Saturday, November 22, 2008

Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer

**WARNING: SPOILER ALERT - MAJOR SPOILER ALERT - Please do not read this review if you care about spoilers!!! - SPOILER ALERT!!***
Okay, now that that's taken care of. I'm really not kidding about the spoilers though, I can't really talk about what I think of the book without giving away big chunks of plot. Sorry.
So anyways, it took me awhile to get around to reading this one. I have read the rest of the series and enjoyed reading them, although I can't really say that I liked them very much. The main characters and their love affair really just kind of annoyed me. Everything was always the end of the world and Bella's heart was being ripped out of her chest and torn to shreds. Constantly. It was just too much angst and pathetic whining. But they were fun to read, regardless.
I really had no idea what to expect from this one, what with all the major conflicts over it - fans hating it, wanting it to be re-written, etc. I didn't even know whether or not to expect Bella to actually become a vampire. I had no expectations whatsoever. So I was very pleasantly surprised when I discovered that I actually liked this book a lot better than the other three.
First of all, a good portion of the story is told from Jacob's point of view, which was nice, because Bella really gets to me. And at the end of Jacob's part of the story, Bella becomes a vampire. I wasn't sure what to expect from vampire-Bella, and although she was obnoxiously perfect, she was no longer pathetic and angst-y. She now felt worthy of Edward, which meant that she stopped whining about how she did not deserve his love. So that was nice. And although Renesmee totally creeped me out at first, she grew on me. Even the whole werewolf-imprinting thing wasn't so bad, though it felt like sort of a cop-out. The remainder of the story was typical life-and-death conflict, but I expected that. So although the book was definitely still just like the others, I can actually say that I truly liked this one. I am not sure what other fans got so worked up about, but I suppose that I would not understand, having not been a very big fan of the series. I'd be curious to see what others thought of this latest installment.

2 comments:

Ashley said...

I was totally absorbed in Eclipse and still think it was the best one out of the series, so when I began reading Breaking Dawn, I had really high expectations. I'm really sad to say that it was probably my least favorite out of the series, but I can't say I would request for it to be rewritten. Meyers wrote her novel the way she wanted and since that is the case, it will never end any other way. Fans should just get over it already.

However, I do agree with a lot of things you said as far as Bella being a whiner. During the first book I could deal with it, but it just got worse and worse.

I thought Renesmee was a major cop-out. Seems there is always a baby introduced when someone (screen writer, tv producer, author) can't think of any of story ideas.

I was let down, but I think the fact that Bella finally turned into a vampire made everything okay for me. While the last installment was disappointment of sorts, I was still sad to see it end.

Jessica said...

I realized after I finished the post that I sounded way negative about Bella. You were right, she was okay during the first book, if a little over the top. It was only in the middle books that I got really fed up.