New Moon (The Twilight Saga)
by Stephenie Meyer
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Book Reviews of New Moon (The Twilight Saga)
Book Review: Stuff and Nonsense
Summary: 1 Stars
I read Twilight on the recommendation of one of the students who attends the university I work for. I should probably mention that this was a law student who is in her mid twenties.
I have to say, I didn't care for it much, and Bella Swan (that Stephenie Meyer gave her main female protagonist the completely subtle and not-ham- fisted-at-all-really name "Beautiful Swan" was an immediate source of hilarity right from page one) is easily one of the most overt examples of Mary Sue-ism I've ever encountered in published, professional fiction.
In spite of this, since the book is one in a series, I decided to read "New Moon" (I work in a library, so what would it cost me really except a bit of time?) in the hope that the series would show signs of improving. It did actually, which earned it the single star I've given NM. More on that a bit later.
What I was specifically looking for was an improvement in the portrayal of Edward's character. According to the author, Edward was dying of the flu at the age of 17 in the very early part of the 20th century. Even at 17, Edward would have been considered and behaved very much more like an adult than his modern counterpart. Beyond this, since being transformed into a vampire has enabled him to have "lived" for well over 100 years, he is extensively world traveled, and was present for every major societal change and event within that time period (WWI, WWII, just to name two of the most obvious events). Yet none of these things is reflected in his character in the least bit. That is, he gives no indication of having gained the intellectual insight or emotional wisdom that anyone would acquire who was the least bit intelligent and had an infinite amount of time to acquire them.
I understand that this series is primarily aimed at very young people, but even so, any fiction, especially if it's considered good enough to publish professionally, has to have some sort of core consistency in terms of the rules that the author has established for how the world that they've created operates. The world of NM is exactly like ours except that it includes vampires and werewolves. This being the case, why is Edward, who, in spite of the obvious differences, is essentially a 110 year old man, even capable of being reduced to some sort of girlie moo cow over a teenager? Because she smells tasty? I'm sorry. No. Edward is over a century old, yet has the mental processes of an emotionally effeminate pubescent boy.
In terms of authorship and character development, this is indefensible.
The author does a noticeably better job with Jacob's character, and earns a single star for no other reason.
Jacob exhibits recognizably age appropriate habits, interests, and behaviors. Even his interest in Bella (ha!) seems more authentic, as there are at least reasons that can be pointed to that might justify it (why wouldn't he have developed a crush on the cute enough and slightly older girl he'd met a few years earlier?) He's inherently the most likable character of the series so far, and for the sake of the readers, I hope she's done nothing to ruin him. Under ideal circumstances, he would have only improved along the way.
I won't ever know, because this is the last book in the series that I'll be reading.
Book Review: There are reasons sequels don't always work....
Summary: 3 Stars
I loved Twilight and was immediately drawn into Bella and Edward's world. It was a great twist on a classic love story. With that said, a sequel doesn't always deepen our endearment towards the characters.
New Moon starts off well enough, continues down an interesting path, then veers off to no man's land, before recognizing the insanity and tries to redirect you in the end to some form of sanity.
You see I think (this is entirely my theory, not founded on any type of research) but I think Twilight, including the three sequels (with extensive editing) were originally the WHOLE story. I have reread Twilight several times and think this was the case. In my opinion, they separated story lines and encouraged the three sequels. This story could have easily been a hefty, two volume edition, with some careful editing.
The premise of New Moon is interesting in the beginning, but starts on a whole new story after that. It should have been an entirely different saga, with Bella and Edward as minor characters. The fact that it is a large part of the remaining books asks a lot of the reader to emotionally invest in a whole other set of characters and scenarios at the expense of the original characters. It gets cumbersome and tiring, leaving you a bit bewildered, wondering where Bella's undying love for Edward went, even under the most suffering of circumstances, which is what makes her dedication so unique in the original.
New Moon is well written, although it feels forced on occasion, but nothing in comparison to the following two books (read my reviews for more). But it only goes towards my original point. Sometimes, I think sequels should not be done. Twilight can stand alone as a novel. It needs no explanation or clarification. Sequels have a tendency to "rewrite" the original because they steer away from the original origins of the characters, which I feel these books do to a great and detrimental extent.
I don't like who the characters become in the consequential books. Perhaps they prove that even these greatly, interesting characters are "human" after all. But then it disproves the original book where they are extraordinary and set apart from everyone else in their lack of prejudice and overcoming supernatural hardships for love.
You see, I think thats why the great classics live on so well. Aside from the exceptional writing, there are no challenges to the original. Can you imagine Pride and Prejudice having a sequel where Mr. Darcy is missing from two thirds of the book and Elizabeth becomes a mealy-mouthed, pacifist who is suddenly swayed by Colonel Fitzwilliam?
However, today we have film contracts, with large financial consequences, so there are reasons for these Part 2, 3, 4, 5....... in everything. And I am sure Jane Austen in her saavy, astute way of thinking would see the advantages to that and probably see the financial sense for herself!
Out of the three sequels, I would say this is the only tolerable one. The third one needed serious editing, I mean a major red pencil and exacto blade, and could have been easily added to New Moon. The fourth is confounding!
Edward and Bella come out looking less than appealing in this book, and sadly don't gain momentum, again.
Book Review: HOW ABOUT A NEW HEROINE
Summary: 3 Stars
Let me say straight away, this is the best book in the Twilight series, uh not exactly high praise I must admit. This book is better paced than the others and the middle of the book, with its focus on Jacob, made you forget for a moment about all the ridiculous, inane tripe between Bella and her 100 year old God like magnificance Edward. What makes these books at times so nausiatingly awful, is the inner shallowness of the colosselly selfish and clueless, Bella, and SM's clucky dialogue, but in this book unlike the others, Edward is for the most part abstract, stuck in the shadow of her memories, it's not until the end, that we get to deal with Bella and Edward again cooing at each other, she going on and on about his breath..LORD..or him running himself raged trying to save her, it's all so STUPID!!. Look, I cannot understand why anyone would have the least bit of interest in our heroine, Bella, she is shallow, selfish, clueless, totally lacking any ambition(except of course becoming a vampire), and from what i can glean, not exactly Farrah in her prime, but poor Jacob, as well as every Vampire it seems and most of the Forks student body, think Bella is a runway model, with the brains of Candinsky, I mean come on, even teenage girls must roll their eyes at this absurd fantasy, but I digress. As for as New Moon, it's not a bad book, without question the best in the series, the pacing in quick and I liked the Italian country side setting of the last half of the book, the audience with Aro was the best part of this whole series, as well as finding out the secret of Jacob and his tribe. The Twilight series is a huge success I must admit, but with the exception of this book and most of Twilight, the rest of the series is just awful, Eclipse being the worst by far. Uh, am I the only one that does not think it's cute that the Cullens steal things, like cars or that they get their money by ripping people off in the stock market, Bella thinks the Cullens are vabulous, never mind that they steal and drink blood, and have to fight their inate impulses everyday not to off somebody!!..and this is the group she wants to join!!!..Calling Bella a vacuous, fool, is an insult to vacuous fools. I really am perplexed why Miller makes us spend so much of her books in Bella's vaccuous head, her thoughts are redundent, obtuse, and embarassingly shallow. Look, I get that Bella is a vessel for Miller's inner fantasy's, she obviously has a thing for beautiful, obviously gay vampires, God how sad is that?..It is ironic however, that a devout Mormon had inadvertently created a total gay sterotype for her heroine aka Stepanine Miller, to fall head over hills for, I mean come on, Edward has not found a girl in 100yrs!!!!..he's got a mother complex, and he has so little actually physical desire for Bella, that he pushes her away everytime she tries to devour him, is he really that afraid to spoil her..come on!! I mean it's our plain jane Bella putting all the moves on Edward hardly the other way around, she doesnt care if he makes he vampire, so why should he care so much?..my bet is that Edward has a thing for Carlisle, not Bella...God, how funny is that?..im sure after reading this review, agree with me or not, you will never look at the Twilight series the same..LMAO~Book Review: Not as good as the first
Summary: 2 Stars
I liked this one much less than Twilight. There's not much of a way to do this review without spoilers, so here we go...
What really killed this story for me was Bella. Once Edward left her, she completely went to pieces. The description of her mental state of depression was convincing enough, accurately describing the symptoms and thought processes of one caught up by the mood disorder. So I don't begrudge Bella at all for spending much of the book suffering. That's the way it is.
What I had a problem with though was the way Meyer presented Bella's development of depression. This is not to say that a sequence of huge and traumatic events, affecting someone who is already demonstrating self-esteem issues, should be free from mental distress - in fact it seems like a very likely development. I had more of a problem with Meyer's treatment of the subject matter, which focused very singularly on one event: Edward leaves, Bella develops very serious depression. Edward returns, Bella returns to "normal". Depression does not have a direct cause-effect relationship like that, and I felt it presented Bella as super dependent rather than dealing with other mental issues.
So Edward was removed from the book early, and we had pages of Bella with no balancing character, effectively crashing the story for me. The saving grace of all this was Jacob. Finally, a major character with humanity: flaws, hobbies, a sense of humor, fears, regrets, imperfect thought processes. I was pretty unhappy with Edward getting voted off the island until Jacob showed up, and that made things worthwhile. Here was a romance that I could identify with: characters spending quality time doing interesting things, just hanging out together, friends who become 'more than' friends. That is, up until the point where he turned all werewolf and his personality narrowed to just "angry" and "more angry". Goodbye to my favorite character.
The last bit is kind of hit or miss for me. There's the Volturi, and that's a pretty cool part. World-building is generally a fun exercise, it's nice to learn a bit more about the history of vampires. I get the sense that the world is bigger than just Seattle. And then Edward goes home, is of course immediately forgiven by Bella, and her depression recedes as though she has just started an antidepressant.
I think Meyer wanted to keep Bella from moving past Edward out of a fear that it might wreck the storyline. How can you have a romance if one of the characters begins to realize that maybe she's not in love any more? The answer is to make it real by forcing answers to the new questions: how does Edward win back her affection? How does she let down her new walls to open up to him? How much does this raise the stakes of the love triangle now that there's a really solid reason to keep Edward at arms length? Will she still want to be a vampire knowing whan Edward is capable of? All this would have made the story 5 stars instantly. Unfortunately that's not what I got.
Overall, Twilight was a much better offering. The characters seemed more real, the storyline tighter, the drama better. Read it if you're interested in continuing the series, but don't expect as much this time around.
Book Review: New Moon
Summary: 3 Stars
Main plot points: The Cullens leave Forks, as Edward thinks this will be best for Bella Swan. Because she has no sense of independence, she falls apart without her man. After a few months, she catches up with Jacob Black, and they become BFFs. But Jacob becomes of age, and becomes a werewolf. Bella's taken up extreme sports because they bring on auditory hallucinations of Edward. When word comes through that Bella jumps off a cliff, Edward assumes she committed suicide, and thus decides suicide is his solution, too. His method, however, is to piss off the vampire royalty (the Volturi) in Volterra, Italy. So Bella has to stop Edward - and herself, and the other Cullens - from being killed. Meanwhile, Victoria (the evil female vamp from TWILIGHT) is on the loose in Seattle, killing as she may.
In short: This introduces new plot threads, but doesn't tie any up; thus it's a rather "between" book (whereas TWILIGHT was easily read as a standalone). Once Bella gets over her emoness, and starts connecting with Jacob, NEW MOON is actually quite enjoyable. Okay, Jacob is a bit of a d-bag when he comes into his werewolfism, but that's to be expected. And hello, Native American beefcake. But when we find out that Edward isn't dead (yet), Bella treats Jacob horribly, and Edward's a real bee-yatch. And already in the first chapter of ECLIPSE, he's being even more of a feckwit, but we'll save further comment when it comes to reviewing that tome...
And now to the nitty gritty random thoughts whilst reading:
-Klutzy Bella works at a sporting goods store? Damn it, where's a competent employee when you need one?
-Real Quotes - Edward: "Don't be melodramatic, please." Bella: "Well then, don't you be ridiculous." I was thinking, "Harden the eff up, and get over yourselves", but close enough. *applauds*
-If the Forks and Denali vamps are the goodies, and the Italian and possibly-Canadian ones aren't, does that make US vamps good and foreigners evil? I don't approve of that social commentary.
-Bella likes Jacob, so she can be the older one for a change. She's robbing the cradle. He's robbing the grave.
-Bella has a motorcycle. She's a wild hog, y'all!
-So the bear sightings...Werebear? Or just a werewolf?
-Hallucination = adrenaline + stupidity. I only have stupidity, so this could explain my lack of hallucinations. Huh.
-Missing hiker? Feckdiddly, the wereCareBear's eaten a person!
-Stalker Bella phones Jacob every thirty minutes. Jacob acts angry and emo like Edward, but calls Bella a hypocrite, so Team Jacob FTW! :-)
-Bella should call a hit on Victoria. Forks Mafia, Vampire Hunters. Spinoff! Also, Paul has given us our first fursplosion! :-)
-"I made the werewolf seem downright normal." Idlewild has a term for this: "In Competition for the Worst Time". Great song. But Bella sucks.
-"It was only when I saw clear drops sparkling in my hands that I realised I was crying." Crikey, Bella cries sparkles!
-Bella thinks it's totally okay that she wants to become a vampire, but it's not cool that Gianna wants to. Double standards...
-Bella says thirty like it's a bad thing. If I were thirty, I'd totally take offence to that. Bitch.