Reviews

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

Only show reviews with written explanations

trinityb2021's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

The first two entries into this series were relatively easy to stomach. There were a few red flags here and there but nothing out of the ordinary for a YA novel released in 2007.

Let me tell you that this book is so problematic it deserves at least 5 years no chance of parole. This book is a crime against humanity. Where has my silly fun vampire romance gone? I will gladly take a bad ending of flying off to Italy. Please give me Italy back.

Edward is unbelievably controlling and toxic for the first 3rd of the book. Eventually he chills out not before Jacob noticing that Edward is toxic af. Then Jacob does one of the most problematic things he could've! He forces himself on Bella and kisses her when she obviously doesn’t want it. She stiffens up and tries to push him off and tries to say no and he does not care and keeps kissing her. She later describes it as assault. I don’t care if he apologizes for it. You don’t get to just SA someone and then say “oh sorry it wasn’t good for you.” She punches him in the face and breaks her hand because of this.

He describes the assault as “pretty incredible.” After he stops assaulting her she says “Are you done yet?” Her inner monologue during it is “I opened my eyes and didn’t fight, didn’t feel. . . just waited for him to stop.” If that isn’t the most problematic thing I’ve ever read. How can you justify letting middle schoolers read a book that normalizes SA?

Afterwards Bella tells Charlie about the assault and he says “Good for you, kid” (to Jacob for kissing her) and when Bella complains about her broken hand Charlie tells her to “pick on people your own size”. HUHHHH?!

This man’s daughter was assaulted and you are rewarding the assaulter just because you don’t like your daughter's boyfriend? And then you are dismissing her trying to defend herself because Jacob is such a “nice guy.” Charlie is truly a cop through and through.

This isn’t even the only fucking weird thing Jacob does. Later on Jacob threatens to kill himself if Bella doesn’t kiss him. Of course Bella does because she doesn’t want her best friend to go kill himself. He then complains that the kiss wasn’t good enough and says he will still kill himself unless she kisses him better. HUHH!? You don’t extort the people you love into giving you physical affection they don’t want to give. Bella also doesn’t really reciprocate in this kiss and tries to pull Jacob off of her. Once it's almost done she's all like wow I did love him the whole time. Jacob was right. Unbelievable gaslighting from Jacob.

Edward also isn’t mad about this? He's just like wow Jacob’s got game??? No Edward please punch him for me. Like you have some weird issues but at least you aren’t assaulting her.

Edward is really controlling in the beginning. Not letting her visit Jacob or do anything besides go to school. Like one night she goes to sneak out to visit Jacob and he disassembles the engine in her car to prevent her from leaving of her own free will. Major red flag. But besides that he is comparably less bad. Exactly what you want in your YA love triangle: comparably less bad love interests.

This book also weirdly pushes a wait until marriage situation. Is Stephanie a devout Christian or something? This book is problematic enough but I guess Stephanie was going for the bingo.

Bella is insufferable as well in this book. She is constantly worried that her big ass regenerating werewolf friend or her super strong, fast, and immortal vampire boyfriend is going to die because she, a weak and slow and notoriously clumsy human, can not be gyrating within half a millimeter of the crime scene. Like girl let them live their life. You are anxious beyond belief. Like I get it, if I was in that scenario I would probably be anxious too but from a storytelling perspective hearing Bella repeatedly say this for 3 books now is getting on my nerves.

I have annotated this book beyond belief in an attempt to keep my sanity. Please pray for me as I dive into Breaking Dawn.