New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.
Title: New Moon.
Author: Stephenie Meyer.
Genre: Fiction, fantasy, vampire fiction, romance, YA, teen.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: September 6, 2006.
Summary: The "star-crossed" lovers theme continues as Bella and Edward find themselves facing new obstacles. The Cullens leave Bella in Forks and vanish after Edward breaks up with her, and the only thing that eventually helps her deal is her rapidly growing friendship with Jacob. But there are mysterious sightings of dangerous wolves roaming the forest in Forks, Jacob suddenly becomes very different from what he once was, and a terrifying threat of revenge from a female vampire leaves Bella exposed to enormous danger. And when Edward is misinformed about Bella's death, the group faces a sinister encounter with Italy's reigning royal family of vampires, the Volturi.
My rating: 3/10.
My review: I don't know why I expected this book to get marginally better, but it almost did. Almost, because the plot got a little more interesting, or at least a little more varied. The werewolf story, and the Volturi story, filled in the universe a little more. Those aspects of the plot are certainly more grabbing than Edward and Bella's sickening obsession with each other and her repetitive contemplation about how beautiful he is. The fact that Edwards was basically almost not in the novel at all was also an enormous plus - it at least minimized the opportunity for him to be an abusive, condescending psychopath. The writing even evened out a bit. (Though you can't call Meyer's writing style good, it has gotten smoother from the last book, and it doesn't have as many typos and really bad grammatical mistakes as the first one.) All of this, however, is over-shadowed by Meyer's most prevalent problem from the first book - she is still incapable of distinguishing between love and sickness, but in this book it gets so, so much worse. After Edwards breaks up with Bella, her reaction to it make it very clear that she is very mentally ill, and from that point on the book becomes uncomfortable and painful to read, more so because the author tries to write off this mental illness as love and devotion. I am willing to buy that teenagers are over-dramatic and emotional, but it is also a fact that young emotions, even the delusionally-deep ones, are also fleeting. It's understandable for Bella to "want to die" and "be unable to function" at first, at 16, after her first ever love and break-up, but to actually cease functioning to a point of overwhelming physical pain, and completely disassociate from the world for months and months, is neither romantic, nor sweet, nor, most certainly, a sign of love.
♥ "You know, I've never had much patience with Romeo," he commented as the movie started.
"What's wrong with Romeo?" I asked, a little offended. Romeo was one of my favorite fictional characters. Until I'd met Edward, I'd sort of had a thing for him.
"Well, first of all, he's in love with this Rosaline - don't you think it makes him seem a little fickle? And then, a few minutes after their wedding, he kills Juliet's cousin. That's not very brilliant. Mistake after mistake. Could he have destroyed his own happiness any more thoroughly?"
♥ Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does.
♥ Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew - knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest - was how love gave someone the power to break you.
♥ Seeing Jacob like that - innocent and vulnerable in sleep - had stolen all my revulsion, dissolved all my anger. I still couldn't turn a blind eye to what was happening, like Billy seemed to, but I couldn't condemn Jacob for it either. Love didn't work that way, I decided. Once you cared about a person, it was impossible to be logical about them anymore. Jacob was my friend whether he killed people or not.
♥ That was probably part of the problem. I was addicted to the sound of my delusions.
♥ Happiness. It made the whole dying thing pretty bearable.
♥ What if you sincerely believed something was true, but you were dead wrong? What if you were so stubbornly sure that you were right, that you wouldn't even consider the truth? Would the truth be silenced, or would it try to break through?