Sep 27 2008
Breaking Dawn
Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer, is the fourth book in the Twilight Series, a series that focuses on Bella Swan’s interactions with a family of vampires. This particular book focuses on Bella’s life as a newborn vampire. These books are meant for a tween/teen audience, but have appealed to adults as well as a younger audience.
In this novel, we learn of Bella’s struggles as a vampire and with the Voltari, the ruling judicial class of Vampires. There were a number of things that I loved about this book. I know that many of you, like me, learned that you should never judge a book by its cover, but I loved this book beginning with the cover art. The cover depicts a red pawn on a black background, placed on a chess-board. At the center of the cover, is a large, white king. This symbolism depicts Bella’s metamorphasis from the weakest person that the Cullen coven has known, to perhaps its strongest, with the exception of Nessie and Edward. In keeping with the other covers in the series, it is black with white and red images. Lovely, absolutely lovely.
I also loved how the novel was organized. It was split into three books - a book that is told from Bella’s point of view when she is still a human and which describes her marriage, her pregnancy and her return to Washington state to the Cullens. The second book is told from Jacob Black’s perspective - Jacob is a dear friend, who was in love with Bella, but who had to deal with losing her to Edward, a vampire. It describes the end of Bella’s pregnancy and her conversion to a vampire. The final book shifts back to Bella’s perspective. In it, we learn of how she fares as a vampire and mother and how her powers develop to culminate in a fantastic ending that will not be given away here.
The prose was very simple and light. It is a good read if you are at home, in bed, from a tough day at the office with a glass of wine. You can quickly skim through the pages; it literally flies by. Even though the book is a big book - it is 754 pages long - do not be daunted. It does not feel like a 754 page book at all. It is really light and honestly, quite fluffy in places. For me, that was good. I wasn’t looking for a long, dense read, so if you are, this isn’t it. Ms. Meyer gives us characters that are sometimes utterly predictable and sometimes absolutely wonderful. There were some characters that annoyed the hell out of me - like Rosalie - and some that I wanted more of - like Nessa and the Amazons.
I did HATE a few things about this book - Bella and Edward got EVERYTHING they wanted, apparently without even breaking a sweat. Bella is now this absolutely beautiful vampire with a gorgeous, loving vampire husband that would do anything for her and a beautiful baby. She gets to keep Jake in her life, albeit as her son-in-law (hey, that could be kinky I guess!!!) and she gets to be immortal. And she gets it easily! What I found myself forgetting, scarily enough, is that Bella is only 18 when this happens - married, with a child at 18! Forget school, forget a job, forget anything like that. When I thought about it afterwards, it was almost like I was in the 50’s (or maybe it’s Meyer’s education at Brigham Young that influenced the 18 with child aspect of it, who knows). I felt like Bella was still as passive as she was in the previous three books. She didn’t come into her own, the way that the cover wants us to believe that she does. She’s still passively letting Edward and his family take care of her, even though she is supposedly this all power vampire. The way that Ms. Meyer got rid of Charlie was also way too neat and convenient. Initially, Bella was telling him that she was ill - and he bought it and bought the baby. It was just odd…
While I did appreciate the prose, it was just too tidy. And that really annoyed me.
