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New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2) by Stephenie Meyer
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Stephenie Meyer Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2008-05-31 ISBN: 0316024961 Number of pages: 608 Reading Level: Young Adult Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Book Reviews of New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2)Book Review: Embarrassingly Bad Summary: 1 StarsThis is bad.
Most teenagers are guilty of being caught up in one stupid fad or another, but the increasingly disturbing Twilight series is more than stupid; it's frightening.
I knew the plot (what little there is) of this LOOOONG book before I read it, but even I read on with mounting horror (and increasing boredom).
Stephenie Meyer studied literature at university. We get it. But there is no need whatsoever to bring in literary comparisons and try to turn your characters into representations of Shakespeare's. Apart from anything else, she fails miserably at it.
Bella, Edward and Jacob are not Juliet, Romeo and Paris, but Meyer tries desperately to make them so. However, where Romeo and Juliet is a play about how hatred and outside forces can destroy something pure, New Moon is just an embarrassing display of teen melodrama.
Bella was always a whiny, insipid little wench; always needing a man to literally prop her up. In New Moon she takes this to a frightening new level. Bella simply cannot go anywhere without either being carried or being supported by a man. Hell, even in the car there's always a guy with his arm around her while he's driving (and how's that for road safety?!). She actually clings to whatever man is near her, and when there's no man she's sitting on the lap of, and clinging to, Alice, her female friend.
We are supposed to see Bella as Juliet. She's not. Bella's misery is embarrassing.
She goes walking at night in dangerous places, trying to attract men who previously tried to rape her. She rides - and repeatedly crashes - a motorcycle she does not know how to operate. She jumps off a cliff.
All so she can hallucinate her ex-boyfriend's voice.
She wakes up screaming - EVERY NIGHT. She does things that put her in the hospital every week.
Why? Because her boyfriend left her six months earlier.
This is not a broken heart; this is the world's most stupid girl being as melodramatic as it is possible to be. And anybody who's hallucinating a boyfriend should be medicated.
Stephenie Meyer is not a good writer, or even a trained writer, and she brags about it. If only she could get her ego under control and try and learn something about how to create a good book, then we might be getting somewhere. The thesaurus abuse does not come off as smart, just out of place and irritating. There is NEVER a good reason to use lots of fancy words just because you can.
And by halfway through I was actually laughing at loud at the overuse of the same few phrases. "His eyes tightened." (How in the world do eyes `tighten'?!) "His russet skin." "The hole in my chest." "My safe harbour."
Over and over again.
Meyer describes everything down to the smallest and most painful detail. We know exactly what Bella cooked for her father at every meal, and we know about every test and assignment she had to do for school. She frequently breaks off in the middle of a conversation for a four page ramble about her feelings, but then when the action actually comes along it is covered in just one or two paragraphs.
Meyer herself has admitted that when she started out writing she had no idea how long a manuscript should be. She found out when her first book was published and was bigger than a phone book. But then instead of giving future manuscripts a good and much-needed edit, she continued to ramble on and on. By the time anything actually happens in New Moon most - good - books would already have been finished.
And why are Stephenie Meyer's female (ONLY female) characters always cooking?!
The stereotyping just goes on and on; all of it inspired by Meyer's own biases. If you're a blonde woman, you MUST be evil. If you're a woman of any sort, cooking for any man near you is the ultimate life achievement (plus Bella seems to be cleaning the bathroom every second chapter). If you're anything less than a superhero, you're a waste of time. If you're male, you must be in love with Meyer's self-insert - otherwise known as Bella. I suppose it is quite amusing that Meyer wrote herself in as the starring character, seeing as said character is the nastiest and worst role model I have ever come across.
Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon, and it helps to keep that in mind when trying to come to terms with the frightening religious and antifeminist themes throughout the book.
Avoid at all costs.
Summary of New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2)Legions of readers entranced by Twilight are hungry for more and they won't be disappointed. In New Moon, Stephenie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural twist. The "star-crossed" lovers theme continues as Bella and Edward find themselves facing new obstacles, including a devastating separation, the mysterious appearance of dangerous wolves roaming the forest in Forks, a terrifying threat of revenge from a female vampire and a deliciously sinister encounter with Italy's reigning royal family of vampires, the Volturi. Passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.
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