Twilight Saga Book 4

'Sparkle Family Reunion Tour 2020' Reread

Yeaaaahh. My feelings about this series, twinkies, loving the Cullens, the writing playlist, and side-eying a whole lot of SM have pretty much not changed in the past decade. // Especially with this one, I don't know that I want to reread it or will. For now, I'm just in here dropping the 2008 review from a billion years ago in the first read.

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(2008 Reviews / Continued Across all four books / all read in less than 53 hours
Just going to copy these over from the lolarious mass-review I did in 2018)

Let me start this out with saying, I'm sure if I tried I could take these books seriously and in doing so I would abhor Stephenie Meyers with the utter damnation burning hate in ground into me by five years of being an English major, but honestly, I'm not sure how anyone could go into these books expecting (or wanting to expect) more than fanfic-esque fourteen-year-old-wish-fulfillment. Which is what I did and likely why I was willing to roll with it, because lets just start with the bare minimum that I knew before I started reading.

We have a protagonist girl, who comes from a broken home, who's paler than anyone else who's human and blushes as often as the wind blows, who's never been interested in a boy seriously before, with extremely low self-esteem, who is the worlds biggest cultz, who attracts danger like she's got a beacon on her head saying come and get it, who is all helplessly weak and who can not be touched, read, or effected by any type of mental magic.

She is paralleled by the boy protagonist, who just happens to be a one hundred and eight-year-old vampire with the most well-adjusted family of Brady-style vampires, who doesn't drink human blood, with the one-way power to listen to other people's thoughts, who looks like a runway model or God, has never considered any other woman seriously before in his life and unlife, and has to be broody/moody/strong enough to resist killing her every moment he's near her because she's the one thing in the world he'd best love to do that to out of no fault of their own but fate.
I mean, c'mon, Anita Blake wasn't even that flagrantly Mary Sue-Fan Fic-ish until she became the Whore of Babylon. Thus I went into it expecting fourteen-year-old-wish fulfillment and lo and behold I was not surprised or disappointed when I found it there.

I think Cleolinda said it best:

A lot of people are really passionate about these books. Some of them love and defend them passionately; others... well. I'm not going to defend them anymore than I'm going to defend Twinkies--you go and get yourself a Twinkie when you have a very specific kind of craving. If you want a gourmet pastry or even a homemade cake, you know where to get that. If you're eating a Twinkie, you clearly know what you want and why you're eating it, and you know that it's not good to eat very many of them, but... you know... sometimes you just want one.

Breaking Dawn

I don't adore this book, but I don't abhor it either. I think the best description was what I said to evegryffindor, which was that after having read 1800 pages in about twelve hours across one and half days, I was at the point where I could roll with anything.

I had bigger problem with Mrs. Meyer breaking from her established narrator and plot structure than I did with the birth-vamp-making scene or Renesmee, because all of those things threw me, but getting into Jacob's head suddenly and having no way to gauge the real and not real plots confused me. Looking back I can see a week later how she sort of stuck to it, but it's far too loose and fast and much (3/6ths being marriage and honeymoon and baby, 2/6ths being the gathering of people, witnessing and big battle, and 1/6th being the unwind). Also. I'm still miffed, a personal snit, that it wasn't one book from each of the main three. Just randomly getting one Jacob is so off-balance in the whole four books of Bella.

I was glad the wedding went off without a hitch early, and was in awe for a long enough time because of it. And the honeymoon. (and mind you I have another icon to upload sometime that says "Edward gives cars as gifts, Carlisle gives islands" which tells you how they rank in the coolness meter against each other still, even eight years later. Which makes me happy.) The honey money pre-sex bathroom jitters are remarkably realistically handled and I was in awe of the moment actually being in there. After fighting for what she wants this book has her worried about finally getting it (just like last book she got cold feet about getting vamped because of graduation suddenly getting there).

Pillow biter. All I have to say. No, it's now. I lied I wanted the pornz scene. Not so much for the pornz. And very exclusively not from Bella’s point of view. Specifically because of Edward. Because I want to know how much hell that really was at the same time. Because that combination of Bella being both Hell and Heaven always attracts me to his personality and his strength and his control. And this is a situation where all control is given up or held on to. And the pillows denote desperation and embarrassment and loss of control which must have been Hellish while dealing with everything else going on. Not to mention the avalanche of guilt from bruising his soap bubble. (Yes. All my bases belong to him. It is sad.)

Which of course brings us to Jacob and Hope. The wonder child who's beautiful and powerful and ages quick to normal size and can do anything and fool anyone. Wait. We aren't in Xena? I mean Renesmee, who names is fanfic traffic jam worse than JK's kids' names in [b:Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows|136251|Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)|J.K. Rowling|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1474171184l/136251._SY75_.jpg|2963218], who happens to be all that and a bag of chips and make of sparkle poo and pink frosting. The way too perfect aside, I actually like her power, too. Meyer's has a gift for interesting powers. I love that she can get into everyone head but only through touching them and only through repeating an image that she can skew with her own emotion when she sends it back.

Well, this section started with Jacob and the Jacob-Edward bonding of WT? bonding over Bella's safety. I didn't feel his offer to Jacob was out of place (See paragraph 3 from the last in Eclipse about Edward on Jacob) especially with his desperation and Bella suddenly wanting children, and being willing to offer her anything she wanted that didn't involve him walking away. Except this time it's not quiet. It's rattle under the desperation of a husband watching his wife literally dying before his eyes. And that makes it painfully worse. And then he gets Jacob to agree to kill him if Bella dies. And I'm just staring wide-eyed the whole time making incoherent noises.

Seth is awesometasticness in this book. It does not make up for the distinct lack of Alice in this book, even though I never hated her even when she vanished. She is too awesome and too much my second favorite character (yes, after Edward). I'm not a big fan of Leah, who is indeed a powerful amazing female character, though she makes an amazing counterbalance to Jacob and his situation with someone who had dealt with much worse and who could help him through his healing process. Which would be why I dislike his imprinting (not because she's a day old, or crazy perfect, or Bella's daughter but) because he had the first healing right story in process and then it was just not necessary. Why is this amazing plot venue offered up if it's not necessary??? Which. This may all be why I have issues with liking Leah now and it's not even Leah's fault. It's the plot thing again. Also, I don't ship Rosalie/Jacob either, but they did make me laugh with the first few jokes/pranks. By the third or fourth blonde joke I was very tired of it.

I am not horrified about pregnancy!Bella scene except on Edward's behalf, because its about as crazy as most vampy books have in them for crazy medical scenes. Same for the vampifying scene where they think she's all dead. Bella the perfected newborn vampire bothers me. Her power, which just turns out to be that thing which has kept Edward out for three and half books already, was totally awesome in my opinion. But she's our fourteen-year-old proxy mary sue so it's all wish fulfillment and I can roll with it. Now.

I just can't roll so well with Baby!Sparklepoo who sleeps, has a heart, isn't venomous, has vampire skin, drink blood, talks physically, ages miraculously fast, has perfect blonde curls, will never need to worry about being human, is convenient plot device for losing one lover and one vampire-werewolf threat-treaty-pact with imprint from your mothers not-boy-friend and is a perfect addition to your just became dead immortal family. Order one today, for three payments of 19.95 shipping included!

(Yeah. I really may have to get a blonde baby doll just for making it through that sentence.)

And then the plot arrives. You know that 2/6ths in the middle. Cuz everything before now wasn't. Yes. I have issues with this massively. I really liked the crazy plot structure that was stuck to for three books. And now we have to focus on the whole baby!vampires!bad issue and resolve how the Vampire Council of Doom is horribly evil and yet still governmentally evil, which means calling in all the favors of Carlisle's two hundred years and the Forgery paper guys. Who are all not that interesting to me because they aren't there long enough to be for me and will vanish after their convenient stand. .......but the goodbye on the green did get me teary-eyed. Dammit. (But there is an annoyance at the 'my son' comment.)

The only one I want more of I am not getting more of and that is sad: Nahuel. I very much wanted more of him and the hints of him mentioned in Edward-Bella conversation. I did not have issues with Bella's shield (see narration proxy for fourteen-year-old wish fulfillment). And even before connecting it to Merchant of Venice, I did not have issues with the battlefield being one of the mind and clever words. I thought that was inventive given the fact all the other books have had huge physical fights and/or body burnings. ( )

Look I LOVED Twilight. The first book was brilliant - I fell in love. And then she wrote the next one. And that was good. Decent. Not quite what I wanted but it was okay. The third one was pretty average. I struggled to get through it. This last one?

What the hell was she thinking? It was like she jumped off a cliff. She threw every crazy idea you could possibly have and honestly left it looking like little more than a parody fanfiction.

I just don't even know where to begin with this, there was so much wrong it wasn't even funny. It was just a disaster of epic proportions.

Renesmee? Are you fking kidding me? Horrible name. The Jacob/Renesmee thing? Jesus Christ. I mean come on, we're just going to write off everything between Jacob and Bella as being because she was fated to have a kid that is his mate? WTF!???? And then Renesmee aging to a teen? It was just a fkn mess. It was like a badly written fanfiction.
( )

Look I LOVED Twilight. The first book was brilliant - I fell in love. And then she wrote the next one. And that was good. Decent. Not quite what I wanted but it was okay. The third one was pretty average. I struggled to get through it. This last one?

What the hell was she thinking? It was like she jumped off a cliff. She threw every crazy idea you could possibly have and honestly left it looking like little more than a parody fanfiction.

I just don't even know where to begin with this, there was so much wrong it wasn't even funny. It was just a disaster of epic proportions.

Renesmee? Are you fking kidding me? Horrible name. The Jacob/Renesmee thing? Jesus Christ. I mean come on, we're just going to write off everything between Jacob and Bella as being because she was fated to have a kid that is his mate? WTF!???? And then Renesmee aging to a teen? It was just a fkn mess. It was like a badly written fanfiction.
( )

Wonderful last edition to the twilight series! The end of Edward and Bella's story was beautiful and I loved it! I think I will have to read the "Life and Death" book as well since I'm and official twilight fan-girl! Anyway, lovely series, I highly recommend these amazing books! ( )