If you are planning on reading Breaking Dawn (2008), Stephenie Meyer’s 4th book in the Twilight Saga, you might not want to read any further as this is full of spoilers. Although chances are that if you are going to read it, you already have.My cousins touted Twilight (2005) since it came out. After two more books [New Moon (2006) and Eclipse (2007)], and deciding to catch up on young adult fantasy written by authors with Utah connections I jumped in. I listened to the first three books (Ilyana Kadushin does a GREAT job with the audio versions).
I found the books full of intriguing twists on vampires and werewolves, quite intense emotional energy and engaging characters. I found Bella frustrating - I didn't agree with a lot of her decisions. I have never been a 17 year old female, but due to the response of those I talked with Bella Swan really resonated with them. So if you are looking for a window into the 17-24 year-old female psyche, this could be a pretty good one. I never really connected with Edward Cullens in the four published books, but I did feel for Jacob Black. New Moon, which focused more on Jake and Bella's relationship is still my favorite of the series.
Breaking Dawn started off quicker than I anticipated and ended up going in direction I didn’t anticipate. It was unexpected to switch to Jake’s perspective, but it made sense as Bella wasn’t doing or seeing much. I enjoyed the book, but I was disappointed.
Throughout the other books becoming a vampire is presented as a sacrifice – loosing connections with family and friends, the ability to have children, control for a year, freezing your character and development. Yet Bella manages to not only keep it all, she even manages to control her vampire urges from the beginning. In fact, with Jake imprinting nobody suffers at all in the book.
It just seemed that Meyer didn’t want to have anyone not have a happy ending. It is not that I wished ill toward anyone, but I feel that some suffering or sacrifice or pain could make the happy endings happier and more powerful. It was a lost opportunity, a chance to add some contrast to the story and make the ending more of a cathartic experience. This is something that J.K. Rowling didn't shy away from in the Harry Potter series, as a recently well known example. Well known and liked characters suffered and died. It made the eventual triumph sweeter - more meaningful, poignant and real. Decisions usually come with consequences, including potentially painful trade offs, but at this point in the Twilight world, apparently they don’t.
Besides the universal lack of afflictions, there were a few other small issues that prevented Breaking Dawn from being more than just an enjoyable story for me. Alice’s disappearance didn’t throw me (perhaps I have just read too many books with psychics), but the deus ex machina revealing of Nehuel was jarring. It also would have been nice to spend more time with some of the other characters, but I realize that would have made the book waaay too long.
The stand off of the Volturi and the Cullens (and friends) was disappointing, but Stephenie did address that in the Breaking Dawn FAQ on her site (http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/bd_faq.html). The whole Volturi/Cullens collecting of gifted vampires (whether planned or not) started to remind me of the Magento/Professor X mutant gathering in X-Men.
I kept waiting for either the vampires or the werewolves to realized that none of them asked to become what they had become. In fact, Bella is the only one out of the multitudes of supernatural creatures that consciously decided her transformation. No one ever verbalized this though.
Do I still recommend Breaking Dawn? Yes, but not as not as strongly as I felt I could have. It does appear to be the end of Bella’s story as the uber-Bella is now immortal and unchangeable.
Luckily, Meyer opened up so many plot threads that I am sure she is planning to return to this world of sparkly vampires and werewolves/shape-shifters the size of buffaloes. First we have the introduction of several new and intriguing vampires. The Volturi are still in power. Then there is news of Johann somewhere in South America trying to create a super-race of half-breed vampires. (Do you think there is any chance he was involved with the Nazi’s?) Something is going on with Billy Black that was never explained. And while this is not the last loose thread, Edward commented that Jake could have competition for Renesmee with Nehuel. With all of these elements that Meyer can pick up and use in new stories, I would probably hold off on buying the forthcoming The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide (due out Dec 30, 2008) because at some point they will need to update it.
Meyer could use Midnight Sun (unpublished but available on http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/midnightsun.html) to begin to address some of the shortcomings in the series by filling in holes and providing explanations missing in the other books. So far she hasn't, but in the dozen chapters available in the partial draft I finally began to identify with Edward. (Although I don’t buy it that after 80 years a mind reader doesn’t realize that he dazzles and overwhelms human females. Also, I must have skipped over it but when did Edward tell his family that he couldn’t read Bella’s thoughts? Let me know where it happened if you know. Thanks. It just seemed that this would have, or should have been quite a discussion among the Cullens. It intrigued the Volturi after all.)
I imagine that after things blow over with the Midnight Sun leak, and perhaps Meyer has written another book or two, she will come back to finish this. I would also be interested to get Edwards perspective on the New Moon events, especially the time he spent in South America after Victoria.
As if Stephenie Meyer would ever read this, my recommendation to her would be to take the opportunity in writing companion books to the original three Twilight Saga books to fill out the vampire characters some more, and to lay some background so some of the events and “revelations” in Breaking Dawn don’t feel like they are coming out of the blue just to help tie up the story line. If you are interested, Stephenie, just let me know and I can go over my concerns in more detail and even some possible ways you could address them. I will just wait for your email.
For those of you who can't wait for any more Twilight books, at least you will have the movie in November, and if that does well I am sure more movies will follow.
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