Before you read my review of Breaking Dawn, I wanted to talk about the power of books and reading. I think it is incredible when teenagers spend this much time and energy thinking and discussing what they have read. Just to show you what I have experienced here on my site, I am re-printing some of the amazing comments (basically letters) that I have received from teens on their thoughts of Breaking Dawn. Granted most of them are negative, but so what. They are passionate and thoughtful expressions after having READ a BOOK! And just for a moment let me mention the “controversy” about Breaking Dawn. Let’s compare it to “Flowers In The Attic” which was popular when I was a teen and talk about racy. Because of the power of the internet I wonder how much publicity and negative reviews V.C Andrews would have NOW coming out with a book about a brother and sister falling in love. I would like to believe Stephenie wrote this book with the controversy in mind because she is smart that way. She isn’t the best of writers but she has a talent in her writing that is undeniable. If you want to read my review you can just click on the book cover above. And I want to thank everyone who left me their comments! I really appreciate it and loved reading them! Happy Reading! (Warning Spoilers Below!!)
I did not like this book.
In fact, if this book was NOT part of the Twilight saga (now desperately wishing it was a trilogy), I would have probably hated this book.
And, in a completely cucumber-cool, non-ranting way, I’ll list you the reasons why. There will be spoilers!!!
1. I felt like someone else had asked Stephenie for her characters, and then did with them what they willed. The tone the other three books followed was completely altered from. Now, I do not think Stephenie is a bad writer. I think that she did not live up to the potential she COULD have achieved. We saw some of that in The Host.
2. Bella got pregnant. I literally, honest to God, dropped the book from my hands, shouted ‘Are you KIDDING me?’ to the heavens, before storming off to play several theaurapeutic rounds of Solitaire. Firstly, if vampires were NOT shooting blanks, after several centuries, don’t you think someone would have noticed? I was just… disappointed. I considered pregnancy when I was speculating possible plots beforehand, and was like ‘Eh, Stephenie’s much too creative for that!’. I’m doubting that though…
3. OOC! Out of character! Everything and everyone was. Alice was… different. Edward wanting to immediately abort HIS child? What happened to the loveable martyr in him? I want him back… Bella went from teenager to, well, incredibly old mother. It was just too A to B to me with no transition time. I felt like I didn’t know the characters at all. Cept’ Jacob. Let’s get this straight. I am on Team Edward one-hundred percent, so you know there’s something wrong when the book in JACOB’S perspective was my favorite…
4. Bella was, as some would say, a Mary Sue. She got everything she wanted. Had her cake and ate it too. Everyone loves her in the end. She’s all powerful and beautiful and loses NOTHING. So much for making sacrifices for true love. She didn’t even have a hard time with vampirism! For Christ’s sake, there was no change at all! Sure there were a few lines about a burning in her throat and a mysterious ‘eighth color’, but honestly!
5. And now for a reason I’ve heard noone mention from the start of the series. Humanity, this life with which everyone must make due, is not cherished one bit. I just think it’s… wrong. She didn’t even understand the full scope of WHAT she was giving up. I felt like humanity wasn’t worth a nickel. It was tossed away like an old pair of shoes…
6. Renesmee is the worst kind of cheese any child has ever been named after. Let us completely kill originality with cliches, shall we?
7. Jacob…imprinted… on… Nessie? Are you joshing me? Now, where I steph, I would’ve have made him fall in love with Leah to show that love CAN happen outside this mystical, hocus-pocus nonsense. But… I’m not Meyer. And she went in a very… sick direction with that. Although I did get over it after a while. That wasn’t my number one reason. Just something that was a little off I thought.
8. OOOO, the book had me thinking once upon a time, there’s going to be a massive showdown with the Volturi! How utterly, rapturously exciting! But… I was wrong. Unresolved conflict. Annoying. Sort of felt like I was all dressed up with nowhere to go…
9. The magic was lost. Yes, folks. The sexual tension and deep out of this world love Edward and Bella felt was reduced to something trivial I thought. Sure they SAID it was the same. But I didn’t really feel it. I forever mourn its loss…
There.
Hate me.
I’ll say this for Breaking Dawn: It had a pretty cover.
And thank you, book, for curing my Twilight obsession.
lol well.. it is illogical.. but I really do like this book. I find it really sweet.Though her characters changes tack really fast. And… if fans are disappointed with the pregnancy thing, Then what about other vampire flicks like blade? he’s a half vampire and no one cares about that. And if its about illogical, theres Angel( I know.. bad teen flick XD) He had a baby with another vampire, now thats even more illogical.Then again… if people can swallow that vampires glitter in the sun/have colorful eyes depending on their diet/can’t sleep at all/can resuck venom out of the bloodstream even when it took them a while to realize she was bitten and all the confusion because stephenie meyer wrote it that way then why can’t they take it that a male vampire can impregnate a human womb. *shrugs* the imprinting thing is kinda freaky but I think its one way to bind jacob and bella and edward. At least its better than him getting killed off or something.Some may not like the ending but I find it nice.
I’ve got to say, I was dissapointed.
The pregnancy made me want to gag, and not because I’m immature about that sort of thing… it was just TOO out there. The series is about BELLA and EDWARD… not a baby. Now, there will be something in the world she loves more than Edward. Were she human, I’d maybe be okay with that…but the series has ONLY been about her love for Edward. Now he’s second to her impossibly conceived child.There wasn’t enough Edward-Bella going on. The first three books build up this great relationship, using beautiful writing to show how much they are in love. And then it’s like… that goes away. She might mention Edward’s perfection once a chapter. Well, if the first three couldn’t go a page without (giving an exception to New Moon) mentioing Edward, this one shouldn’t be any different.It was WAAAAYY to adult-like. Black, frilly Lingerie? Bella wanting sex on every page? I know little kids that read this book! It was trashy.Bella was NOT herself. She wasn’t Bella. Edward wasn’t Edward. Alice wasn’t Alice… my three favrotie characters became someone else. It was SO out of character that it was terrible.It sounded like she got a friend to write it for her when she got tired. We were all hypnotized by her beautiful writing style in the first three. She managed to take a cliche and supernatural vampire story and make it wonderful. And then… it’s like we’re spiraling into bad writing and super SciFi. Ugh.It was too easy for Bella. Everyone likes perfection, but no one gets it. It was TOO unreal. She didn’t even have to worry about thirst. She was fine. Everything went too wonderfully for her.So much for a huge, big battle scene to end the series, the protagonists coming out on top with a few casualties along the way, making you cry of course, but love those who survived. I wanted to see WAY more of her old life. Part of the reason I loved Twilight was because it was set in this small town, with small town customs. she had these great friends and families… and she just forgets them all. In that goodbye to Charlie after the wedding, she could have done so much more. Bella shouldn’t be so excited to leave her father. I can understand her friends… to some extent, but not Charlie. She was pushing him to the back of her mind; something no REAL person would be able to do. He would weasel his way back to the front again all the time.Jacob’s imprinting on Renesmee makes it seem like he never REALLY wanted to be Bella’s friend, but he was just drawn to her because of what would happen. I didn’t like that. It made the friendship seem… almost forced.In short… dissapointed. I wasn’t pleased until Jacob’s POV came, because it made it seem like the old books again. I wanted to read a conclusion to the TWILIGHT series, not this.
This book was horrible! I agree with most of the people on this site.I liked it at the beggining but then she is having a baby. WHAT?!? I cried when I found out. (I knew that there was a possibilty that this could happen but I was hoping that Stephenie Meyer wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that.) And the babys name just sucks.( I mean really I like Nessie ten times more then Renesmee and thats saying something.)Also what happened to the main plot of all the other books, Bella and Edwards relashonship. They kind of got lost with all the other crap going on. This isn’t about having a family its about a vampire and human falling in love. I got over them getting married but having a baby. Ugh. I was also really annoyed when they didn’t fight. I was expecting a big battle like in the 7th Harry Potter book. And that some people would die. (I know it sounds mean and all but when Fred died in Harry Potter it just made it that much better.) And how was Bella able to ’share’ her shield without practcing that much. Kate had practised for years and couldn’t do that much. (I hated that at the end Edward could read her thoughts. In the other books he could mostly understand her without reding her mind. I thought that that was kind of cool. She was his one expection)And all of the charcters wer lost. People were able to relate to Bella in the other books because she wasn’t perfect and in this book she pretty much was. And Alice totally changed. Emmet did to. He was still funny but in the other books when ever he talked I wouldn’t be able to stop laughing. I’m team Edward but he was getting on my nerves almost as much as Bella was in this book. They both changed for the worst. Bella is eighteen going on 80. And what happened to the Edward I loved. In the first book he still made crpitic cracks and stuff. In this book he pretty much lacked a personality. And I love Jacob too but I hate how a lot of the book was in his P.O.V. These books are supposed to be Bella’s side of the story, NOT Jacob. I had to go watch Buffy to calm myself down. I was hoping that Leah and Jake would get togther but after reading the beggining of the book I knew Meyer wouldn’t be smart enough to do that. Not everyone has to imprint to find love. And it is kinda funny that because Jacob can’t have Bella he has her daugter. In the other three books I liked how she still had her family but in this book she never even thought about Renee.Charle was kinda out of it. I always suspected him to care more and not be like ‘i don’t want to know anything’. And what bugged me the most was that the book ended perfectly for everyone. Happily ever after. Like a neat little bow. Nobody died or got hurt or anything. All was good in vampire world. Being a vampire dosen’t seem that bad… Sorry if you don’t agrre with me but this is my opinion.
I agree with many of you here. Breaking Dawn was a HUGE let down. I am not saying that I had something imagined about how it would end, but I was hoping for something better than this. The more she writes with these characters, the more she streches them out of bounds and makes them different than who they really were. The characters were shallow, and not as likeable as they once were. Alice came out to be a bitch, Rosalie was motherlike… but still bitchy, Jasper was even mean, and Carlisle wasn’t hardly even himself, despite the fact that he wasn’t as strong of a character to begin with. The whole image of Bella being pregnant, bruised, broken bones, thin, feeble… just disturbing. The only parts with some, dare I say it, substance, sounded like they came straight from a grotesque horror movie. Picturing Edward lick her skin wanted to make me crawl out of mine. Unnecessary. And, as a HUGE Team Edward fan, I hate to say this. But, Edward was a pansy. He acted like a love struck, hormonal, teenage girl who wouldn’t stand up for what was right. He should have stuck up for hiself against Rosalie and made Bella realize that this was all wrong. Why couldn’t he have pulled a New Moon and left her there. She would have done anything to get him back, including getting rid of her baby. But, maybe I am wrong. Stephenie Meyer probably wouldn’t allow herself to not be able to use that atrocious excuse for a name… Renesme Carlie. Seriously? I guess the whole thing about being that next J.K.R. went to her head and so she decided to go the whole Albus Severus route. Maybe I am over reacting. But, by that time in the book, I was going to give it one more chance. Then, my worst fear. JACOB AND RENESME FOREVER?!?!?!?! WTF. That was the final straw. Even though I saw it coming, I was hoping she could do SOMETHING better than that. Now that they imprinted, Jacob is going to live forever at the age he is at with the rest of them. As long as vampires are around, which clearly there are plenty of, he is a werewolf/ shape-shifter?. Why wasn’t Renee there though? That bugged me. Every possible point of controversy was solved rather quickly, and without diffuculty, or sacrifice. Bella got everything she wanted. And even more, she got everything she didn’t care about losing. Her human family knew there was something, but didn’t know details. Just too perfect. Happily ever after with her Best Man, and her now fairy boy husband who will do whatever she says, and the only thing she loves more than being the center of attention (Which I seriously think she does. I think she tries to pretend that she hates it, but if you consider everything… the mutant child. Thanks for giving HER so much power SM. You ruined it. I hate what this saga has become. And, in my mind, it is a trilogy.
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These are a few outcomes that I thought of. Not necessarily serious… but funny to think about. Oh, these are all minus the little Loch Ness Monster. Except 4.
1)When Jake and Bella were alone, he got so angry so fast that even Edward couldn’t save her when Jake broke her neck. Then Edward and Leah imprinted, and Jake… I don’t know what happened to Jake. WAIT, Jake was flying a plane over the Atlantic ocean and got lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
2)Jacob throws a car at Bella and she died, and Edward died from a broken heart, thinking of Lady Montague from Romeo and Juliet. Alice and Jasper started a psychic service and became even more rich than they already were.
3)Bella was a crazed newborn, and ended up killing Mike Newton and a few others who were hiking in the woods when she was hunting with Edward. Then, she liked the taste of human blood so much that she loved that more than Edward and left to go and find some nomads to hang with.
4)In the big confrontation in the end, she took down her sheild once they thought that there wasn’t going to be a problem and Jane and Demetri attacked Edward and Jacob, killing both. She was so upset with what happened, that she blamed it all on Renesme and killed her. Then Rosalie went ape shit and got in a huge battle with Bella. The Volturi were so intrigued that they quickly built some bleechers and started to see some blood cups from the Cullens blood supply. More and more vampires came and bought tickets to see the two fight to the death. Bella wins and Emmett desides to show her how to score the right way So basically, add a pinch of drama, a sprinkle of death, and a dash of originality and it could have been better. Haha.
All the negative reviews make me a bit sad. I have to say that I wasn’t really looking forward to this book and there were times where I wanted to chuck it out the window, but I stuck with it. I like how it turned out. I’m sorry that so many of you don’t feel that way.
Steph did some weird stuff in this book, and yeah, it could have been a lot better, but it was still GOOD.
The Jacob/Renesmee imprinting really isn’t any worse than Quil with Claire. No one seems to be throwing a fit over THAT. You also have to take into account that Nessie isn’t your average infant. At the age of just a few months, she was reading and speaking and her body aged continuously. The little girl has the intelligence of someone MUCH older and if you really think about it, she’s not really a baby. It makes me upset that so many people are throwing fits about it. And anyway, just like Quil with Claire, Jacob doesn’t see Nessie as anything sexual and won’t until she is older. As it stood at the end of the book, Jake was the best babysitter EVER and would do nothing to hurt Nessie.
As for the whole Volturi thing, I agree that that was a letdown. But, I also understand that Bella scared the crap out of Aro with what she did. I would have liked a fight, it would have made it a bit better. But I’m also glad that no one died.
One more thing: I LOVE Seth Clearwater. He’s my favorite from the pack, and he’s just so cute. He likes vampires and I’m glad he played a part in Breaking Dawn.Shoot me if you want, but I liked this book. With every series, there is going to be a flawed book from the readers’ perspective, but that’s okay. Everyone sees things differently and I’m sure that Steph was happy with how she wrote it. All I want to say is THINK before you freak out about something, please? Because maybe, just maybe, if you think about it it might be okay. *Is suddenly reminded of her own blind hatred for the epilogue of Harry Potter…* Okay, I’m a little hypocritical on that, but still! Give Breaking Dawn a chance, and try to see why Steph would write it that way.
Views: 139
mary
I read Breaking Dawn. I didn’t hate it but it wasn’t what I excepted. I liked some parts like Nessie’s name and her powers. I didn’t like the happy ever after. Breaking Dawn wasn’t my favorite Twilight book but I still liked it.
Jo
I liked this book and for reasons that aren’t very popular. I’m team Jacob so I got lots of Jacob. I was happy that Edward’s and Bella’s “so called ” romance in a sense was dead. It wasn’t the same, it made my day. Her love for Edward got to be annoying. I LOVED Edward in the first book but in the others, his character actually made me wish the wolves would finish him off. The tension between Edward and Jacob was great. I liked the fact it tore Bella apart. It’s great storytelling. As for imprinting, I got the idea that it was fact. It was going to happen sooner or later. Why have Jacob happy with someone else when he was just going to tear his and his significant others life apart. I mean, Stephanie tortured Jacob enough with his love for Bella, already. He needed his happy ending. I wish she would continue the story. Think of the possibilities of having a shapeshifter/vampire child. You can have a whole new other world with that idea. Would La Push or the Volturi accept it? Please! Stephanie consider that option.
missbittens
As a teenage girl, I don’t exactly despise the whole series, rather, they fascinate me with their suck, their sexism, and their psychotic, idiotic fanbase. Which is not to say that every fan of Twilight is psychotic or idiotic, it’s just that there’s a rather high amount of it compared to other fanbases. Quite a few people have been physically attacked for merely saying they didn’t like the book.
As for Breaking Dawn, my biggest problem was Renesmee. I thought Bella and Edward were Mary Sues, but “Nessie” takes it to a whole new level. Personally, I have never encountered that level of Mary Sue-ness outside fanfiction, so yeah, it’s pretty bad.
Then there was Bella, who got everything she wanted at no cost and with no character development. I would say she didn’t get to have a see Renee or Angela/Ben/Mike anymore, but she didn’t even care.
lolita
Stephenie proved to be very provincial with this book.. And a bit of a hypocrite. I consider myself an intelligent person, an intellectual who wouldn’t even consider reading this kind of literature; it was a pure coincidence or should I say a need to get away from very deep personal problems, that I began to read this series. My intention was to numb myself for a while. I just found it entertaining without even thinking about the lack of Meyer’s writing skills. But finishing the first three books (I even ignored the whole wedding deal, thinking it’s a trace of the author’s conservatism and it comes with the teritory) in which I found the chemistry between the main characters surprisingly intense and a very positive quality, it vanishes in the final book as characters I began to like turn into strangers and the story into a housewife’s (horrible) fiction novel. So, after I finished it, it left me dumb instead of numb. It’s an insult to intelligent people who took precious time to read these books.
Mashika
I think so many people missed the point on this book. All the characters did exactly as I expected them to especially Bella.
1 – Bella and Edward getting married so young was to be expected. Remember that Edward is over a century old and was raised (in his vampire life) by the son of a preacher. A marriage was inevitable between them. He is old Fashion and it was the right thing to do, and Bella is compelled by responsibility.
2- Bella getting pregnant was expected. Why would Edward think to use protection. Vampires generally never left a sexual partner alive while making love, so they would not know that pregnancy is a possibility. Also, we foresee it in Bella’s conversation with Rose in the 3rd book.
3- Edward’s initial reaction to abort the child and Bella wanting to keep her baby. A – Edward’s reaction is similar to many men who risk losing his spouse to a difficult pregnancy. Some men would react that way, especially Edward who is overprotective, sees himself and the baby as monsters and Bella as good and pure. And living without her for centuries is not fathomable. B – Bella does the opposite of what is healthy for her. She falls in love with a Vampire and a Werewolf, both highly dangerous creatures. She runs toward danger, she would sacrifice herself to save Edward and Jacob, why not her unborn child. She is motherly in nature, see how she treats Charlie and Renee.
4 – Bella acting so mature and controlled as a newborn – Also to be expected. She has always controlled her emotions. She must be mature and responsible as a balance to the whimsical behavior of her mother. She is suited for this life because her upbringing prepared her. She has prepared for it from the moment that Alice told her she may be a vampire one day. She is selfless and would rather suffer thirst and control her instincts than to uproot her family or harm people she loves.
5 – Sex is too prevalent. Not sure how else newlyweds spend their time and how it is not appropriate for a YA group. Preteens and Teenagers know what sex is, and Meyers is not graphic about it at all. Both Bella and Edward are married adults who are so passionately in love they want to express it. Bella as a newborn must control her thirst and temper, why should she control the only other way that she can freely express herself. Especially when there has been very little physically that she and Edward could do prior to their marriage.
6 – Jacob imprints on Nessie. I saw that coming as soon as Bella realized she was pregnant. This explains why Meyers made a point of having Quil imprint on Claire. She needed to explain that it was not sexual during the years that the object of imprinting is still a child. It is weird and a little creepy but understandable. And If I were Bella, no one would have been able to keep me from killing Jacob. But I am not Bella.
7 – Charlie’s reaction to this whole thing. So characteristically Charlie. When does he ever fully express himself. He doesn’t hover, and he would have a little piece of life with Bella than to lose her because she can’t tell him anything.
8- Renee not being around. Charlie and Jacob wanting Bella and Nessie to stay in Forks would naturally keep Renee at bay. Plus, Renee is a bit selfish and childish. She loves Bella, but she doesn’t know how to be a mother. She is too flighty and allowing Bella to move to Forks in the first place put a wedge between them.
9 – Nessie’s full name not being creative, lets see, the child is literally extraordinary. Also keep in mind that Bella names her, not Meyers. She chose a name that Bella would have chosen. Bella is not very creative so she chooses the most influential women in her life to create a name for her daughter.
10 – Alice leaving is unlike her. Exactly what everyone is supposed to think. We know that Alice is going to come back because she is not a coward. However, Alice has visions and she knows that her visions change based on decisions and the one thing she absolutely knows is that if she tells everyone the outcome, it will change everything. In order for the stand-off with the Volturi to work, everyone must make the decisions that lead up to the conclusion. And since she cannot hide her thoughts from Edward and she must find a halfbreed, she has to go.
11 – Non-Violent Resolutions with the Volturi – Why does everyone think that this doesn’t make since is beyond me. Believe me, I love the idea of a bloodshed, but the casualties on both sides would have been staggering and causes more problems. If the Volturi lost, who would keep vampires in check? If the Cullens lost, we would all feel lost, and which of the Cullens could anyone accept losing if only one dies.
12 – No loss or sacrifice? – Didn’t they all lose a lot and sacrifice a lot in the first 3 books. At some point don’t all these characters deserve a happy ending, without sacrificing too much? But even if you don’t think so, there is a some losses. Jacob loses the ability to age and eventually die when he imprints on Nessie. He will never age as long as he continues to be around vampires. Bella loses her mother and will eventually lose Charlie when the Cullens have to move again. Her and Jacob are the only immortals in the book that will be close to their families as they watch them age and die. Edward loses Bella, even though it is for a short time, imagine the feeling. The Cullens lose some allies. Sam loses part of his pack. Lives are lost when all the vampires hunt so close to Forks. The Volturi lost a great deal of power and respect. The Cullens continue to be a threat in the eyes of the Volturi, so they continue to lose a sense of safety and comfort. Bella sacrifices some of her responsibility and natural instinct as a mother in order to keep Jacob and Nessie happy.
I know I wrote a lot, I tend to do that. Sorry
Samantha
I enjoyed reading Breaking Dawn! Many of you are fprgetting that Stephenie Meyer intended on only writing to books. She wrote most of Forever Dawn before Twilight got published. It wasn’t until later that the publishers told her it would be a YA book. I think Meyer wanted to keep her original plot without taking into consideration that many of her fans have no idea what motherhood is about.