Breaking Dawn

by Stephenie Meyer

Mission. Accomplished. 2,560 pages. Of vampires. In less than two months. My mind is on sci-fi overload. I know of many people who read the series in a week or less, but I am not that incredible. No, seriously.

First off, I'm glad I read it. Now I understand what all the buzz is about. But thank God I am finished! Bella was seriously on my very last nerve. I am eager to get back to "normal" fiction books where there are no vampires or werewolves. Although I did come to like Jacob better than I did in Eclipse.

If you haven't read the Twilight series and plan to, STOP HERE. Many, many spoilers to follow. I made it through 3-1/2 books without having any plot twists given away only to have my friend, Joanna, say to me "Did you get to the part where Bella becomes a vampire yet?" ARGHHHHH! I really was hoping that Bella would stay human and wanted to read that for myself. But I still love ya, Joanna!

The main take-away I have from Breaking Dawn is that it was too tidy. Everything turned out so happily ever after that for me it ruined the series. Bella becomes a vampire so that she isn't killed in childbirth. As a newborn, she's supposed to be bloodthirsty, but she isn't. She has to stay away from her father because she might kill him, but she doesn't stay away or kill him. Because of this, the Cullen family doesn't have to move away from Forks. The Volturi come to kill the entire family but leave with only one vampire killed. And one we don't even care about. Alice has to leave to save her own life, but that was only a ploy, and lo and behold, she is safe and back with the family again. Renesmee (possibly the stupidest name ever) is growing so quickly they don't know what...oh wait, she will be a fully mature vampire by the age of seven. Too tidy. I think the books would have been so much more interesting if Bella would have stayed human and they had to figure out how to live as immortal/mortal husband and wife.

I was glad to get a little more intimacy between Edward and Bella though. And it did seem that once she became immortal, she stopped whining so much. And no matter what, Edward will always hold a special place in my (fiction) heart.

I guess I can see why people get so swept up in the lives of the Cullens. But I'm just not surprised that I wasn't one of them. I will at least watch the first movie, if for nothing else, than to see the meadow scene. But I'm afraid the Edward in my head is way better looking than the one on camera.

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