Siiiiiiiigh.Let's start this as positively as possible: This series is over. I'm done. My irrational, morbid need to read books that I don't even like is satisfied. That's the best part about this book.
This was by far the hardest in the series to get through. As I've mentioned, although I find the Twilight "saga" atrocious, I have to admit that they're at least entertaining. I read each of the first three in a couple days' time, but this one... I just wasn't interested. I kind of wanted to quit about 500 or so pages in, but of course I couldn't let myself do that. Something about the plot just didn't really interest me. That's why it took me so long to read... That, and the fact that I may or may not have thrown it across the room a few times, mid-paragraph.
Picking up where I left off in my snarky review of Eclipse, let me try to explain what's going on in Breaking Dawn. (Also, if you haven't read this series yet, you're not going to, so stop pretending like you'd care if I spoiled the ending for you... which I'm about to do.) Let's do this as simply as possible: Bella and Edward get hitched. They go on a honeymoon, and even though Edward is "afraid" to try, Bella eventually convinces him... that their marriage should be consummated, let's say. Well, guess what? Vampires can get you pregnant. They can and they will. Bella's knocked up, and apparently half-vampire babies are a) really strong and like to break your bones internally and b) ready to be born in just a few weeks. Bella dies (yay!) during childbirth, but Edward "saves" her (boo!) by turning her into a vampire. So Bella's a vampire, and she has a half-vampire daughter who she brilliantly names Renesmee. Yes. Really. A hybrid of her mother's name (Renee) and Edward's mother's name (Esme). Yes. Seriously. (And the kid's middle name is Carlie. Like Carslile + Charlie. Yes. Seriously.) Who should be upset about this? Jacob. But he's not, because as it turns out, Renesmee is his soul mate, or will be when she grows up. Yes, that's how werewolves do things. So, everyone is one big, happy family for two seconds, and then the Volturi decide to ruin the party because some idiot tells them that Renesmee is a full vampire, and full vampire babies are against the rules. They come to kill everyone, but then they realize she's half-human, and they're all, "...Oh. Well this is awkward." They're still mad and kinda want to kill everyone anyway, but they get talked out of it. THE END.
Look, I just told you the whole story in one paragraph. Why did I need to read 754 pages? I don't know. Here's what I learned, though. You know that I hate Bella. More than I have ever hated a character in a book before, ever. Again -- she has no redeeming qualities, yet she has people practically killing themselves for her. But... I found myself missing Bella's whiny, dramatic narration in the middle of the book when, for some reason, it switches to Jacob's narration. (None of the other books have any other narrator than Bella.) Honestly, I only thought Bella was annoying. Jacob. Oh. Jacob. Even the titles of the chapters he narrated were annoying: "Why Didn't I Just Walk Away? Oh Right, Because I'm An Idiot." Yeah. Anyway, I will say that the most bothersome thing about this book is obviously the child's name. I mean, come on. But the part that had me (literally) throwing the thing across the room was the part about Jacob "imprinting" on Renesmee. (That's the wolf term for finding your soulmate, basically.) I don't know. It's all just so ridiculous, but I think it's supposed to be. This is a series about vampires, and it's written for pre-teens. I don't know why my expectations are so high. Maybe I'll let go of my hatred for Twilight and say, "You know, at least it encouraged kids all over the world to read."
Orrrrrrrr, maybe I won't.
P.S. -- When Breaking Dawn first came out in 2008, I kept hearing about how all the hardcore Twilight fans hated it, and they were even returning it to bookstores after they had read it in "protest." I thought, "Well, I'm never going to read this crap," so I looked up spoilers about it to see why everyone was so mad. I kept reading that Bella died, but not knowing anything about the series, I didn't know what that meant. I vaguely recalled those spoilers when I started reading this. Imagine my disappointment when I realized that "dying" just meant becoming immortal. Boo.
1/5 stars
Read from May 13, 2010 to May 21, 2010
--C
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