If you have never bothered to read the Twilight series and want to either catch up or just get another view point of it, try this site. I read the books and found this HIGHLY amusing. I only read the Breaking Dawn summery and I do not think I ever laughed so much by reading something. It does aid to have read the books, but its still funny if you have not. Anyways, I will digress into my own review of the whole thing.
I was really excited when I got the first book, Twilight. I had read various things on the book and read the author's website, www.stephaniemeyer.com and I liked what I saw. The preview chapters were great and made me go out and buy three books within one week. I read the first three books all within two days of getting them, plowed through them in a week before I came to the dirt hole. Anyways, it was not until I got to the third book, Eclipse that I got to be annoyed. By the end of Breaking Dawn I was plum tired.
For one, Bella annoys me to no end. She does not seem to have any purpose in life other than to obsess about Edward. Edward, meanwhile, had nothing better to do than to be an overbearing, overprotective boyfriend who did odd things. However, because neither of them was truly interested in life without the other one glued to his or her side, the books lost a lot of the magic they gained through a first reading. Bella whined, Edward was just too perfect for words and had now flaws, and poor Jacob was a brat. I am a Jacob fan. I fell in love with the guy in New Moon. I felt sorry for him in New Moon as Bella was just simply evil throughout the book. And what made it worst was the fact she knew she was evil. In Breaking Dawn Jacob rocked, till he imprinted and lost his angst.
What drew me into Twilight in the first place was the relationship between the vampire and the human. How would this end up well? Well, the majority of the book is this: First Edward seemingly has a huge issue with Bella and refuses to speak to her, let a lone look at her, then one day POOF he starts talking to her again. Then he goes on to ask a BILLION questions and take her to a meadow and POOF they are madly in love with one another. Then, just when everything seems okay, POOF bad guy show up and start hunting Bella. BAM! Let's go one the run and BAM Bella almost dies, but guess who saves the helpless idiot? Edward. The end.
When you read a book at lightening speed and get swept up into it, then it was AWESOME! This is why I went out the next day and bought New Moon. However, if you read it ever so slowly and all ready know it, you pick up on all the things that are annoying. Like, there is no falling in love it JUST HAPPENS. POOF. BAM!
In New Moon Edward has the bright idea he should LEAVE BELLA. I know, bright idea when you are addicted to one another. In the first book, Edward told Bella that she was his brand of herion. So, one would think that he wouldn't so willingly give up a fix like that. And if he did, he would, well if he could, die. But nonetheless, he left. And Bella, who was always convinced he would grow bored with her because she wasn't as beautiful as him, etc, figured this was why he left and just let him leave. And then she did that whole wallowing thing for MONTHS. It was almost like the fifth Harry Potter book all over again with angst teenage Harry, but this was worst because it was addict Bella going through withdrawal that never ENDED. On and on it went, and then she heard his voice in her head when she did something stupid! OH MY GOD! I'm crazy, but this is sooo good, let's do something stupid loads of times just to hear his voice. She gets the bright idea to buy motorcycles and has Jacob fix them up, as in the first book she learned he was good with fixing cars and the such. She bankrolls the project and discovers that Jacob makes her feel half human again. He is her sunshine, her only sunshine. And thus, the easily addicted Bella becomes a Jacob addict. Lovely, right?
Nope. Because Bella is a wee bit more addicted to that voice in her head. So, what does she do? Well, she leaps off a cliff, but I'll get to that. Shortly before her cliff diving experience, she finds out Jacob is...a werewolf! Yeah, she just can't find anyone normal (not that it would be hard. Everyone is in love with Bella. I forgot to mention that in the first book, they all love her when she first arrives in the tiny town of Forks, WA. They fight over her, constantly ask her out on dates and she turns them all down). So, Jacob is a werewolf and there is...guess what? A vampire after Bella. Again! Evidently, in killing the vampire that almost killed Bella before, pissed this other vampire off. So, this vampire decided to come back and hunt Bella, which caused more werewolf's to pop up! So, there are all these werewolves running around and after a stupid hike into the forest to find the meadow there BAM she fell in love, Bella has a near death experience. Nothing new to her, but all the same she finds out the vampire is after her. After finally putting all the pieces together, she tells her werewolf friend about this, and she spends a lot of time around his place being "protected." However, she likes the voice more than Jacob, so she leaps off a cliff and almost dies. In various ways, as the vampire who is after her is swimming around and she almost drowns.
Side note: Edward has a family. They are not related, but most were created by the "father" Carlise. Carlise created Edward, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett. Rosalie and Emmett are mates, and Carlise and Esme are mates. Jasper and Alice joined the family on their own. So, this family is special in some ways as they do not eat people for one and two, three of them have gifts. Edward can hear people's thoughts, Alice can see the future, and Jasper can, uh, play with people's emotions. Like calm you down if you get too worked up (he does this to Bella A LOT.) I forgot to mention this in the first place. The future Alice sees also changes depending on decisions made by others. She also cannot see beings she has not experienced being. Basically she can only see humans and vampires. All right, back to what I was babbling about before.
Well, due to the fact Bella made the decision to JUMP off a CLIFF, Alice sees Bella dying. She does not see Bella rescued because she's saved by Jacob, the werewolf. Anyways, so things go to almost back to normal and Bella begins to think she might be able to start something more with Jacob, but just as she's getting to that point, guess who shows up?
Did you guess Edward? You are wrong. If you guessed Alice then you are right. Jacob freaks out and Bella tosses herself at Alice. Bella is OVER JOYED to the point that its sad that Alice is there. Jacob is rather grumpy that Alice is back. During one of the many, many fights between Bella and Jacob the phone rings. And guess what? Guess who called?
If you guess Edward this time, then you are right. Edward heard from Rosalie (whose super power is just overly beautiful and bitchy because she never got to have a baby and an ever loving loving husband) that Bella was dead. However, this is wrong information, but he calls Bella's house pretending to be Carlise and asks for Bella's father. However, Bella's father is at a funeral (for his friend Harry who died of a heart attack the same day Bella tried cliff diving) and Jacob tells this to the caller, leaving out whose funeral it was. The caller takes this as Bella is dead. And he decides to die as well. However, how does a vampire die?
Not too easily. Vampires can't really kill themselves too well. The whole stake thing doesn't work, or sunshine busting. One must be set on fire after being broken up into little bits to die. So, Edward has to have some help. So he goes to see the Royal Vampire Family in Italy! Yeah, the vamps have a royal family. They are not as cool as the British ones, but eh. How much can you ask for?
Anyways, Alice sees this and she and Bella run to save Edward from himself. Along the way, the human Bella must turn into a vampire at some point because she just knows too much about vamps to be good for her fragile, accident prone self.
Edward and Bella re-addict to one another, leaving only on issue: Bella's also an Jacob addict. Uh no! But let's not think too much about that now, we'll figure that out later.
The next book Eclipse is pretty bad when you read it even really fast. I spent most of it hating Bella because she's a whiny, self absorbed, Edward addicted, no talent drama queen. Yeah. She is. She hates causing anyone pain, but that is all she does. She attempts to be friends with Jacob, but Edward doesn't want her hanging out with baby werewolves because they are DANGEROUS. Yeah, and the vampires are good for her. Sure. (Well, to his credit, Edward would much rather Bella not hang out with the vamps, but Bella has no self preservation, so she hangs out with dangerous things.) Most of the book is a slow progression towards the attack of Victoria, who was the vamp stalking Bella in New Moon. There are some interesting bits, like when we find out more about vampire culture and newborns. Vampires have wars. And if they get too out of hand, the Royal Family of the Vampires shows up to clean house, keeping order and protecting the vampires from their food sources knowledge. A lot of the book seems to deal with Bella's preparation and desperation to be a vampire. Bella fears aging, like any 18 year old would fear it. However, instead of using plastic surgery later in life, Bella decides it would be wise to be a strong, cold hard vampire. She has no interest in human things at all. Even after Rosalie talks to her about having babies and stuff, Bella still wants to toss it all away to be a vamp. Okay, fine. To each her own. Just stop whining about it and make up your mind.
What really bugged me about New Moon was how she pulled Jacobs strings. Also, how much Jacob was a total jerk at times, yet he really did have a right to be a total jerk, as Bella was simply being evil. She seemed to think she had to have everything she was addicted to, even when two of those addictions hated one another.
However, in the end she agrees to marry Edward (which she did not want to because she was too young to get married. Uh, you're too young to get married but not too young to decide you want to toss away your human life for a vampire life? being married is a different level of commitment than being a vampire...at least if you're married you can get a divorce. You are stuck a vampire for ever more...I did not understand her aversion to marriage at all when she wanted to be vampire. She was mostly worried what other people thought. OH, now worry about what other people thing, I see...) and agrees to hold off on the becoming a vamp until Edward has sex with her while she's human. Edward will only have sex if she is married, so okay, let's let Alice through an over the top wedding!
Jacob gets pissed and runs away.
Breaking Dawn starts off with Bella driving around in a tank of a car and trying to appease her father with this stupid wedding coming up. One can clearly tell Bella isn't into the whole getting married thing. She seems to be doing it for everyone else, not herself. But she knows she will have sex with Edward in the end as a human and get that human experience, which is the only one she wants.
So, la la la, complain complain, get married. Lovely wedding, everything is perfect, no one cares she is fresh out of high school and married. La la la la! Whoo hooO! Oh, wait, Jacob comes home and almost explodes into a furry being when he hears Bella is going to have sex with the super rock hard, super strong vampire she just married.
And did he think she wouldn't? Oh, wait, he thought she'd wait till she was a vamp? NO way dude.
The whole sex thing never bothered me. I don't really like reading about teenagers having sex, I don't mind hearing the run up to, but whatever afterwards. However, in the book, they do have sex. It is rough sex, bruises, broken pillows and feathers. However, while Edward would rather not ever do that again, Bella becomes a sex fiend. And so she will stay.
So, on the honeymoon, they have sex a total of two times I believe. And guess what? Bella's pregnant! And the baby is growing really fast! DEMON BABY! I think I laughed when I read that. I was like, only Bella would get pregnant right off the bat.
Anyways, so they go home and la la la, now its, wait, Jacob's turn to tell the story? Jacob, if I can say so, is a way better story teller and narrator than Bella. I like him. I like him more after reading his chapters. He is not over dramatic in the least. He rocks hard core.
Jacobs chapters tell his side of the story, which picks up around the time Bella returns and he finds her REALLY FREAKING PREGGERS. He tells his pack and they freak out and want to murder everyone in the house with Bella. Jacob will not hear of this, goes a bit freaking and somehow manages to break off from the pack. His little buddy Seth follows (as Seth is best friends with Edward now after the huge fight against Victoria in the last book...) and they start their own pack and later are joined by Leah, Seth's sister who is a bitter little lady. The only female wolf ever. Anyways, the three decide to protect the house withe Bella in it. Then, after one hell of a blood birth scene, the baby is born and BAM, Jacob is in love with it due to this freaky thing that werewolves do called imprinting. The baby demon is his soul mate. His soul mate is named Renesmee. Yeah, you see that right. Jacob prefers to call her Nessie. Most people call her this, except Bella who TOTALLY FREAKS OUT, but in the end still calls the kid Nessie by the end.
So, due to this horrific birth, Bella almost dies, but is saved by vampire venom and becomes a vamp. And, I almost hate to say this, vampire Bella is almost cool. Vampire Bella still is totally over dramatic, but at least now she isn't totally defenseless. She is addicted to sex more than blood, oddly enough. She also has a lot of control over herself and her emotions, something that with vamps comes with age. However, she gave birth to a half vamp-half human baby. The Royal Family shows up to kill them all, but this fails to happen because of Bella's super shield and a lot of talking.
In the end there is no blood shed and no one dies except for Bella. For as long as the book is, nothing really happens that wasn't expected. There is a lot of yapping and almost no action. I only finished the book to be done with it. I was really hoping that vampire Bella wouldn't be as whiny and over dramatic as human Bella, but alas, she is. The only difference is that vamp Bella knows she's beautiful and stunning and vampire Bella is actually good at things, like jumping over rivers and protecting her brain from things. Bella gets everything she wants as well, which is sort of sad. She gets Edward, Jacob becomes part of her family and she did get a baby (a child that grows super fast and is like a little adult by the age of three months and will be full grown in six years). Oh, a happy ending.
Another thing, with reading the books through a second time, I did not see much foreshadowing...not much connecting through out the books like the Harry Potter series had. The only thing that was really explained was why no one could get in Bella's head: she had a shield. I am a huge fan of Harry Potter. I have lost track of the time I've read those books and found something new that connected in a different book. These books, not so much. They are still wroth a read if you have the time and do not tend to think very much about what you are reading. Or you don't mind reading a book with a drama queen for the main character (she is not a negative drama queen, she's just a little over dramatic for her own good, but she is 18 in most of the books.) I enjoyed them even though I disliked the main character. But that is just me.
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