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92 of 105 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Twilight was a fascinating beginning, but..., August 29, 2008
My 21 year old daughter bought me the entire set of books. She is enamored with Edward. I understand. He's a very compelling character - he's beautiful, perfect, brilliant, protective, inhumanely strong and agile, enigmatic, the ultimate bad-boy with a heart of gold, and he has an amazing backstory and an inhumanly beautiful, loyal and loving adopted family. I get it - he's every adolescent girl's dream. And wonder of wonders, he never ages. The series is more or less about the inexplicable attraction of soul mates, inexplicable because I cannot for the life of me figure out what makes Bella attractive aside from the fact that Edward can't read her mind and she smells enticing.
Perhaps it's my age, but I believe three things - the first is regarding a work of fantasy - an author must stay true to his or her fantasy. You cannot break the your own rules to give the reader what you think the reader wants. A fantasy is exactly that, make-believe...a dream, but even so, as a writer you must stay true to the rules you establish for your own fantasy. Ms. Meyer breaks her own rules.
Second, characters must develop and mature. There must be a larger reason for events in a story and that larger reason cannot simply be so the hero can constantly save the heroine - which is the case here. It gets very old. Bella does not change and grow. From beginning to end she remains the same apathetic, cynical, whiny, helpless, martyred female she was when she arrived in Forks. Except when she's with Edward and then she superglues herself to his side in a manner that seems much more like the way a drug addict needs a fix than true love. She gets her happy ending but I'm left wondering what she will do with it. Anything redeeming? I very much doubt it.
Third, I want my characters fleshed out. In my opinion, Jacob was the most three-dimensional character in the entire series and at times he was written in such a way that he became almost repellent to me. Throughout all four books, the same superficial descriptive words, the same sappy love-sick-puppy feelings that are supposed to pass for mature, timeless love, the same scenes are repeated ad nauseam. I would have liked to see the Cullens, other than Carlisle, do more with the their eternal existence than simply repeating experiences and 'hunting'. Oh, and saving Bella for some unknown reason. I assume they became attached to Bella because they loved Edward and he loved her, so as Laurent said to Bella in the second book - she was kind of a pet of theirs. I expect more from my female leads. Through four books I wanted Bella to mature, to become more 'human' than she was when the series began. But I'm sorry to say she never did. Edward always seemed more human and more compassionate to me and his character was diminished as the series went on.
If you can get past the flawed writing, the concept works, especially in the first book. Other than Jacob Black, I was disappointed with the remainder of the story. Vampire world ain't all that exciting. From what I could tell, their larger society consisted of a bunch of overgrown, temper-tantrum prone, immature, super-powered children (I'm including the ancient vampires with the papery skin) who murder a lot of people. Their rules are simple - keep the secret. That's it folks. Would it be too much to expect that after living for millennia these vampires might develop some special perspective or philosophy greater than - we don't eat the neighbors?
Okay, rant finished.
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960 of 1,138 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The Worst Book Ever, May 29, 2009
While I've been known to exaggerate on occasion, I promise you I'm being completely serious when I say Breaking Dawn is the worst book I have ever read. The writing was atrocious, there was no drama and/or real conflict, and Meyer broke her own rules. Repeatedly.
Let's begin, shall we?
First, the writing itself was a huge problem. It's nearly impossible for me to believe Meyer was an English major in college. Maybe she was technically a literature major, but either way, she should have been exposed to enough decent writing to know how to produce it herself. And if she couldln't produce it from her own head, she probably had enough references to replicate it. Instead, Breaking Dawn reads like a terrible fanfiction. Meyer tends to overuse adjectives and adverbs, but does so in the least descriptive way possible. How did Bella look on her wedding day? I couldn't tell you, since Meyer never bothered to describe her dress other than to say it was satin-y. And how about the rest of the wedding ceremony? There were flowers "everywhere" and everyone looked "amazing." Thanks. I can totally picture that.
Bella is also the ultimate Mary Sue, which doesn't help Meyer's writing skills in my eyes. Bella is SO PERFECT. Everyone LOVES HER. Meyer's lame attempts to make Bella relatable by making her clumsy fall flat (pun intended), because the other characters think injury-prone Bella is adorable. Will Charlie object to Bella Sue getting married at 18? Of course not! Will Bella Sue become the most graceful vampire ever, even though she was the world's clumsiest person? You bet! Bella gets everything she wants in Breaking Dawn and sacrifices nothing.
There was also a conspicuous lack of drama and conflict in what should have been an epic conclusion to a series. As I mentioned above, Bella had no problem convincing Charlie that marrying Edward was the right decision. I was expecting more of an objection from the ol' sheriff. Denied. Jacob does make a small attempt to talk Bella out of turning into a vampire, but what could have been another interesting conversation is brushed aside by Bella. Why would she miss anybody she knew as a human? She'll be with her beloved Edward for all eternity; that's all she needs.
The sexy-time was also lacking. I'm not much of a smut fan, but I was hoping for more than a cheezy "fade to black" when Edward and Bella finally do the deed. After three books of anticipation and denial, Meyer doesn't have the balls to give us more than Bella walking toward Edward in the water. Seriously, Meyer? You can show Bella vomiting "a fountain of blood" but kissing before sex is too shocking? Nothing interesting here, folks.
There is also the issue of Bella's pregnancy. Nowhere in the previous three books, and I mean NOWHERE, did Bella mention a desire to be a mother. But as soon as Edward gets his vampire sperm inside her, she decides that motherhood is the most important thing on Earth. (Inconsistent much, Meyer? Another sign of bad writing!) I was expecting Bella to freak out, get angry at Edward, and blame him for ruining her life when she thought she could never get pregnant! But instead, Bella is inexplicably calm and instantly bonds with her "little nudger." Again, any drama that could have been just melted like an ice cube in Death Valley. The plot floats along...
The previously mentioned "fountain of blood" happens when Bella goes into labor. To make a long and rather gruesome story short, the baby almost kills Bella, and would have, had Edward not turned Bella into a vampire. Bella lays on a table for a couple of days until the venom stops her heart. She's dead! Let the crazed baby vampire gather her bearings! She's dangerous right now! Right? Wrong. Bella Sue is the perfect vampire, so graceful and strong. She requires almost no adjustment time, even though Meyer told us in previous books that new vampires are totally out of control. Again, all conflict nipped in the bud.
This leads us to Meyer breaking her own rules. Bella is totally in control of herself as a new vampire even though, according to Meyer's own words, it's totally normal and EXPECTED to have a lenghty adjustment period. Jasper struggled for years, but Bella gets the hang of things in a day. Of course. Meyer breaks the rules so Bella Sue can have her perfect life.
Meyer also gets into a sticky situation with Bella's pregnancy. According to Meyer, speaking through (I believe) Carlisle, vampires don't have any liquid in their bodies except for their venom. Last time I checked, sperm isn't venomous. Getting Bella pregnant should have been impossible if Meyer followed her own rules! That entire plot device (which only served to give Jacob something to imprint on) was an amateurish cop out that I would expect to find in fanfiction, not a novel written by an adult with a college degree.
Oh yeah, they named the baby Renesmee. Vomit.
And then Jacob imprints on it. Double vomit.
Allow me to backtrack for a second. I forgot to mention another scene that should have been exciting but wasn't: the confrontation with the Volturi. Yep, the leaders are back and they want to kill the Cullens for making an "immortal child." Finally, some action! The Cullens invite some vampire friends to gather at their house and fight the Volturi, which should be the epic conflict we've all been waiting for! Except it most definitely is not. It turns out that Bella has a shield she controls with her mind. All the does is put the sheild around everybody and they're impervious to weapons. The Volturi stand around and talk for a while and then... leave.
Breaking Dawn was a letdown in every sense. Meyer's writing didn't improve (it got worse, actually), there wasn't any tension or action, and a lot of the rules established in the first three books got thrown out the window.
Avoid this book at all costs.
(Note: Don't be fooled by the high number of five-star reviews; a lot of them are two sentences long and say things like, "BELLA AND EDWARD ARE IN LOVE!!!!1!11one" They may very well be, but that doesn't make it a good book.)
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1,303 of 1,547 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
So bad, I want to rewrite it myself, June 10, 2009
I started reading this series after I heard a rave review on NPR during their "Guilty Pleasures" segment. The middle-aged gentleman described Twilight with such enthusiasm that I couldn't resist temptation. I bought the four-book set and settled in for a long weekend of reading.
Three days and 2400 pages later, I'd finished the four novels. I adored Twilight, tried not to slap whiny Bella during New Moon, and mostly skimmed through Eclipse trying to get to something interesting. Finally, I got to Breaking Dawn. I have never been so let down by a book in my entire life. I don't even need to go into all the ways that this book was horrible - the other reviewers have done that well. But, here I go anyway:
Wedding - So, Bella's wedding to Edward was not what she wanted, but what she was willing to trade for sex and immortality. The wedding itself was not her vision and in no way represented their unique love, but was instead a fantasy created fully by Alice's vision.
Honeymoon - Meyer is telling us that sex is scary and awful. You will have a lot of pain your first time and your husband, who puts you up on a pedestal, will hate himself for "hurting" you, no matter how yummy delicious it is. Oh, and once you do get some, it's pretty much the only thing you'll want, and your new hubby will reject you, mercilessly, due to his own hang ups. Woo! I gotta get me some of that!
Also, how come it's either a little french kissing or sex? How come no one ever talks about alllll that space in between those two extremes? What a perfect place for her to talk about sex and the implications of it, especially given her target audience.
Pregnancy - You will get pregnant the very first time you have sex. Pregnancy is the most horrible state you will ever experience. It will be stunningly painful as your body is taken over by something that hurts you, and tries to kill you, and eventually chews its way out of you. The bloodbath of child birth is fine - but it says a lot, to me, about Meyer that she can't write the sex, but can write the gore. Or maybe it's about society, and not Meyer at all. Take your pick.
Renesmee - Say it out loud. I dare you. Look, I get what Meyer was trying to convey here about the beauty of having a child, the connection that a newborn's family feels to the child and how fleeting childhood is. But come on! The massive gaps in logic and leaps of faith it takes you to get here are stunning. Stunning. And impossible.
Jacob - Sigh. Poor Jacob. This boy never had an ounce of pride, he submitted it all to Bella, only to find himself a pedophile in the end. How utterly freaking awful. (and yeah, I tried to go with the whole "it's fiction, not pedophilia" but I just couldn't get there. It was creepy.)
The Cullens - Who? No seriously though, Edward had a family? Where were they after page 150?
Renee and Charlie - So, while Renee has been the primary parent and the person that Bella is closest to for the entire series, suddenly she's just...absent. Laaaame. And suddenly Charlie is Bella's first concern, but we've been given absolutely nothing by way of character development to buy into this. Again, I say: Come on!
Editing: Look, I don't know who edited this book, but ZOMG! fire that person. There were so many errors it was distracting. Dialog tagging: use it. Also, adverbs are not your friends. If Bella "shyly" does one more thing, I'm going beat her with her own arm. If you have to tell us that people are chuckling, giggling, that their eyes are "tightening" (wth does that even mean?) then you're failing at description. If you must tell and not show, read some Willa Cather. She gets away with it. You don't. So stop.
Tone: I'm guessing that Meyer took a break from Twilight land to write "The Host" and that's why the entire tone of this novel is off. It just doesn't even sound like it was written by the same person.
At the end of this novel, I wanted to rewrite the whole thing myself. I wanted to see why Bella decided that she would marry Edward. I wanted her to give a damn about the wedding and see some reverence in it. I wanted to see a real deepening in her relationship with Alice. I wanted Esme to be more than just a paper doll mother figure. I wanted a real, honest to goodness sex scene that lived up to three freaking novels worth of some of the steamiest kisses ever. I wanted Bella to pay a price for some of her choices. I wanted that epic battle with the Volturi to actually happen. I wanted someone to die. Meyer cheated us out of the thoughtful endings that we get when good triumphs over evil. That's what makes life sweet, and makes us appreciate what we have - working for it, sacrificing for it.
Bella would have actually wanted to marry Edward. She would have cared about the decorations and Alice would have developed into a real sister, and not some overblown party planner. There would have been real sex - not smutty, but real, nonetheless. Pregnancy would have disappeared. Bella would have had to make the choice - between having babies and having Edward. She would have been cruel to be kind and given Jacob his freedom. Jacob would have grown and gotten over her, and moved on and found real love with someone who loved him back - maybe even Leah, since that ground was laid pretty well. Bella would have spent months being a newborn, filled with nothing but bloodlust. Jessica would be her first victim. The Cullens would have worked tirelessly to help her transform, and we could have gotten to know them all so much better. Rosalie might have died, doing something selfless for once in her life. That would have been doubly meaningful if Meyer rewrites the whole series from Edward's POV (ala Midnight Sun, which in rough draft form is head and shoulders better than Breaking Dawn.) Bella would have to give up Charlie and Renee for a while, but eventually they would be able to be in her life, altho in a much more limited way. There are a million possibilities that could have had a very nice happy ending, with a bit of bitter thrown in with the sweet.
Meyer is a great storyteller and an okay writer. If she gets a better editor and learns some discipline, she could be very good. I found this particular book to be a total betrayal of the earlier books, which is why my review is so harsh. Overall, I hope she keeps going, and I *really* hope she keeps going with Midnight Sun, which so far, I love.
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