The second installment of The Twilight Saga. Bella Swan is in love with the vampire Edward Cullen. When the Cullens leave, for Bella's own protection, she sinks into depression - and ultimately gets better when she starts spending time with Jacob Black, the son of her father's friend from the native American Quileute tribe. Then suddenly he avoids her. The discovery of the reason changes her life completely.
This book contains examples of:
- All Myths Are True: Bella wonders if this is the case after learning about werewolves.
- All Therapists Are Muggles: When Bella's erratic behavior after Edward leaves her borders on clinical depression, Charlie tries to get Bella to see a therapist. She refuses, claiming that she couldn't tell a therapist about how the Cullens were vampires and she’d felt therapy wouldn't work if she wasn't 100% truthful.
- Artistic License – Medicine: When Bella is cut by broken glass at her birthday party, Carlisle stitches up the wounds first and applies an antiseptic afterwards. In reality, the wound would need to be cleaned first, because any microbes on the surface of the skin would be able to hitch a ride on the needle as it goes in and enter directly into the bloodstream.
- Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: The beginning and end of the book.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Edward smashes his phone after a misunderstanding leads him to believe Bella is dead, meaning Bella has to travel around the world to stop him from killing himself. Who smashes their phone because they get bad news? Who does that?
- Clothing Reflects Personality: After Edward breaks up with Bella and she falls into a depression, Bella wears darker clothing as the months progress, reflecting her emotional depressive state.
- Contrived Coincidence: Edward's attempted Suicide by Cop at the end requires a ludicrous series of events to bring about. A quick rundown on what needed to happen to result in it: Alice's powers had to activate and show Bella jumping off the cliff, Alice had to make an incredibly stupid decision to fly to Bella's house instead of calling ahead of time to warn Charlie or perhaps say something to Bella about it (which she does for no discernible reason, considering she was working under the impression that Bella would have been dead by the time she got there), Alice had to make another dumb decision to simply spend the next day or so hanging out with Bella instead of calling around to let everyone know that Bella didn't really die, Harry Clearwater, a minor character we only truly meet once, has to die at exactly the right moment, setting up Charlie being absent for his funeral, Jacob has to grab the phone when Edward calls and tell him that Charlie is "at the funeral" without saying whose and Edward has to not question whose funeral it is, Edward and Jacob both have to forgo questioning who the other is and why they're calling Bella's house/answering the phone in Bella's house, Rosalie has to be spiteful enough to call Edward and tell him that Bella died without confirmation, and finally, Edward has not only not question this or call Alice to ask her personally if it was true or not, but it requires him to throw his phone out for no reason upon hearing this, so nobody can call him and tell him what's really going on. If any of this had gone differently, the whole thing wouldn't have happened.
- Cool Bike: Jacob rides a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit and Harley Sprint.
- From Dress to Dressing: When Bella falls off her motorbike and suffers a head wound from colliding into a rock, Jacob removes his shirt to use as dressage to stop the bleeding.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Alice suggests slapping some sense into Bella when the latter starts to panic.
- Grounded Forever: At the end of the book:Charlie Swan: Bella, do not ever do that to me again. Ever. And you're grounded for the rest of your life.
- Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: Bella asks Jacob this word for word when he first gets his wolf abilities and she thinks he and his friends have been killing hikers.
- Heroic BSoD: Bella has one for a good part of the book.
- Hypocrite: Jake accuses Bella of being this when she is under the impression he and the other wolves have killed people, referring to them being what they are as "wrong". As if Edward didn't tell Bella straight away that he's killed people before, and she doesn't seem to have any problems forgiving Jasper, who also nearly killed her.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Edward tries to kill himself in various dramatic ways, and eventually has to ask the Volturi for help committing suicide. It still doesn't work.
- Inhuman Eye Concealers: The Volturi Heidi is responsible for procuring prey and bringing them to Volturi tower by pretending to be a tour guide. Bella notes that she has unusual violet eyes, from wearing blue contact lenses over red vampire eyes.
- Insecure Love Interest: Edward leaves Bella because of this, resulting in much anxiety for both of them.
- Interrupted Suicide: Edward attempts this when he thinks his beloved Bella is dead.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The reason Edward leaves.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: During the airplane flight, Bella pays so little attention to the in-flight movie the she can't tell if it's a romance or a horror flick.
- Ludicrous Precision: When she gets stomach flu, Bella spends exactly twenty-four hours on the floor of the bathroom.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Marcus's power was pretty much drudged up to show yet again just how soul-bonded Bella and Edward are.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Bella gets a small paper-cut, Edward punts Bella away to prevent Jasper attacking her in a blood-frenzy. This, however, causes her to lacerate her arm. Things goes even farther when he makes his family move away because he's afraid one of them will slip and attack her. It turns out the girlfriend of the vampire they killed in the last book is looking to settle the score, though, and Edward's decision has left Bella unprotected (at least, as far as he knows).
- Not Good with Rejection: When Edward tells her he doesn't love and dumps her, she has a complete breakdown, becoming depressed and almost catatonic for months, believing life isn't worth living and even hallucinating Edward's voice out of desperation to be near him. She has a similar reaction when Jacob stops hanging out with her too.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Edward's and the Cullens' reaction when Jasper catches a whiff of Bella's scent and becomes hungry.
- When Bella punched Paul in the face and he angrily morphs into a werewolf in front of her.
- Poor Communication Kills: One of Charlie's friends dies, and when Edward gets wind of the funeral he is mistakenly led to believe that it was Bella who died, driving him to go to Italy and attempt suicide by sparkling. Why he never thought to call someone to verify this or look in the local paper for her obituary instead of automatically assuming she was really dead is anyone's guess. Or why it never crossed his mind that a small-town police officer would be obliged to go to funerals of town officials, homicide or accident victims, retired officers... basically, anyone in town who'd been influential or died by violence.
- Remember the New Guy?: We find out on this book that the teenagers of La Push had been turning into werewolves ever since the Cullens first settled down in Forks. This is not present in Twilight or Midnight Sun (when nothing is done to stop Peter and Charlotte from killing people in Forks).
- The Renfield: People who work for Volturi hope that they will be transformed into vampires, but may be also killed.
- Second-Act Breakup: Pretty much the only point of the book.
- Secret Chaser: Bella with Jacob’s secret.
- Self-Mutilation Demonstration: Jacob offers to show Bella his new power to heal that he got as part of being a werewolf. Bella, being Afraid of Blood vehemently asks him not to.
- Stealth Insult: Alice to Bella regarding Jacob: "As soon as you put the dog out". Later in the series, "dog" is one of the insults used by the Cullens for the werewolves.
- Skewed Priorities: Bella's initially hesitant about telling the wolf pack what she knows about vampires, because it feels like she would be betraying the Cullens. Even though the Cullens haven't contacted her for about a year, telling the wolves how to defeat vampires will help them protect innocent people from being massacred by Victoria and is in her own best interests, seeing as Victoria is after Bella to get revenge on Edward for killing James.
- The Stoic: Sam Uley. Forced to deal with his lycanthropy on his own, he cultivated a kind of zen calm to cope, and help the others who came later.
- Suicide by Sunlight: Attempted by Edward.
- Symbolic Serene Submersion: After Bella jumps off a sea cliff in the film, she floats limply down through the water and hallucinates Edward floating beside her. It's not a genuine suicide attempt, but something of a cry for attention symbolizing the depths she is willing to reach for Edward.
- Tag Team Suicide: Edward tries this when he thinks Bella's dead.
- Wham Line: Jacob's reason why he's avoiding Bella:Bella: Did Sam get to you? Is that what's happening?
Jacob: Sam's trying to help me. So don't blame him. But if you want somebody to blame, how about those filthy bloodsuckers you love? The Cullens?
