The Great Twilight Roundup — slackermama . com

by Marilyn on October 10, 2008

So I finished “Breaking Dawn” last night. I’ve been holding off talking about the book until I was done, so now the time has come to give my honest and forthright opinion. It took me a little longer than most people to finish the books, but my reading time is limited. Still, I was reading every moment I had a chance, often while nursing Evie before naptime and bedtime. Evie probably won’t know what to think since I won’t be holding a book over her head anymore.

I started of “Twilight” not feeling that impressed. In fact, I was pretty scornful. Everyone and their dog was reading these books and sometimes I tend to roll my eyes in the general direction of fads. Not always, but more and more as the years pass. But I was intrigued. Who was this “Edward” fellow and was he REALLY that great? (_{note: yes he is}) So I stuck through it, even though the first half of the book was pretty dull. The writing wasn’t that spectactular and I thought Bella was kind of a twit. I was very tired of her “all these boys want to go out with me! Boo hoo!” shtick. Give me a break.

And then. Then things picked up with the infamous trip to Port Angeles and from there, the book went a lot quicker and was a lot more interesting. In fact, by the time we got to the baseball game, I was convinced I was reading the best book in all the world.

I went out right away and got “New Moon”. Now, that was a different book. And, to be honest, I still don’t get the Team Jacob people. Sure, he was nice and all. He helped her when she was at her lowest, blah blah blah. But he’s no Edward. There’s just no comparison. And his mood swings and hasseling Bella all the time really wore on my nerves. But, yet again, the book picked up towards the end when Alice showed up. It was about this time that I decided I sorta loved Alice. She was all kinds of awesome. And I practically shrieked aloud with glee when Bella and Edward were finally reuinited. The Volturi were creepy, to be sure, but I don’t think I felt nearly as creeped out by them as Bella was. Though their feeding scene was pretty grisly.

Before I was even finished with “New Moon”, I had to go get “Eclipse”. I didn’t want to chance being left with no book to read, after all. The timing in this book had me confused for a while. It seemed like an awful lot of action stuffed into a couple of weeks time. Which is basically what it was. Again, I really didn’t care for the triangle with Edward and Jacob because as far as I was concerned it was no contest. And yes, I was annoyed at Bella for having any feelings at all for Jacob. Tramp. But the fight scene at the end was freakin’ awesome and the details on how the vampires are dispatched are both disturbing and fascinating. Seriously cool. Oh, that reminds me. I was also annoyed with Bella’s reluctance to marry Edward. I didn’t really think her reasons were very good ones, to be honest. They were pretty weak. Dude, it’s EDWARD. I don’t care if you don’t like attention, are nervous about what people will think, don’t like to accept diamonds and whatnot or wear rings… it’s EDWARD. Don’t make me come to Forks and beat you, woman.

And then we had “Breaking Dawn”. I was seriously excited to read this book. A lot of people have bagged on it and I really didn’t think it was that bad. A lot of people complained about the story getting ridiculous by the end, but I felt it was in line with the rest of the series. The confrontation went about the way I hoped and expected it would. Had it actually become a FIGHT, well, I think that would have been awful. I don’t want to give away too much about this last book, just in case some of you want to read it and haven’t read it (so, you know, NOT YOU Michelle). But it was ALL fascinating. The wedding to the honeymoon to the … ahem… “illness”, to Jacob’s perspective, to Bella’s rebirth and everything that came after. If anything, I was so sad to see this last page and know that it was over.

photo credit: kimberlyfaye