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.

Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer

(Spoiler Warning: as if you don't already know the plot, but anyway . . .)
The third book in Meyer's Twilight series, Eclipse focuses mainly on Bella's continued efforts to keep Jacob Black as her friend even though the love of her life is his arch-enemy. The main story here is that the evil vampire Victoria is still trying to kill Bella, and her plan culminates when she brings together an army of newly made vampires to attack the Cullen family and take Bella's life. For most of the book the Cullens can't seem to figure out that the string of vampire attacks in Seattle and Victoria's absence are in anyway connected, but they discover her intention in time to try to keep Bella safe. In the process of figuring out how to protect her, Bella's vampire friends make an alliance with her werewolf friends, an unheard of occurrence. In the midst of all of this plot, Bella agrees to marry Edward, and realizes she's in love with Jacob. She knows that Edward is who she wants to be with, however, so she is forced to break Jacob's heart.
Talk about melodrama. This book takes the angst to a new height, with Bella constantly breaking her own heart about having to hurt the people she loves. I find each of these books less entertaining than the last, but I still plan on reading Breaking Dawn. I have to find out how it ends, right? When reading the other two books, I was able to acknowledge that the over-the-top teenage drama was silly, but they still kept me reading. This one was definitely not as compelling, in that page-turning way. Oh well, I have a ways to go before I can get my copy of the fourth book from the library, but I'm not too worried about it.

New Moon by Stephanie Meyer

New Moon is the sequel to the bestselling book, Twilight, the beginning of the bestselling saga of Bella and Edward. I am thoroughly enjoying reading these books, although their popularity is a little overwhelming. This book is getting returned to the library today, to go on to fill one of the other 205 holds that still remain. This level of request for a series is unprecedented, even by Harry Potter, although I honestly have no evidence to back that assumption up. It is usually only the most recent book in a series that has hundreds of requests, yet each of the books in this series has at least 200. It could be the Twilight movie coming out soon I suppose . . . Some spoilers may follow, I feel compelled to give the warning, if you care.
New Moon was just as entertaining, suspenseful, and exciting as Twilight, although with a little bit less of the teenage drama. The devastatingly beautiful vampire Edward leaves Bella towards the beginning of the book, in an effort to protect Bella and give her the long, happy life that she does not want. Into his place steps Jacob, the boy from the reservation who is Bella's friend, who has all of a sudden grown into a very attractive young man. And he is also coming into his inheritance, in terms of the supernatural legacy of his family. So now Bella has to contend with both werewolves and vampires, in addition to teenage love and lust.
One thing about these books that I find fascinating is the fact that there is so much teenage love happening, but no sex. Edward is afraid that he will lose control and kill Bella if they get too physically close, and she and Jacob can never really figure out how they feel about each other anyway. Meyer does an excellent job of capturing all of that teenage angst that makes you want to pull your hair out. It is almost too much, but never quite so much that I have to stop reading. I find equally fascinating the obsession in the pop culture surrounding these novels, especially regarding Edward and Jacob as some sort of examples of perfect boyfriends. Either one could kill you if they lose control over themselves around humans for even one second, but oh aren't they wonderful? No, I'm sorry, I just don't get it. The books are fun to read, but maybe you have to be a teen to really understand.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Although I have always loved fantasy and sci-fi books, I have never really gotten into vampire stories. Of course I love Buffy, but other than that I was never really interested. Twilight is a ridiculously popular teen vampire book, and while vampires may be classified as horror much of the time, I think that this one falls more appropriately in the fantasy genre. It is more romantic than truly scary.
The main character is Bella, who moves to Forks, WA to live with her father. She is not entirely happy about the move, but it was her choice, so she makes the best of it. She makes friends more easily than she thought she would, except for her strange lab partner. He is a member of the Cullen family, who seem to be incredibly insular. Bella can't stop thinking about Edward Cullen, however, and soon they get to know each other better. Of course, Edward is the vampire love interest of the book, though Bella is not as frightened as she should be by that realization. They are in love, and that's all that matters. Edward's family likes her, but they all seem to understand that it can't last forever.
The story is exciting and romantic, and it is obvious why it is so tremendously popular with teens. The Cullen family seems just a tad too over the top, but otherwise it is entirely seamless. There are page-turning suspenseful scary bits, and it leaves enough of a cliffhanger to have the reader waiting impatiently for the next in the series, New Moon. Of course, the reader could just buy it, but this reader is waiting for her hold on the book at the library. So that review won't be coming for another month or so . . .