Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)

I cannot imagine what might have gone through the author's mind to cause her to write a book like this one. I read up until somewhere in Jacob's Book, and I could not go on.
It made no sense whatsoever. Somehow Edward and Bella have a child, even though in all their years, none of the local vampires have ever heard of a hybrid baby. The baby in itself should not exist, because it's not possible for Edward to have a child. Yes, I know Meyer has explained this already, but her explanation failed at logic.
Worse than that, Jacob imprints on the baby. Renesmee, I mean. Are you kidding me? How can people not see how totally weird that is? Why do people think this is romantic, when it's actually totally sick?
I'm glad this is the end of it, I don't want Meyer to continue her career as an author. She shouldn't have written Twilight to begin with, but she really dropped the bomb with Breaking Dawn. Terrible, absolutely terrible.

[*SPOILERS*]

A couple of weeks ago, we hit the three month anniversary mark for the release of the much anticipated Breaking Dawn.

Having read and loved the Twilight series early this year, I could not wait to read this book. Having finished the Harry Potter series the year before, I was no stranger to the life of a fandom that had to wait long months (and sometimes even years) for the release of a beloved book; the anticipation was enjoyable, even.

But who would have thought that the anticipation would have been that much better than the book itself?

While waiting for the book, I had come up with theories to pass the time; none of which included what actually happened. When a person would come to an Amazon thread posing the idea that Jacob might have imprinted on Bella, I immediately set them straight. And when another person might pose the possibility that Bella would get pregnant, I would laugh it off, because I knew that such a scenario was impossible.

Sadly, I was wrong.

I attended the Breaking Dawn Concert Series the night before Breaking Dawn was released. I was so thrilled to be meeting Stephenie Meyer - and to get her autograph. Yearning to be a future writer myself, I looked up to her, and was inspired by her words.

On Saturday, August 2nd, I woke up early, unable to contain my excitment. I waited eagerly for Breaking Dawn to arrive at my doorstep, having been too tired to attend a midnight release party the night before.

When the book finally arrived, I sped through it happily. The wedding between Bella and Edward was well composed; I even allowed myself to overlook the fact that there were already 2 instances of extreme OOC: Bella's mother and father reacting calmly to Bella's engagement.

That should have been my first clue.

It didn't take me long to read through the wedding, and then through the honeymoon night; scenes that had both been anticipated for 3 long books.

And then I arrived at Chapter 7, and Bella was pregnant.

I cannot begin to describe to you what was going through my mind at the time. I will say that I had to put the book down and walk away from it for a decent amount of time.

The book got progressively worse from there, with half the book consisting of a dying Bella lying on the couch, oblivious to the fact that the moster inside of her would eventually kill her. Bella, the one who never cared about having kids. Bella, the one that was reluctant to even get married, because people would THINK she was pregnant, and that would mortify her.

Edward was not much better; all we saw of him was the "burning man" that Jacob describes to us. Because of Bella's condition (and because we are in Jacob's POV), we do not get any of the beloved, romantic interaction between Bella and Edward that I had so desperately wanted...and I think it's safe to say that I wasn't the only one expecting so.

The birth scene, for me, was digusting. I'm not sure what Meyer was thinking when she wrote this scene - especially considering she was told by her publishers to chop off an additional 50 pages. Hadn't this been the woman who did not want to write a sex scene, out of the fear of being too graphic? One would think that such a writer would not go along and write a scene with her main character throwing up a "fountain of blood", with her spine being snapped in half by her unborn baby, and the "special c-section" that her new husband must preform on her with his TEETH...

Bella's transformation into a vampire did not make much sense as well; she was able to hold back her screaming, even though the pain from a bite on only her hand three books earlier was enough to have her going mad. Other than that, though, I was initally okay with the vampire Bella - mostly because I was hoping to salvage something from this book. I was even okay with Bella's controllable blood-lust.

I was NOT okay with Charlie's reaction to her change. But then again, we had already had a taste of this new drugged-ultracalm-Charlie at the beginning of the book, hadn't we?

And then we have Renesmee...or as Jacob so affectionately calls her, Nessie.

Renesmee is, completely and utterly, a doll. Perfect in every sense of the word. Perfect enough to make you vomit. She is beautiful, she grows quickly, she doesn't cry at night (though her parents don't sleep, so that's just wondeful!)...

Oh, wait. She has a craving for cups of human blood. How charming!

Even worse was the fact that Jacob had imprinted on Renesmee. I had grown to respect his character in this book, and had desperately wanted him to find a girl on his own, without imprinting - merely because he hated the idea of not having any say in the matter. But Renesmee is born, and ZAP goes Jacob's free will...he's now doomed to love a Barbie for all of eternity, even though vampires are supposed to be a werewolf - sorry, a SHAPESHIFTER - 's worst enemy.

The icing on the cake was the super exciting, thrilling, eventful battle between the Cullens and Co., and our newly dubbed shape-shifters. I mean, you can't possibly say that that was not a battle of epic proportions...the suspense, the action, the blood spill!

Pysche. Instead we got a battle that was about as exciting as an infomercial for a cheese wheel.

No, scratch that, I'd rather watch the infomercial.

We get around 300 pages of garbage - garbage, because SM attempted to create a suspenseful build up to the supposed epic battle. We get a fistfuls of new characters thrown at us, only to have them turn out meaningless in the end. Really, what was the point? To teach Bella how to use her bubble shield? Yeah, no. Because of Bella's supergirl abilites, she probably could have mastered her powers simply by sitting on the ground and picking her nose.

And don't even get me started on J.Jenks. I'm just not going to bother; his irrelevance to the entire plot speaks for itself.

The Volturi's epic involvement was lame. In fact, I even fell asleep while reading it - granted, it was four in the morning, but still. I have never fallen asleep while reading a book...the only other time that that happened was when I was reading this book called the Host...but oh, that's for another time.

So there you have it. I could really rant about how utterly disgraceful this book is for hours and hours and hours...but I suppose I've written enough to express the main problems that I have with it.

OVERALL: Breaking Dawn fails. At everything.

I, like so many others, could hardly wait for Breaking Dawn to come out. I pre-ordered one on Amazon, but I ended up buying one from the store on August 2nd, because I simply couldn't wait any longer.

About six or seven chapters in, I was already beginning to feel the sting of disappointment. It just wasn't at ALL what I had expected. The writing felt rushed, and some of the characters' personalities even changed. I did NOT like the "unexpected surprise" that comes about in chapter seven at ALL!!

Bella and the other Cullens disappear for a third of the book; it is written in Jacob's perspective instead. There is barley anything about the Cullens, which I found very disappointing; the books are supposed to be about Bella and Edward, NOT Jacob.

The third portion of the book is just altogether appalling. Stephenie goes back on a lot of her previous statements, and creates a mini monster and a weird, sick, love square with it.

I would definitely not recommend buying this book. Borrow it from a friend or the library if you really want to read it, but it's not worth your money.

I really enjoyed the twilight series just as much as the harry potter books. The ending in these books was perfect. I almost just wish she would write a whole other story to talk about Edward and Bella's new life together. If you are a fan of the twilight books then you must read this wonderful ending!! I really didn't want these books to end. I enjoyed reading them so much that I could not put them down. I read all of the books in a 2 week time span. They totally made me neglect everything else in my life. So be prepared to devote your time.

Spoliers so if you haven't finished it yet skip-

Two weeks ago my sister loaned me 'Twilight' and I was instantly hooked. I finished it the same day. I loved 'New Moon' also and 'Eclipse' even more. I could not wait to get my hands on this book but I have to admit I was kinda let down... I think the twists and turns were just a little too much. They changed who Bella was. All her endearing qualitys were taken away. Another thing was the big, hyped confrontation is a letdown. Is it as good as all the rest in the series? No. But is it a good book? Yes. They can't all be as good as 'Twilight' right?