Letting it go...
I feel like I've emerged from a difficult break up. BD broke my heart a little, mostly heartbreak over missing Edward and Bella, missing their growth together as a couple, missing Bella as a human and all of her imperfections. Bella and Edward were happy in the end, and I'm glad for that, but the journey there felt empty. Yes, they got everything they ever thought they wanted and more, but I feel like we missed the growth and development, the hardship, the trials that make the happy ending mean something. And I'm sad for that.
I'm also letting go how angry BD made me initially.
bratanimus has an excellent review in which she describes how passive Bella remains throughout the first two parts of the book. For some reason, Meyer chose Jacob as the storyteller for one of Bella's most difficult moments. This is a pivotal moment in the life of a character we've followed for three books, and we lose her perspective. She's in pain, she's trying desperately to convince Edward this is what she wants, and dealing with his fierce protectiveness and fear for her, but we don't actually see this strong Bella emerging. And we are definitely left out of any growth of Bella and Edward as a couple, struggling with difficult decisions and very different view points. Ah, I ache for the missed opportunities we could have had with our characters.
I also found it frustrating that Meyer had to make sex about having babies. Some wonderful fanfics out there do beautiful justice to Bella and Edward as they learn and explore how to be intimate with each other. Meyer's Bella and Edward go from having very little experience, to practicing a little, to having a child together, to having amazing, all night vampire sex. It just feels empty and unrealistic.
But through all of this frustration, I've been so happy to be a part of this fandom. I've loved that many of you have been able to articulate exactly how you felt about his book and I've been able to completely relate. That's pretty incredible, to feel that while there are a lot of different view points, there also seems to be a general consensus as to what many of us felt was missing from the book.
Now, why didn't Meyer's editors catch that loss first?