books 2008: Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer
Oh man. I was so sucked in to this one. OK, I don't know that I love the concept of the vampire baby. Vampires reproduce by biting people, venom, whatever, they don't reproduce sexually--Anne Rice vampires don't even HAVE sex. But Meyer's been subverting the vampire mythos all along, what with the sparkling and all, and she came up with a plausible explanation out of mythology, at least, so that's something. But still, I didn't love that Meyer did that to Bella. Also, WTF with Jacob imprinting on the baby? That was weird. That was fucked up. I didn't love that that happened, at all. I also don't really get why all of a sudden we were getting Jacob as a narrator for half the book. She started that with the epilogue of the third book, and I don't really get it. Maybe she wanted to tell the imprinting from Jacob's perspective? Maybe she didn't want to tell the pregnancy from Bella's perspective? I don't understand that choice, and it doesn't go with the earlier books at all.
I really got involved in the story, though. I couldn't put it down. I liked Bella better in this book than I ever had before (possibly due to Bella's dramatic character change?). I liked Edward a bit more too, possibly because he rarely chuckled at Bella at all. (Once I caught Emmett chuckling, though, which is totally out of character!) I liked the massive vampireunion, I always like when that happens in books. I was just really sucked in to the story, and I'm glad it ended happily for Bella (like we couldn't see that coming).
::edit:: I forgot to say: Renesmee? Entirely lametastic name. Just the sort of thing an annoying 18 year old drama queen would come up with, yes, but ugh. And why is it that Bella, of course, doesn't have any problems transitioning from human to vampire? Every other vampire in the history of the world had the unquenchable thirst and lack of control problems. Not Bella. She's super special. Gah. But that's totally par for the course with these books--Bella's always been a Mary Sue, I didn't expect any less of her than to be a super vamp.
I really got involved in the story, though. I couldn't put it down. I liked Bella better in this book than I ever had before (possibly due to Bella's dramatic character change?). I liked Edward a bit more too, possibly because he rarely chuckled at Bella at all. (Once I caught Emmett chuckling, though, which is totally out of character!) I liked the massive vampireunion, I always like when that happens in books. I was just really sucked in to the story, and I'm glad it ended happily for Bella (like we couldn't see that coming).
::edit:: I forgot to say: Renesmee? Entirely lametastic name. Just the sort of thing an annoying 18 year old drama queen would come up with, yes, but ugh. And why is it that Bella, of course, doesn't have any problems transitioning from human to vampire? Every other vampire in the history of the world had the unquenchable thirst and lack of control problems. Not Bella. She's super special. Gah. But that's totally par for the course with these books--Bella's always been a Mary Sue, I didn't expect any less of her than to be a super vamp.