Official Description: All Human AU – Shy Bella Swan lives with her religiously zealous mother, Renée. When she has a chance meeting with town hellion Edward, Bella begins to realize that perhaps the sheltered life she’s been leading isn’t so much a comfort as it a cage.
With a wretchedly oppressive uber-Christian upbringing, this poor sweet Bella is adorably naive. Some dark part of me is really enjoying Edward's corruptive influence way too much. Her wide-eyed innocence is bound to reform his juvenile delinquent ways. And the truth is that she wants to explore her most human of human instincts and dabble in the naughtiness of teen lust. He is just happy to assist in this path. And I, as reader, am more than happy to bear witness. Geez, that makes me feel dirty.
Bella is so innocent - it's a trip to vicariously experience these inklings of first lust again. And connecting with a boy through a song...GAH! It makes me want to be in high school again. Wow, that might be the first time I've ever felt the desire to relive that tortuous time. I found myself excited to see what happens next between Ms. Innocent Beauty and her hot Doc Martin-clad Juvi Delinquent Beast!
I was taken by a poem snippet by Isobel Thrilling included at the beginning of chapter 9. I googled her and found surprisingly little. I did run across a fabulous site called letterstocrushes.com where this poem was quoted. Super cute site, too.
In the words of Isobel Thrilling, “I don’t just want your heart. I want your flesh, your skin and blood and bones, your voice, your thoughts, your pulse —and most of all, your fingerprints, everywhere.”
For some reason the Thrilling poem reminds me of this line from a Beck song "I'll leave graffiti where you've never been kissed."
It's a bit difficult for me to relate to the ridiculous Christian-ness. I did see this episode of Wife-Swap, though, where one of the wives was taken out of her Christian bubble and placed with a family of "heathens" and the presence of the devil made her wretch all over their backyard. Prior to that I didn't know real people like that existed. Oh, besides that documentary Jesus Camp, which was so disturbing that I've blocked it out, along with any memory of that subculture of crazy-scary Christians. I'm Jewish so the whole 'We're building an army for Jesus' thing is a little unsettling.
In The Caged Bird, I do enjoy the pointed hypocrisy of the Christian children who enjoy inflicting suffering. And the crazy judgemental nature of a fundamental Christian who praises an all-loving Jesus. I never understood that, so I enjoy seeing it acknowledged by others.
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