I think this Twilight book is my favorite. Or maybe Eclipse…

I don’t think I’m contradicting myself by giving the book 3 stars and saying it was a lot of crap. The story had its moments, and I was enjoying it from time to time but seriously, the plot was no good at all.

I lost my interest in the Twilight saga when it came so repulsively popular and that’s why it took me this long to read the last book, I couldn’t stand all the hype, and the first Twilight film just added more to this by being such an unbelievable failure.

All the enthusiasm I remembered having after finishing the first book was gone now, and I wasn’t as smitten with the characters as I had been. Now there was just pure interest towards the different characters, especially those who didn’t belong to the core of the story. Bella had started to annoy me already in the earlier books, so that was nothing new, but I also discovered that Edward had the same effect on me – sometimes it was hard to believe he had lived almost a 100 years, so helpless and out of reason he sometimes was.

Two things I mostly enjoyed about the book: the middle part that was told from Jacob’s perspective and the confrontation with the Volturi near the end. The rest of the book… okay, but it did feel like Meyer had ran out of ideas and had to conjure up something this far-fetched to have something to write about. I must admit, she did fairly well, coming up with enough material for a 700-page novel. But that’s about it, this time quantity won over quality hands down.

This gets my “worth consuming” with the huge caveat that it’s only worth consumption for those already hooked. At this point in the series, Meyer’s editor has let her foot off the brake entirely. Here’s a self-indulgent book that makes it a stranger to the first book in the series. From artfully constructed literary parallels in books one and two, we now have a sort of pet plot and pet characters. That’s okay with me – I’ll be honest – because I wanted to see everything gel. It’s just not a literary accomplishment at this point.

I’ve been thinking hard about this series and why it’s uncomfortable in its way. I think it has to do with Bella as the gothic romance heroine. The problem here is simple: gothic heroine’s have little to no agency, and there’s not much room for that doormat female character in contemporary literature. I have to say there’s something backwards-ly brave of Meyer for creating a main character who’s a complete dishrag, but it’s the same kind of backwards step that makes Sarah Palin a self-proclaimed Maverick. The more I think about it, even Bella’s favorite literary characters (Jane Eyre, etc) had more spine than she did. That’s saying something.

Ah well. I enjoyed it. A good ride while it lasted, with a fairly satisfying end.

The first three books were amazing. So I was worried that the fourth and last in the series wouldn’t be able to hold up against the others. But my worries were pointless. Stephenie Meyer delivered, she really did. From the first pages I couldn’t put it down. And I was most definitly NOT dissapointed. It wasn’t at all predictable, I was on edge the entire book. To anyone who hasn’t read the series here is my advice to you: Go to the closest library/book store and get the books. You’re missing out. You really, really are.

There are no words to describe how absolutely incredible this book is. If you put together all the amazing things from Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse and multiply that by 48, it STILL wouldn’t add up to Breaking Dawn. I had so many different theories about what could happen in this book, and as it turns out, I wasn’t right about ANY of them. Definitely the best book I’ve ever read.