Stephenie Meyer’s third book in her Bella saga, ECLIPSE, ended on a high note, questioning the future of the protagonist and her immortal love interest and with the promise that the sappy, “my soul isn’t complete without you” melodrama was at a close. The final installment of BREAKING DAWN, however, takes that high note, shoves it into a ruffled wedding dress and beats it to death with a high-heeled white shoe.
I excitedly cracked open BREAKING DAWN on the day it came out in anticipation of Bella’s heartbreaking decision to choose Edward, the annoyingly perfect vampire, or Jacob, her werewolf best friend who loved her for her. Instead, the story plunged right into pre-wedding bliss — not a whiff of conflict anywhere.
A sickly sweet wedding in chapter three oozes into a shiny, plastic honeymoon on a private island. Honestly, I was expecting to read next that a flying unicorn whisked Bella and Edward off over a rainbow while a choir of Care Bears sang the “Hallelujah” chorus. That’s how much it smacked of — I hate to say it and have prepared a bunker in an undisclosed location, but here goes — fan fiction.
I put the novel down and began a week-long rant to anyone that stood still long enough. But, under duress, I picked BREAKING DAWN back up and about halfway through, the story finally started chugging along. Plot threads from previous installments were picked back up and actual action — not of the staring-deep-into-each-others-souls variety — began leaping from the pages.
Although the TWILIGHT series has always been a bit too gooey for me, BREAKING DAWN finally settled back into a novel that could be counted amongst the previous three books. While the second half far outshined the first half, the book overall wasn’t too bad. But, with everything Meyer could have done, I really wish I were proclaiming it amazing instead. —Jenny Coon Peterson
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i am right in the middle of eclipse and when i read the summery of this i thought i was going to cry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I LOVE the Twilight books (and for the record, I’m 42), but I have to agree with the general consensus that Breaking Dawn was an utter disappointment. I have rarely been so comeletely let down.
But that said, anyone who gives the finger to the Twilight series – or even just Breaking Dawn – needs to declare amnesty for Meyer long enough to read The Host. That is an amazing story and fabulously written; seriously, you wouldn’t even believe it’s by the same author. Give it a try!