, the second book in the series, and found it better than the first in some ways and worse in others.

Once again, the book is narrated by Bella Swan, a fairly ordinary 18-year-old living with her father, a police chief, in the gloomy town of Forks, Washington. As the book begins, life is good for Bella. She and her father get along well, and she’s in a stable, albeit strange, relationship with Edward Cullen, the man of her dreams. What’s more, she gets to hang out with his family, who she loves, particularly his effusive sister Alice and tender mother Esme. But Bella is not happy, since turning 18 means being older than Edward, who, as a vampire, is permanently stuck at the age of 17, when he was bitten. It’s a painful reminder to her that no matter how deeply she and Edward care for one another, their time together is limited by her mortality.

I expected that Bella would spend most of the book in a tug-of-war with Edward, trying to convince him to transform her into a vampire like him, an act that he unselfishly refuses to take because he believes that it would destroy her soul. To my surprise, however, Edward vanished after the first few chapters and remained absent for the majority of the book. I can’t imagine that this was a popular decision among readers who had so eagerly anticipated another 600 pages of the exquisite Edward. It was aggravating for me too, especially toward the beginning, when Bella is so bogged down in the enormity of her loss that it becomes painful to read. Then again, there’s the sweetness of anticipation, as you just know that Edward is going to show up again before the book is over.

Edward leaves Bella amid claims he no longer loves her, but after watching seasons of such behavior from Clark Kent on Smallville, it was pretty obvious to me that this was just a line he gave her in order to make their parting for her own protection more permanent. His departure follows a minor accident that demonstrates how dangerous Bella’s position is, even among vampires as benevolent as Edward and his “family”. I was disturbed to find myself siding with Bella, wishing Edward would just bite Bella already and end the complications.

But New Moon removes Bella from Edward long enough for her to form an attachment to someone else, building a relationship that feels much more authentic and healthy, a love forged in friendship without all the obsessive underpinnings. She eases the incessantly referenced hole in her heart by palling around with Jacob Black, who is a couple of years younger than her. Cheerful and easy to talk to, he helps her to come out of a four-month-long stupor – until he suddenly becomes distant. It turns out that Jacob has a secret too. He is a werewolf, and werewolves and vampires are natural enemies.

On the whole, I found Jacob a more interesting companion for Bella than Edward. They seem to be more on equal footing, as opposed to Edward’s obvious superiority, which Bella describes for us ad nauseam. In this book, the pain is so raw that Bella rarely allows herself to think about Edward, which means we’re spared a lot of tedious praise of his various perfections. However, she spends far too much time complaining about the gaping hole Edward left in her chest. The book invites comparisons with Romeo and Juliet, particularly since Bella draws such comparisons herself. As someone who never found that story romantic, I can’t say that was encouraging, though I did appreciate Bella’s sudden empathy for Paris as she assigned that part in the tale to Jacob.

I always thought that Romeo and Juliet were a couple of stupid teenagers who were all too willing to destroy their lives and tear their families apart for the sake of a powerful infatuation. Though Bella and Edward are generally more considerate of how their actions affect others, each finds the thought of living while the other is dead unendurable. There’s a religious fervor to their devotion; Bella decides that she can survive Edward’s abandonment, just as long as she knows that somewhere out there, he exists. He later confesses to similar feelings, and when he is led to believe that Bella has committed suicide, he immediately tries to follow suit.

Bella, at least, does not attempt suicide in this book, but she does indulge in several horribly dangerous stunts, partly out of a spiteful desire to break her promise to Edward not to do anything reckless and partly because, when the adrenaline really starts pumping, she starts hearing his voice in her head, as clearly as if he was standing next to her. This destructive behavior is one of the most problematic elements of the book, and a reflection of the dangerously obsessive nature of this particular romance. The sequence in which Edward finally comes back into the picture is the most vivid in the series thus far, all set into motion by a stupid misunderstanding that makes the comparison to Romeo and Juliet even more appropriate. It concludes with a scene that, despite leaving almost everything to the imagination, has given me several nightmares, making me question whether I want to continue with the series.

I probably will, though, if only out of interest in some of the supporting characters, especially Alice, who I have found to be the most intriguing and likable character in the series. This book drops more hints about her back story that I’m hoping are explored more deeply in Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. I’m also curious as to whether Bella’s father Charlie will eventually be let in on the secret. I like the fact that New Moon allowed readers to focus a little bit more on other characters instead of all Edward, all the time, and Meyers’ more overt broaching of religious subjects encourages some deep discussion. But the book never really offers a clear condemnation of Bella’s reckless behavior, so parents should definitely be on the lookout for that. Neither Edward nor Bella wants the other hurt, but they ought to treat themselves with the same sort of care.