I love to read. I love when you pick up a book and within pages you are transported to another place in time. I love the urgency I feel in getting to that final page so much so that I will forgo eating and sleeping, and when the end does come it saddens me to know that the characters I have come to know and love will no longer be there to entertain me. I anticipated the final book in this series. I was one of those slightly obsessed fans who stood in line at midnight waiting for my copy. I drove home, settled in my favorite chair and tore into the pages. All I can say is how completely disappointed I am. I just keep asking myself WHAT WAS SHE THINKING??? Why did everything have to be tied up so perfectly? Where was the angst? Here are just a few of the problems I had with Breaking Dawn....
1. In the end Bella didn't have to give up anything. She gets Edward, she gets Edward's baby, she gets to keep her family, she gets to keep Jacob around, she gets a sweet little cottage in the woods, blah, blah, blah. Was there anything that didn't come easily to her in this book?
2. Jake imprinting on Bella's baby. That was just wrong on so many levels. But aside from the ick factor this means Bella never has to give up Jake and Jake doesn't have to give up Bella. So if he can't have her he will just take her daughter instead. Does anyone else have a problem with this???
3. The fear and repulsion she felt when she imaged being a newborn vampire was all for naught. She goes hunting...smells human blood...decides the best thing to do is to just to hold her nose and make a run for it. 4. Bella never wanted to become a mother because of her own dysfunctional family. Yet, when she finds out she is pregnant there is never a moment of panic or dread at the thought of impending motherhood. To me this was implausible when considering Bella's character. 5. There was no pain or even a little regret in giving up her old human life. Actually I take that back she didn't want to give up her human life right away...not because that meant giving up her own mother and father. Not because it meant giving up Jacob or her other friends. No, she didn't want to leave the human world because she enjoyed having sex. And even that turned out to be better as a vampire because well as a vampire you never have to stop having sex in order to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, or any of those other human annoyances.
6. I understand the sacrifces a woman makes in giving birth but who else had a hard time reading her reaction to drinking blood before she became a vampire? Was she sickened at the thought of drinking it...no. In fact after her first gulp she wanted more. It tasted good to her. Give me a break!!!
7. Even if I could get over all my other complaints one fact would still remain....the book was just poorly written. I can't count the number of times Edward "rolled" his eyes or "chuckled". Seriously there were so many repetitive words that by the end of the book I wanted desperately to send Miss Meyers a thesaurus. And 700 pages??? I think 200 or possibly 300 would have been more than sufficient.
I could go on and on about all the other things I hated about this book. Their baby's name being one of them! But I will stop. I will just wrap this post up by saying once again how dissapointed I am. This is one book I will never read again. Sad, sad, sad!
One final note and I promise I am done..."Did Edward really say "Goodbye, Jacob, my brother... my son."? " Again, what in the heck was Stephanie Meyers thinking???
14 comments:
I'm sorry Mandee.
I'm sure there will be great literary commentary here soon, but as I haven't read one word of this series... I do hate it when things are disapointing.
I will eat a cookie in honor of you.
Thank you Heather!!! Just be glad you didn't fall victim to all the hype! By the way I miss you!
you make me laugh. i am just going to email you my comment cuz it's too big to fit here!
I have nothing to add...I saw Pam Caudill in the church parking lot for activity days and she was deep into the book and almost done. Tried to talk to her about it but as I have not read a single word I am sure I sounded like an idiot. Anyways....she said that the author had to fight to get a 4th book published and that she felt the need to tie up all the loose ends and that the book lacked the drama, that is not the workd she used. I think she said it was facile, which is french...I took french in high school. Quiet, ok anyway I am stopping now.
Sorry you were dissapointed. Book club this month is twlight and I asked Pam if I could borrow her copy.
I love, love, love the new look of your blog! Don't change it okay? (:
Thank you Andria!
Ditto ditto ditto. I think its funny--I avoided your post until I was done reading the book so I wouldn't know the ending and we ended up writing a very similar review!
I hated the baby's name too--so dumb.
And the repetitiveness I found most annoying was all the snarls, growling and such that goes on involuntarily.
I thought it was blaringly obvious that she is a new author trying to wrap up her first series.
I got your message and we will call you back, I promise!
this is emma jo's friend and I thought i'd come read your review after your comment on her post. I totally disagree with both of you. I do not understand why people want to have bella have a sacrifice...why does it matter? Shouldn't we be happy for her that she gets her happily ever after? She was willing to sacrficie, said her goodbyes, packed the backpack, etc. I cried at the thought that maybe she would have to.....
2. Who cares if jake imprinted on a baby....he's just a caregiver...it seemed weird with his other wolf imprinting on the child, but it seemed to flow for me:) Weird, I know, but it worked for me. I was just happy that jake didn't have to be sad over bella anymore.
3. how cool that she had the self control....did you really want to hear about bella killing a random human?
4. lots of people don't want kids until they are pregnant and something comes over them and they want it.
5. i loved that the sex got better as a vampire:)
6. yeah, drinking blood is gross
I agree it was longer than needed and that a thesaurus would be helpful, but it was like that with all the books. If it didn't bother people in the first one, why should it in the last? I also didn't like the baby name.
Okay, so my book didn't come until Friday night--stupid Amazon. I tried so hard to be careful not to read any spoilers so I could just experience the book the way it was written.
When Alan asked me how it was about halfway through, I just had to respond with an, "I'm not really sure..." thinking, "I really, really WANT to love this book, but I just can't."
For me, honestly, the appeal of the whole saga was always the tension between Bella and Edward, so, of course, after the first two-thirds of the first book, things could only go downhill. I did think Meyer did a good job keeping the series going until this last installment, though.
I couldn't really nail down what was bothering me about the book (aside from the baby's name--Renesmee? SERIOUSLY?! In my head it had about 15 different pronunciations, none of which are satifying at all. Why not just Carlie?--that I did like.) until I read Sherri's report of Pam's comment. It was facile. It was too simple and easy and clean and neat, like Mandee said.
I understand why Meyer didn't want Bella to slip up as a vampire--I mean can you imagine the young readers' reaction to Bella killing ahuman being--but it still didn't sit right. It WAS too easy.
I really wanted Jacob and Leah to have a thing. That would have seemed more real to me, but would not have moved the plot in the direction she needed it to go, I guess.
I don't know, I'll stop here. Just know you are not alone. Still really admire Stephenie, though.
Okay, so I liked the happy ending because I am a happy ending kind of girl. I really hated the baby's name as well and I was secretly hoping Jake would get together with Leah as well. I don't have anything else to say because I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either. I was satisfied with the wrap up.
Kristen, thanks for checking out my blog, sorry your first glance had to be something you vehemently disagreed with! Here is my problem with Bella...it isn't that I wanted her to sacrifice something in the end, because like a lot of people I LOVE a happy ending. But in my opinion things came just a little too easy, so much in fact that it didn't ring true to me. Nothing in life ever comes that easy. yes, I know this is fiction but I still like a book to have some semblance of truth. About Bella becoming a mother....I completely understand that some women don't think they want to become a mother until that moment when they learn that they are about to become one. However, in that moment of happiness I would assume there always comes thoughts of can I do this...do I want to do this...will I be any good at motherhood. It wasn't that I was unhappy that she got pregnant, I just thought SM could have explored the feelings that come along with the realization that your whole world is about to change. In the end when all was said and done I just didn't like the book.
Mandee - I loved it and I hated it. Enough said.
Will you plese check your e-mail? I'm sending a rather personal note.
Thanks!
ok it took 8 days but I read all 4 books :) I have done little else and I know my husband will be glad to have me back. Last night he asked if we were having dinner? He cooks more then I do..he has never asked me if..what but if? I am so glad I have read them and I did ENJOY reading them. My brain hurts, perhaps my eyes from reading so much. I feel like I need to think about it a bit before I pass judgement.
1. hated the baby name. I totally agree with Jessica Carlie would have been great!
2. glad she did not kill a human, gross...
the rest I have to think about.
all and all a perfect way to ease out of my summer vacation
Yep, hated it, just like you and Karen, you two were just more precise as to why you hated it and I totally agree. Really awful, It took me weeks to finish because it just seemed so simplistic and drawn out.
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