Breaking Dawn...your thoughts (possible spoilers)

I personally loved Breaking Dawn, but I know some feel very differently. What did you like? What didn't you?

I loved it. I think that it all fit and unlike some people who have called it 'disappointing' or 'lame fanfiction', I think everything fit in perfectly, if only you stop to think about the whole series and how it they have evolved. If you wish to read more about my opinions, check out my review either on LT or on my blog.

I wouldn't have had SM change a thing about the book or it's story line. I thought it was wonderfully written, a perfect 5/5 stars, and I think I might even like it more than the last two books. :)

I haven't read any of the Twilight series, but what I've read of the reviews doesn't make it seem all that appealing.

Whose reviews have you read?

I don't put much faith in reviews. I find the blurb on the back of the book to be all that is needed. I find that many times I greatly disagree with reviews (even if we both liked or hated the book...lol)

I've read several of the reviews over at Amazon.com plus a few other places that I don't have the URL's to anymore.

...I started writing a review but I gave up after seven pages. I might revisit it now that I've taken a break though... it kind of turned into a giant dissertation of My Thoughts On Co-Dependence, Misogyny, The Development of the Vampire Myth Over The Past Thousand Years, And Stuff You're Freaking Supposed To Learn As An English Lit Major Oh My God What School Did This Freaking Lady Go To.

...I enjoy reading these books but I have a *lot* of issues with them.

Interesting...this is kind of off-topic and kind of not. Your comment about ..."stuff you're freaking supposed to learn as an enligh lit major oh my god what school did this freaking lady go to"...made me think of music.

Big jump, I know. But...along the artsy lines, in college we learned how you're SUPPOSED to compose music. You know, all the rules and that. But then you learn that to create true art (not saying Meyer's work is or isn't art) you don't always follow the rules.

Just a thought ;)

To some degree that's true, and to some degree it isn't. In my schools (both HS and college... I had a HS with an unusually good writing program) we learned first, what the rules were, second, why they were there, and third, enough critical thinking skills to learn how to break them in a way that works for one end or another.

Some rules, like "internal consistency," or "define your terms, then stick to using THAT definition" really don't break easily.

I feel like in the hands of a writer who understood basic concepts like defining one's terms, the whole imprinting on babies business (to use the most egregious example) could have been done in a non-creepy way. She states that it's love, "true" love, but it's not necessarily sexual.

This, theoretically, is possible, but it is NOT possible in a universe that she has spent over two thousand pages building as a universe where "love" means "the person you want to spend the rest of eternity staring at going zomg he's ~so0o0o0o0o~ pritty I want to bang him/her/it." You can't have non-sexual love if you've already defined love as sexual. Switching definitions on your readers 3/4 of the way through a piece of writing, whether academic or fiction, isn't artsy. It's bad writing. It confuses people, and in this case, seems to squick them pretty badly.

Wait, question, where do you get that she made 'true love' be defined by 'I want to spend the rest of eternity with him/her AND bang him/her all the time'? Because even though the story did play a bit on desire and sexual frustration, certainly more so than most teen oriented books, I don't remember Bella or Edward ever saying that the only reason they loved each other so much and wanted to spend eternity together was because of the whole banging a pretty person when ever they wanted.

For one thing, Edward even tried to talk her out of having sex many times, and not always just until she became a vampire *which he was against anyway, so by saying 'wait until you change, which, by the way I don't mean to ever bite you', that's the same as it's not going to happen because I both respect you and I don't want to hurt you, et cetera* . And you have to remember that, let's face it, most teens think that 'love' means lets have sex while we're at it, mostly because of all the hormones. So can you really hold it against Meyer for writing the truth-- that if Bella really existed, she'd probably think about having sex with her boyfriend eventually?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I just can't see how you can possible say that she defined true love as living together forever IN ORDER to bang each other. Because if it was just sexual, the couple would usually just do it and walk away the next morning, friends with benefits or whatever you want to call it...

I thought she set up the "non-sexual" love pretty well with the other wolf that imprinted on the 2 year old. (The names escape me at the moment.) We had that whole long moment in the Jacob section where he was hanging out with his buddy and his buddy's imprintee...

I know a lot of people who feel the Quil situation comes off creepy too.

Meyer doesn't really spend a lot of page time on the importances of familial love, and never once in the series acknowledges friendship as a type of love. Bella doesn't have close relationships with either of her parents. She's willing to throw all her other friends and family away to be with her "True Love" (a phrase which seems to imply that other sorts of love are not real somehow); the fact that she ends up not having to is just a nice little Mary Sue bonus. She was totally willing to do it anyway.

In Eclipse, Bella comes to the shocking realization that she "loves" Jacob. Not that she's "in love with" him, that she "loves" him. He's been her best friend since the first book. He pulled her out of a catatonic depression. But their friendship, no matter how close or important, doesn't get to be "love" until it's romantic love.

In the real world, friendship is a type of love. In the real world, if you don't love your best friends, your social life has *issues*.

In Twilight-world, this doesn't seem to be the case, at least not for the first 2/3 of the series. So I feel like when she finally starts throwing out other possible uses of "love" like a normal person, three and four books in, she is suddenly changing meanings on us and this makes things weird for the readers.

9> I have to disagree. I feel like Bella and Edward's relationship is portayed as about 90% attraction and 10% self-loathing. I don't see a lot of basis in friendship in it. Edward spends a lot of time trying to keep her "safe" because he wants her around and all to himself, but they don't seem to do much together besides adore each other and fight because Edward tends to not really know or care about Bella's actual opinions on things if there's any sort of imaginable threat, no matter how minor, at any point in the future ("I don't care if you hate surprises, dancing, and your school, or that you're clumsy as hell even without a broken leg, a hundred years from now you might feel a tiny twinge of regret if you don't go to prom and it'll all be because of MEEEEEEEE" "Uh, if you weren't around I'd still hate all those things..." "DON'T BE DIFFICULT, BELLA"). Bella dithers about how "perfect" he is; Edward dithers about how hard it is not to eat her. It's pretty much all physical attraction and a lot of 'destiny' crap thrown in so that Bella can never feel like breaking up with him is an option no matter how much he pisses her off.

Apparently, Stephenie's incomplete draft of Midnight Sun was leaked (first 12 chapters) and now she has decided to postpone it indefinitely. :,(

Yeah, I read Stephenie's statement on her website, too. She sounded so upset. I can't believe it was leaked (and that was a good portion of the book too). I really hope she does publish it eventually, otherwise she'll have a lot of dissappointed fans.

I want to know why she strayed so far from her original formulation and had Jacob talk for a third of the book. Too strange for me. I liked the overall story but hated the format

But think about it: If the middle part of the story had been from Bella's point of view like always, we would not have gotten the same information and perspective that we did, which was very critical to the rest of the story. She couldn't explain how Jacob felt about Nessie, changing from hating the monster to falling for her when he imprinted! And having Bella describe what was going on in her own body? She was in denial for a lot of, wanting to believe that her baby was good and didn't mean to do all that damage, which is true, but we would have had to listen to pages of her saying 'The pain cut through me like glass, but I could handle it, because I love the baby that Edward and I created ,that is now growing inside me. Oh, and tearing me apart, but I don't care.' (Okay, that was sucky writing, but I'm in a hurry right now, so please don't be too harsh. I never said I was as great a writer as SM or various other authors!)

I'm sorry, but that would have REALLY got annoying listening to it from her point of view. And I liked hearing from Jacob.

Of course, this is just my opinion, and I do respect the fact that each person is entitled to their own opinion. :)

Before y'all jump on me, I'll say that on the whole I like the twilight series and the film as well (with some reservations).

So here is my criticism. I've been 18, and at the ripe old age of 26 I can say I am absolutely nothing like the person I was then. And I was a super responsible over-achiever, so don't start with the "Bella's wise beyond her years" argument. I shudder to think what would have happened if I'd gotten married to a boyfriend at that age. Sure you feel that this-is-destiny intensity, but wait until your ten years older, and see if you recognise your husband or even yourself.

Oh well, I never liked Romeo and Juliet either, and you'd have to be a cranking idiot not to appreciate Shakespeare.

Mystery,

I think it depends on the persion. I'm 25 and got married at 22. I haven't changed much since 18 (then again, I was in college already at 18.) Haven't changed much since 15, actually.

If I'd met my husband at that age, I have no doubt in my mind that we'd be together. So, I think it really depends on the person.

Jolene -
Ah well, that will teach me to generalise. It's sweet that you still feel that way about your hubby. Gives me hope for the institution.