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Jessica Stanley, a giggly high school student, is a secondary character from Stephanie Meyer's bestseller, New Moon. New Moon is the second book in Meyer's Twilight series featuring the epic romance of teenager Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen. The Twilight saga is set in the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State primarily in the tiny community of Forks. Forks High School provides the backdrop for main character Bella's introduction and interaction with her soul mate Edward as well as many of the series' supporting characters. It is at Forks High School that Bella meets Jessica Stanley.

Anybody who has survived high school has more than likely known a girl like Jessica Stanley. Anybody still in high school probably sits next to a girl like Jessica Stanley in a class or two. She is the obvious, slightly immature and definitely shallow teenager who is immersed in her own delusion that she is the center of the universe. Stephanie Meyer's creation of this character serves as a contrast to the atypical Bella, a teenager who is almost hyper-conscious of the feelings of others.

Physically, Jessica looks like many teenage girls, petite with curly dark hair. Meyer does not make her exotic or an unusual beauty. The character of Jessica serves to represent the average teen girl. She is interested in common things, boys, gossip, clothes and of course being popular. She appears as early as chapter two in Twilight, the first book of the series. This character is one of several Forks High kids, supporting characters, which are introduced at this time. Although not main characters, they are each important. Jessica is important not only because she becomes one of the first human friends Bella meets but because she is a needed connection for Bella and the reader to the "normal" world.

Jessica Stanley has definite issues with the vampiric Cullen family. She may not know they are vampires, but she does not feel comfortable around the unnaturally beautiful Cullens. It is Jessica who gives Bella the first scoop on the Cullens, but her words and tone during that first lunch give her jealousies away. She feels the Cullens think everybody, herself included, is beneath them. It is this perception that has her stunned when Bella shows up with Edward for the first time at school in the first book. Of course, a character like Jessica would want all the details but only until she gets distracted. The distraction comes in the form of Mike Newton, Jessica's crush. As soon as

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