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"You gave it three stars?" she asked me, biting her lip and holding her breath.
"Yes," I finally answered with my marble lips, cold yet strangely comforting, even warm. "Stephenie, don't forget to breathe."
"Oh, of course." A storm seemed to rage in her for just a moment.
"I gave it a three. It's good." I would never lie to her, could never lie to her. Yet, somehow, she felt it was a lie and brooded in stillness for a moment that seemed to last an eternity.
Finally, I broke the aching silence. "I gave it a three because the vampire lore was that good -- the extended plotline and the setup for a decent fourth novel were all enjoyable." There, I said it. Would it be enough for her? No, it would never be enough.
"But you absolutely hated the tent scene with the [spoiler removed:], and you wanted to send Bella straight to vampire hell for her self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-obsessed self-ness by the end."
We paused and I noticed sobs erupting from deep inside her.
"Stephenie, breathe, and stop biting your lip, it's getting really annoying. Quit with the crying already. Yes, all of those things are true, and if I could release myself from your books, I would. But-"
"But?" she asked longlingly, her fingers caressing my face while my fingers caressed her face and somebody else's fingers were somehow caressing both our faces because you can never have too much face-caressing going on -- whose fingers are those, anyway?
"But despite how much I hate Bella by now, I really want to find out more about the Volturi and the process of becoming a vampire and whether Bella is somehow part of an ancient bloodline that stirs up all the vampires and werewolves whenever she's around. That's why I gave it three stars, and that's why-" I gasped, she gasped, we both forgot to breathe and bit our lips, "-why I will be reading the fourth book as soon as it is out."
Finally, I remembered to breathe and stopped caressing her face, looked into her eyes and with my godlike, cool, marble lips, asked, "Satisfied?"
Smiling, she answered, "Yes, very."
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Notes from James: If you like this one, you will probably also get a kick out of my original review of Book 1. Enjoy!
