Breaking Dawn Broke My Heart

You may notice that it has been a little while since my last post. Well, it's now August 12, which is officially 8 days since I received, and read, Breaking Dawn. I've taken my time writing my response because honestly, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book.

The Twilight series has honestly ruled my life since I first picked it up back in 2007 (I know, I know, I jumped on the bandwagon a little later than most). But, since that first day that I finished Twilight (and then jumped in my car and drove straight to the bookstore looking for New Moon and Eclipse) I've done at least one Twilight-related thing per day. Whether it be posting on internet forum sits, looking at Stephenie Meyer's website for news and updates, watching clips about the upcoming movie on youtube. Sometimes I've spent FAR too much time on the internet doing Twilight-related thing, and then other times it's been brief. Anyone that knows me, knows just how obsessed I've become with this series. So the anticipation surrounding Breaking Dawn was huge for me. I drove my partner crazy in the weeks leading up to its release, talking about possible theories and stuff like that. I even made him read it (well, he listened to it on audiobook at least).

And I just have to say that I feel the whole thing has been a little anticlimatic. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it certainly was not this. If you haven't read Breaking Dawn, please don't read any further, because its going to be spoiler central from here on it.

Gripe #1 Renesemee? OMG! I mean apart from her name being the most ridiculous name for a baby that I've ever heard, her very existence gives me the creeps. I liked Twilight because it was more real than supernatural, but the supernatural aspects of Breaking Dawn got a little out of hand. Bella fell pregnant and gave birth to the kid within a couple of weeks. Apart from the fact that such an event seems really unrealistic (even for Twilight), the birth of Renesmee totally changed the narrative tone of the entire story. All of a sudden, it wasn't a story about Bella and Edward's impossible love anymore. It became a story about a teenage pregnancy! It's impossible for me to imagine Bella and Edward as parents, and honestly, I dont want to because it taints the first three books for me.

Gripe #2 The total LACK of confrontation with the volturi. I mean come on.... How many pages did Meyer spend building up to this. In fact how many books did she spend building up to this. The problems with the volturi started in New Moon, the continued through to Eclipse and then in Breaking Dawn the build up was enormous. I was prepared for the vampire smack down of all vamp smack downs. In mental preparation for receiving Breaking Dawn, I had resigned myself to the fact that someone was going to die during the inevitable conflict with the volturi. When you get that many powerful vamps together, how can everyone possibly live. Instead, all that happens is Irina dies. A character that readers have no emotional attachment to, and probably don't like very much anyways because of the tiny little thing she did. Ok, so she did report the fact that Bella and Edward had a kid to the volturi, and really, that's the reason they came but I think it would have been better if someone the readers were already attached to died. I hate to say this, but I would have preferred Edward to have died than Irina. At least then I would have had an emotional response to that scene, instead of thinking to myself "what was the point of that?"

And I really didn't like how the Volturi turned around and left without any confrontation at all. I mean come on!!! It was all pretty lame.

Gripe #3 I didn't like how Bella became so perfect all of a sudden. I was kinda excited by the fact that she appeared to have no special power. I liked her power, don't get me wrong, but I felt like there was nothing of Bella left at all once she was tranformed into a vamp. Except for the fact that she still loved Edward, there was nothing really the same about her. And even in Eclipse, Edward had said to her "you'll still be Bella". She so was not... And the maternal thing she suddenly developed in this book? Ugh, please *barfs*

Gripe #4 Charlie. What the hell was with that? I don't believe for a second that a parent would react the way that he did when he realised what happened to Bella. Everyone keeps saying to me "but Bella always said, less is more with Charlie" but it just doesn't gel for me. Especially after Jake phased in front of him, I would expect the Police Chief to have more questions. His reaction to everything really didn't sit well with me at all.

But, even though i'm full of gripes, there were some things that I liked about this book.

Postive #1 Jake's POV. Now i'm still very much Team Edward (not in the sense that I want Bella to be with Edward, but more in the sense that i'm attracted to Edward's character more than Jake's) but I absolutely loved reading from his POV. And honestly, I think reading about the pregnancy from Bella's POV would have been horribly dull. I loved the relationship that Jake formed with Leah and I was really gunning for them to get together. It would have been perfect for them both - each of them so broken and finding peace in one another. But I have to say, I loved that Jake imprinted on the stupid baby (i'm not mentioning her pathetic name again here unless I absolutely have to). It was totally gold. I kind of felt like he deserved it, after all Bella had put him through, I kind of felt like she deserved it too. I loved the fact that, as the kid grows, she's probably going to love Jake more than Bella and Edward. She'll belong to him instead of them. After the way Bella treated him, I thought it kind of fitting.

Positive #2 I loved the way Edward's character grew. We saw a lot more of his weaknesses in this novel (sexual, mental and physical) and I just loved that. It made him more real for me and only affirmed my position on Team Edward further.

Positive #3 I do think, that even though the plot was totally whacked out, that Stephenie Meyers writing style has really grown. I loved reading some of her descriptions and her imagery was pretty fantastic in this book. I've found her writing in her previous Twilight books (the first especially) to be quite clumsy. But BD was excellent!

Prediction: she's pissed off a lot of fans with this one so I'm guessing that whatever she does next, it will have to be really, super fantastic for her popularity to remain to high. I am very interested in her next non-twilight related project, whatever it might be. But honestly, I dont think she's totally done with twilight. I can sooooooo see her writing a book from the kid's perspective when she grows up. Can't you?

I've only read the book through in its entirety once so far because I'm so busy writing my thesis. But I have gone back and re-read certain excerpts. Once uni is over with for this semester I plant to sit down and read it again. Will my opinion change with each read through? Who really knows.. with the first three, every time I read them I loved them just a little more. I hope that every time I read BD, I don't learn to dislike it a little more.