Breaking Dawn by Stephenie MeyerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
So I finally reached the end of the Twilight series. I had intended to finish reading this before the movie came out, but I was finished with the first part which was all the movie covered, so I was good.
The book starts with Bella preparing for her wedding to her vampire beau, Edward. I really like how fast-paced this part was and how it wasn't dragged out. I enjoyed reading about their wedding and got a bit teary-eyed as Bella said goodbye to her father before she and Edward left on their honeymoon. Of course the highlight is when good old Jacob, BFF, shows up because of course he wouldn't miss his best friend Bella get married. But when he finds out what she and Edward plan to do to consummate their marriage, he isn't too happy and has to be removed from the wedding.
Edward then whisks Bella off to Isle Esme, a private island for their honeymoon. Again, these were some of my favorite parts of the book (and the movie!) I feel that this is when Ms. Meyer does her best writing, when she's writing the romantic elements between Bella and Edward. This part ends with Bella realizing that she's pregnant and vowing not to let anyone do anything to her baby.
The next part is Part 2: Jacob. Despite the fact that Jacob is my favorite character, I disliked that he had a whole section told from his point of view. All of the other books had been solely from Bella's point of view, I figured this one should have been too, but whatever. Parts of this section really dragged. I don't like Jacob as much when he's in his wolf-form and when he's "sharing thoughts" with the rest of the pack, which is the majority of what happens. The best parts of course is when he's with the Cullens and his reactions and interactions with Bella's pregnancy. He's there for the whole thing and is able to figure out what the baby wants when none of the other supposedly super smart Cullens could do. At the end of this part, the baby is born, Bella dies, and Edward injects her with his venom.
The last part is back to Bella's point of view. She has to silently endure the pain of the venom spreading through her body and when she awakes, she's now a vampire. I was really excited to read about how Bella would be like as a vampire and while certain parts were interesting, I thought Ms. Meyer took the easy way out by having Bella adjust oh-so-very-well to vampire life. This section is mostly about their upcoming battle with the Volturi. As I wrote about in my New Moon review, anything dealing with the Volturi is not appealing to me. I feel that this is when the writing gets sloppy and drags on, and there were about a million vampires introduced here that I cared nothing about. I enjoyed the battle scenes with James and co. in Twilight, and Victoria and the newborns in Eclipse, but I can't stand these scenes with the Volturi. This one was even worse than the one in New Moon because in this one there is all this build up for NOTHING.
Once we finally got passed all that Volturi nonsense, we then say goodbye to Bella and Edward and their family. I am so glad that I finally gave the Twilight series a chance this year and got to know these characters. While they (with the exception of Jacob) are certainly not my favorite characters or the most well-written, I enjoyed reading about them and I will miss them. I liked the movie a lot more than the book and I look forward to the second part coming out next year.
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Challenges: 100 Books in a Year, Young Adult Reading Challenge
Source: purchased
Very detailed review. I look forward to the second part of the movie too.
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