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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
★★★★ // the most decent book out of the series, in my opinion.
adventurous
emotional
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This has got to be the most excruciating one to read. I kept feeling like it left at a perfect spot to end it but it just kept going.
Don't get me wrong it does have a decent plot and the mental health tied to first loves is done really accurately here, I just think it may have been dragged out a tad too much.
This is a reread for me since last time I read it was 10 years ago and I remember nothing. But it is definitely hard to write a constructive review since I am comparing the movies to the story while reading. I remember liking the books buttt I can't say they are as good as teenage me thought.
Don't get me wrong it does have a decent plot and the mental health tied to first loves is done really accurately here, I just think it may have been dragged out a tad too much.
This is a reread for me since last time I read it was 10 years ago and I remember nothing. But it is definitely hard to write a constructive review since I am comparing the movies to the story while reading. I remember liking the books buttt I can't say they are as good as teenage me thought.
challenging
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Bella just keeps fucking Jacob (A MINOR) over to fill a vampire shaped hole in her heart. Half of this angst wouldn’t even be a thing if she didn’t lead on a MINOR. I hate that Meyer made Jacob this evil party pooper when it was literally Bella being messy. She and Edward need therapy tbh
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Bella, honey. You can't judge your dad for not painting over the cabinets your mom painted while they were married, and accuse him of never getting over his literal marriage with a woman he loved and who broke his heart in a very cruel and jagged manner, if you go complete catatonic zombie when your abusive boyfriend of six months breaks up with you for an extremely reasonable reason.
I liked this significantly worse than the first book. It barely had a plot, and most of the time it felt like this was going nowhere, and then out of the blue a conflict emerges in the last 40 pages that completely uproots everything in the first 4/5ths of the book. This could have been a 30 page short story and not lost any plot.
It's so uncomfortable watching Bella completely take advantage of Jacob. There is not one single universe in which Bella is a good person.
I hate Jacob's development. It would be way more compelling to have Bella stuck between boys as different as Day and Night, which is what it feels like the first book leads up to. One dark, obsessive, passionate ememies-to-lovers boyfriend, one jovial, jubilant, selfless best-friends-to-lovers boyfriend. But then overnight Jacob loses all his boyish kindness and becomes just as jaded and emotionally immature as Edward. Now Bella has 2 boyfriends who are exactly the same except one is a werewolf and one is a vampire. For all Bella's analogies of Jacob being her Sun, he gets awfully mean and dark very fast.
On that note, the forced conflict between the Cullens and Jacob made me really irritated. You're telling me, that for litereally no reason at all, Edward hates creatures who uphold his same values regarding humans, protect Forks (and by extension, him), and take care of Bella after he abandons her? For why. And Jacob. Depsite having no real issue with the Cullens before, not believing the stories, once he becomes a werewolf automatically hates Edward? Despite the fact that, again, they share the same goals and values with the Cullens?
If you're going to have generational hatred, passed down from tribal leaders since before Jacob was even born, that's fine. But you have to actually write that it's been engrained into his beliefs since he was born. You can't just overnight give him this deeply held belief for no reason other than he's told werewolves hate all vampires no matter what.
I counted eight em dashes on a single page. Eight!
How is Charlie's biggest issue with Edward the fact that he broke Bella's heart. Charlie is a cop. Charlie has been trained to recognize signs of abuse. Bella constantly ends up in the ER after being with Edward, and her excuse is always "I tripped". How is Charlie that oblivious. How.
Can we not romanticize suicide? Can we not pretend that the pinnacle of love is describing in detail how you would kill yourself if the other person left you? The conversation between Bella and Edward at the beginning was like drinking curdled milk through a sippy cup. Revolting and uncomfortable.
What exactly does it say about Edward and Bella that her most vivid memories are of him berating and chastizing her?
And don't even get me started on her hearing his voice randomly.
I typed out a whole paragraph about how unrealistic it is that Edward left Bella how he did, said some traumatizing things to her as he did so, after noticing her emotional state and actively choosing to neglect her, and then expect her to immediately and uncontitionally take him back, pretend like it never happened and get straight back to normal, accept his "apology" and excuses and go back to exactly how it was before. And then that. That actually happens. But then I remembered who we were talking about and I deleted the paragraph, because that completely tracks.
Slight spoilers?
- at the end, it's revealed that Bella is resistant to all vampire abilities, not just Edward's. But this completely ret-cons the first book, when Jasper uses his ability to calm her and Alice constantly sees her future.
- Why are there so many chapters at the end that entirely consist of walking through tunnels beneath Italy while no one speaks and nothing happens? I wish I was exaggerating but there were 4. And then the "climax" happens, and then another 2 or three of the same thing on the way back. It was more than excessive. It was grueling and boring and repetitive. What was the purpose of that? Truly, what?
- The climax itself made no sense. Everyone just kind of... stood there? We were clearly meant to believe that people were in danger but, I didn't. You cannot tell me that these 3000 year old vampires actually care whether Bella lives or dies. You cannot tell me that in te entire world, they have nothing better to do but stick their nose into their relationship and make sure Edward turns Bella. You cannot convince me these people actually care that one single human "knows their secret". Especially after this human risked their life to protect said secret. Also, they supposedly want Edward to join them, but don't trust him enough to take care of Bella should a breach of security become a possibility due to her "fickle, human mind" (Again, this is EDWARD we're talking about. Who decided one day that he would rather die than be without Bella, and the very next day breaks up with her because it's too hard for him to keep her safe. But Bella is fickle.) Which, of course, we know he wouldn't, but wouldn't the Voltori know that? Why in the world would they want this super young, erratic, disloyal vampire to join the most elite coven in the world? His power is good but it's not even that good, and they already have someone who can read minds anyway so is it really that useful to them? No.
- Edward leaving the way he did and for the reasons he did is actually super out of character for him. He's an obsessive. There's no way he'd be able to leave Bella alone. Also, it's not like the birthday incident came out of nowhere. He's been saying since book one that being around him puts her in danger. He didn't care then, what changed? Bella getting hurt? Was she not ridiculously more injured after the events of book 1? I thought her hearing his voice was evidence of his inability to leave her alone, that through some weird vampire thing he was watching her constantly, stalking her to make sure she didn't do, well, exactly what she started doing. Come to find out that no, Edward shattered every single character trait he was shown to have in the first book, for no reason other than to give Bella the opportunity to get close to Jacob.
I liked this significantly worse than the first book. It barely had a plot, and most of the time it felt like this was going nowhere, and then out of the blue a conflict emerges in the last 40 pages that completely uproots everything in the first 4/5ths of the book. This could have been a 30 page short story and not lost any plot.
It's so uncomfortable watching Bella completely take advantage of Jacob. There is not one single universe in which Bella is a good person.
I hate Jacob's development. It would be way more compelling to have Bella stuck between boys as different as Day and Night, which is what it feels like the first book leads up to. One dark, obsessive, passionate ememies-to-lovers boyfriend, one jovial, jubilant, selfless best-friends-to-lovers boyfriend. But then overnight Jacob loses all his boyish kindness and becomes just as jaded and emotionally immature as Edward. Now Bella has 2 boyfriends who are exactly the same except one is a werewolf and one is a vampire. For all Bella's analogies of Jacob being her Sun, he gets awfully mean and dark very fast.
On that note, the forced conflict between the Cullens and Jacob made me really irritated. You're telling me, that for litereally no reason at all, Edward hates creatures who uphold his same values regarding humans, protect Forks (and by extension, him), and take care of Bella after he abandons her? For why. And Jacob. Depsite having no real issue with the Cullens before, not believing the stories, once he becomes a werewolf automatically hates Edward? Despite the fact that, again, they share the same goals and values with the Cullens?
If you're going to have generational hatred, passed down from tribal leaders since before Jacob was even born, that's fine. But you have to actually write that it's been engrained into his beliefs since he was born. You can't just overnight give him this deeply held belief for no reason other than he's told werewolves hate all vampires no matter what.
I counted eight em dashes on a single page. Eight!
How is Charlie's biggest issue with Edward the fact that he broke Bella's heart. Charlie is a cop. Charlie has been trained to recognize signs of abuse. Bella constantly ends up in the ER after being with Edward, and her excuse is always "I tripped". How is Charlie that oblivious. How.
Can we not romanticize suicide? Can we not pretend that the pinnacle of love is describing in detail how you would kill yourself if the other person left you? The conversation between Bella and Edward at the beginning was like drinking curdled milk through a sippy cup. Revolting and uncomfortable.
What exactly does it say about Edward and Bella that her most vivid memories are of him berating and chastizing her?
And don't even get me started on her hearing his voice randomly.
I typed out a whole paragraph about how unrealistic it is that Edward left Bella how he did, said some traumatizing things to her as he did so, after noticing her emotional state and actively choosing to neglect her, and then expect her to immediately and uncontitionally take him back, pretend like it never happened and get straight back to normal, accept his "apology" and excuses and go back to exactly how it was before. And then that. That actually happens. But then I remembered who we were talking about and I deleted the paragraph, because that completely tracks.
Slight spoilers?
- at the end, it's revealed that Bella is resistant to all vampire abilities, not just Edward's. But this completely ret-cons the first book, when Jasper uses his ability to calm her and Alice constantly sees her future.
- Why are there so many chapters at the end that entirely consist of walking through tunnels beneath Italy while no one speaks and nothing happens? I wish I was exaggerating but there were 4. And then the "climax" happens, and then another 2 or three of the same thing on the way back. It was more than excessive. It was grueling and boring and repetitive. What was the purpose of that? Truly, what?
- The climax itself made no sense. Everyone just kind of... stood there? We were clearly meant to believe that people were in danger but, I didn't. You cannot tell me that these 3000 year old vampires actually care whether Bella lives or dies. You cannot tell me that in te entire world, they have nothing better to do but stick their nose into their relationship and make sure Edward turns Bella. You cannot convince me these people actually care that one single human "knows their secret". Especially after this human risked their life to protect said secret. Also, they supposedly want Edward to join them, but don't trust him enough to take care of Bella should a breach of security become a possibility due to her "fickle, human mind" (Again, this is EDWARD we're talking about. Who decided one day that he would rather die than be without Bella, and the very next day breaks up with her because it's too hard for him to keep her safe. But Bella is fickle.) Which, of course, we know he wouldn't, but wouldn't the Voltori know that? Why in the world would they want this super young, erratic, disloyal vampire to join the most elite coven in the world? His power is good but it's not even that good, and they already have someone who can read minds anyway so is it really that useful to them? No.
- Edward leaving the way he did and for the reasons he did is actually super out of character for him. He's an obsessive. There's no way he'd be able to leave Bella alone. Also, it's not like the birthday incident came out of nowhere. He's been saying since book one that being around him puts her in danger. He didn't care then, what changed? Bella getting hurt? Was she not ridiculously more injured after the events of book 1? I thought her hearing his voice was evidence of his inability to leave her alone, that through some weird vampire thing he was watching her constantly, stalking her to make sure she didn't do, well, exactly what she started doing. Come to find out that no, Edward shattered every single character trait he was shown to have in the first book, for no reason other than to give Bella the opportunity to get close to Jacob.
My second dive into this book was like discovering hidden treasure! It was never the crown jewel of the series for me, but now I've got a newfound admiration for it. Bella and Jacob's friendship gave me all the feels, especially watching him morph into his destiny! I remember my heart doing somersaults between Team Jacob and Team Edward on the first read, but in the end, I'm always going to wave the Team Edward flag!
