Eclipse

Wow- I think this is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I had to fight the urge to throw it across the room, because at 500 pages, it would definitely do some damage. Where do I start? Bella is the most annoying twit of a person in this book. Her obsession with Edward is ridiculous at this point and I wanted to slap her and Charlie. I understand teenage angst and that everything feels so much stronger at 17, but for the love G-d, this was way over the top. They don’t have a relationship, there was no development of anything resembling a relationship- it was more of an idolization of Edward and for a reason I still don’t get. So what he’s good looking and rich- I could understand if Meyer left it at that, but it tried to make show more it so much more.
Then there were the constant references to his “rock hard chest” and his nighttime visits were not lovely or cute- but annoying and scary. His control issues in the book were ridiculous and if this were a real life friend- I’d tell her to leave now. I mean her having to sneak away from him was just not cute. I think what bothers me most is that young women will idealize some form of an Edward and his character and their relationship is so far from accurate, realistic and even healthy.

There were some parts of the book I did enjoy- I liked getting to know Alice and I loved Jacob’s character. Jacob is easily the realest character in this entire series. I could say the same about Alice too- her over zealousness and other attributes make her recognizable as a person (unlike boring Edward and stuck in a quasi abusive relationship Bella). I also enjoyed the ending of the book which I won’t ruin with spoilers. I enjoyed not so much what happened but because, it was a glimpse of true emotion, something I felt was sorely lacking in the remainder of the book.
The plot, I still don’t get. The newborn vampires and Victoria coming back – WTH? The constant fear of the Volitire was just misplaced. Like it was being put in to guarantee the continuity from New Moon. The length of this book was ridiculous as well. Way too long for me.
Overall- I strongly disliked Bella, Edward and even Charlie (too weak) and that the plot was just plain stupid. I’ll continue with the series (1.5 left) and then make my final conclusion at that point. I loved the first two, but my opinions and strong dislike of Eclipse was the reason I didn’t read the series in the first place. I just really hope Breaking Dawn is much better than this. I pray it is because it clocks in at over 700 pages. show less

The third book in the Twilight Saga shows Bella trying to keep Jacob and Edward in her life, and really shows the love triangle for what it is. In Twilight, she falls for Edward, while in New Moon, she falls for Jacob (though doesn't initially realize it). In Eclipse, she tries desperately to keep them both in her life - with severe emotional fallout. All the characters in this book behave extremely terribly to one another, which made it a harder read than New Moon - Edward kidnapping Bella and Jacob staging a jailbreak was fun for my TeamJacob heart, but seeing Jacob turn into a jerk was difficult as a reader. The main plot finishes up the Victoria-is-after-me storyline, with an army of newborn vampires that allows Bella insight into show more exactly what becoming a vampire means. The book ultimately ends with Bella choosing Edward and planning a wedding - but, if you're really Team Jacob (or just don't want her with Edward generally), the text could allow you to headcanon an alternative ending while ignoring Breaking Dawn that takes place after the end of Eclipse.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the book, and give it a 4/5, it loses points for the characters being so terrible to each other, as well as for some awkward exposition scenes (Rosalie's backstory, the Bonfire party, Jasper's backstory) that were harder to get through, but it kept me reading, and ultimately gave me a lot of feelings at the end.

I don't like Bella ending up with Edward, but it was still a good story. show less

The title Eclipse intrigued me. I wondered what Stephenie Meyer was suggesting with the word: which celestial body will obscure the other? One thing is for sure, in this book Isabella Swan is still a ‘monster-magnet’, attracting extreme emotions from all those who cross her path – her life, either the taking or saving of it, the object.

Following on from New Moon, in Eclipse Bella is now approaching graduation, and facing decisions that, once taken, will irrevocably change her life. Mysterious killings in Seattle begin to impact on Forks and once again Bella becomes the target of great danger; to herself and to all the worlds she inhabits. Amongst all this is the intertwining angst between Edward and Jacob – the innate hatred show more between werewolf and vampire vying with their emotional attachment to Bella, forcing a conflict onto her which must be resolved.

I am in conflict myself in regards to my thoughts about this book. The first two books of this series I ‘inhaled’ – couldn’t put them down. This one I found more difficult to read and yet I preferred the premise it afforded – the doubts finally insinuating into Bella’s psyche from the decisions she had made previously; consideration now given to the consequences of her actions. And I liked the idea that there were other options on offer despite the inevitability of her choice. This is a classic romance with an exotic twist; I think it appeals to the girl in us who would like to take the dangerous, but more exciting, path. At last the rose-tinted glasses were removed and the truth about losing her humanity was exposed, essentially asking if love would be enough to overcome all obstacles. I’m cynical enough to question and I am old enough to doubt - and I disliked the way Bella was manipulated by Edward, Jacob and their 'families' in this book, along with the sudden bouts of weakness and self loathing which overcame her character. This series, to my mind, is about a strong, stubborn human girl who can mix it with the best in that dark 'underworld', if not physically, at least mentally.

So, back to my original question: which body should overshadow the other? Despite Bella’s seemingly unreserved choice I am curious as to what the next book will bring – and regardless of my discord about parts of this book I am still eager to read more.

(Jan 20, 2008) show less

avevo vaghi ricordi di questo libro come il migliore della saga (!!)... oh, how the turntables.
questo volume non ha ragione di esistere: è stupido, è irritante, è lento, e manda a quel paese una (naturale e logica) evoluzione dei personaggi.
bella inoltre si palesa qui in tutta la sua gloriosa inutilità; e non lo dico solo perché il personaggio mi sta fortemente antipatico, ma perché la sua esistenza è un errore letterario. se il tuo libro riesce ad esistere senza la sua protagonista, se la sua presenza non provoca alcun cambiamento nel corso degli eventi, se eliminandola potrebbe comunque esistere... c'è qualcosa che non va. sul serio, tutta la vicenda è costruita per dare un ruolo a bella e lei riesce comunque ad essere show more inutile! è un personaggio di contorno, che sbiadisce sullo sfondo, e la sua presenza è completamente accessoria.
jacob diventa un molestatore così, dal nulla, soltanto per far risaltare maggiormente edward. questo cambiamento improvviso non ha senso, è assurdo e ooc: esiste soltanto per dar credito alla teoria dell'autrice secondo cui uomini e donne a quanto pare non possono essere amici. e charlie, l'unico personaggio decente in questo mare di melma, che approva la molestia che subisce bella e anzi la giustifica e incoraggia? per non parlare del fatto che, nelle intenzioni dell'autrice, bella dovrebbe essere forte e coraggiosa per il pugno dato a jacob; ma in realtà la sua reazione si limita a qualche commento idiota e a nascondersi dietro le spalle di edward. che esempio, che personaggio, che mito letterario.
tutti i personaggi manipolano bella, a cominciare da edward - che qui dovrebbe essere presentato come la scelta migliore per lei e il suo unico vero amore, ma in realtà si conferma una merdina - e la narrazione lo giustifica. è assurdo quanto sia idiota, egocentrica ed egoista questa ragazza.
qualcuno potrebbe argomentare che questo volume sia migliore degli altri perché almeno c'è una trama. trama che, tuttavia, ha inizio al 55% almeno del libro, è noiosa, lunga, inutilmente drammatica.
che disastro narrativo. show less

Ahh, Eclipse. I have feelings about this book. Complicated feelings. This is honestly not what I signed up for when I started reading these books and I'm going to have a book-hangover once I finish Breaking Dawn. When did this happen!?

Okay, so, I think this book has made me Team Edward. Which is just so wrong. I've always heard it that Team Jacob is for the more sane, realistic Twilight fans, the people who appreciate good chemistry or whatever, but here's the thing: I hate Jacob with a fucking passion. He is the worst character in these books, I fucking DESPISE him. So so much.

And Edward? Well, a hundred pages into this book he gets a personality transplant and turns intoa pretty great monster boyfriend. I kept waiting for it to show more change, but it never did. I wish he had been like that throughout the books, but you can't get everything.

But let's back up. So everyone always talks about how controlling Edward prevents Bella from seeing Jacob. Okay, sure, but I'll have to defend on this point (is this what it has come to!?!? Hey hey hey look what you've done to me hey hey hey look what you did), because it's not Edward preventing Bella from seeing a friend because of jealous, it's all (or most) of the vampires preventing Bella from hanging out with werewolves. Werewolves who cannot control themselves (see Emily for what happens when they don't, even when someone they love is present), and in a place that is the ONLY fucking place in the world where Edward can't go to protect her. I'm not saying I agree with his decision to disable her car, but it's not as simple as Edward being jealous (had there been no supernatural elements however this would have been so fucked up).

Then Bella runs of to the werewolves anyway because contrary to popular beliefs she does have some agency on occasion while Edward is off hunting and when he gets back ... he's fine with it. He realizes Bella can make decision for herself and he trusts her judgement. What the fuck, Edward, where did this come from all of a sudden??? Did you hit your head??? Eat a mountain lion that had some sort of being normal-drug in its blood? It comes out of fucking nowhere. I mean, he even gets a fucking motorcycle for himself so Bella can continue driving hers with someone if she decides to end things with Jacob, then when Bella is hesitant he immediately understands motorcycles is just between her and Jacob and says he'll give the bike to Emmett instead AND gives Bella a helmet and a cool jacket SO SHE DOESN'T GET FUCKING HURT WHICH JACOB REALLY SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT A LONG TIME AGO. I'm still in shock Edward did all this and never yelled at her or guilted her or whatever.

You know who does yell and guilt Bella all the time? And sexually assaults her? Motherfucking Jacob Black. Charlie is my fave character but I really disliked him when Bella gets home with a broken hand after slapping Jake for kissing her and CHarlie is on Jake's fucking side. Gross, dude! At least later he says he should have taught her how to hit people who kisses her without her consent, but still. If Edward did that Charlie would have shot him point-blank.

Not only does Jake force himself on Bella, and only lets her go when she reluctantly gives in to the kiss just to make him stop, he never really admits that it's a bad thing, he blames Bella for breaking her hand on his face (fuck you) and claims he knows her better than she knows herself. I loved Bella when she said she had only ever kissed Edward because she didn't count what Jake did a kiss, she counted it as sexual assault and he was like "but you forgave me :(" and she says "that doesn't change my memory of what happened". OH HELL YES GO FUCK YOURSELF JACOB

Meanwhile Edward and Bella learns how to compromise in their relationship so that they can both be happy and has a discussion about sex and sexual consent. What?!

Sadly, S-Meyer does not completely win me over, because when Jake sexually assaults her for the second time (AFTER SERIOUSLY SAYING HE'LL KILL HIMSELF IF BELLA DOESN'T KISS HIM, THAT IS THE FUCKING GROSSEST THING I'VE EVER READ. I HOPE YOU DIE YOU FILTHY DOG), Bella suddenly realizes that he was right, she is in love with him too, but she still picks Edward. WHY S-MEYER!? WHY??? You were doing SO WELL in painting the non-consenual kissing as a bad thing, and then all of a sudden it turns out Jacob knew what he was doing all along. I was gonna give this book 3 fucking stars up until this point because I liked it so much, but NO, you're stuck with 2. FUck you.

Also, how does Edward react to this? Like motherfucking Han Solo all "if you choose him I am of course not going to stand in your way, I want you to be happy" (note that I'm not comparing Edward to Han in any other way, I don't want ya'll getting any wrong ideas). Jacob can say all he wants about how Edward is just playing a game, because everything Edward's done after his personality transplant suggests that he's actually serious. If he's just acting, it's a good act.

UGH, I don't know what else to say about this. I'm so mad. I'm so mad this book made me team Edward, I'm so mad I'll have to read 1/3 of the next book from Jacob the fuckboy's perspective, and I'm so INCREDIBLY mad that I'm actually enjoying this garbage.

Reading these were a mistake, and probable one I'm going to make again. show less

***WARNING: Some spoiler alerts***
With this third title in the Twilight saga, the issues that bothered others with the books, which I tried to overlook in the first two books, became too glaringly obvious for me to avoid anymore. Therefore, I found this book the weakest of the saga so far, and was increasingly annoyed by the female-male relations embodied in this book. The hearsay is that Meyer, a devout Mormon, wrote this book to provide an offering for teens that doesn’t involve explicit sex and other no-nos. To that effect, in this book Meyer even has vampire Edward say something along the lines of “the vast majority” of people believes that sex outside of marriage is wrong. (Really, Meyer, what planet do you live on? I doubt show more if the vast majority of Americans believe this, and let’s not forget that America is much more conservative than many other countries). So instead, Meyer offers teenagers these “healthy” views on relationships:
- Edward uses marriage as leverage in his “compromises” with Bella – i.e., he will only change her to vampire if she marries him, and he will only have sex with her if she marries him. Wow, nothing says good example for teens better than having a teenaged girl forced into a marriage with a guy who’s technically about 100 years old.
- Speaking of Bella’s desire to become a vampire to be with Edward forever, this also means that she must give up all further associations with her friends and family. Isn’t isolating a partner from all their relatives and acquaintances the first step that domestic abusers take?
- When Bella brings up a topic that Edward doesn’t want to discuss (the idea of they’re having sex together), he literally restrains her hands and covers her mouth to make her stop talking about it. Right, but that’s healthy discourse, of course!
- When Jacob forcefully kisses an unwilling Bella, Charlie remarks “good for you!” Well, that’s a good old police father for you – encouraging the sexual assault of his only daughter.
- At various times in the book, Bella and Edward are separated for a day or two or sometimes even only a few hours. During that time, Bella mopes around, unable to cope without being with Edward. Talk about dependent relationships.
- As Edward doesn’t think Bella is safe around Jacob, he takes extreme measures to keep her away from him. At one point, he removes necessary equipment from her truck so that she can’t visit Jacob. At another time, he literally has his sister take Bella hostage for days so that she can’t see Jacob. Apparently no one has ever told Meyer that kidnapping is a crime, not a romantic action.
- At another point, Edward and Jacob fight over Bella like she’s a piece of meat as she is standing right in front of them! Edward even hisses “she is mine” – as if a human being can be someone else’s possession. When Jacob gives Bella a charm bracelet, Edward feels he, too, has to leave his mark on Bella and gives her a competing charm to wear on the bracelet. There’s nothing like having your man claim his territory.
- Edward also lies or hides information from Bella ‘for her protection’ several times. Well, what’s a good relationship without some deceit and lack of open communication??
And those are just *some* of the parts I took issue with – there are plenty others. In addition, the love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob was way too forced and resulted in a really annoyingly dithering Bella (and also undermines the supposedly enduring great love shared between Bella and Edward). And while it was a little bit bothersome in the first two novels, by now I am so absolutely sick of hearing the words “glare” and “glower” -- does Meyer not own a thesaurus? Or better yet, could she find more interesting ways, perhaps even uses similes or metaphors, to describe people being annoyed or angry? The only things that kept me interested in this story were 1) the back stories given for some of Edward’s vampire family members and for the werewolves and 2) the threat of “bad” vampires out there causing the “good” vampires and the werewolves to have to team up to save the day. Of course, the events involved in this second part were all very predictable, but nevertheless fairly entertaining. I will move on to the fourth book only because I am now invested in the saga, and I’m really, really hoping that it will somehow be an improvement on the third novel. show less

Summary: Now that Edward and Bella are back together in the small town of Forks, there's a tense stalemate between the vampiric Cullen family and the werewolves of the Quileute tribe - and more particularly, between Edward Cullen and Jacob Black, both of whom love Bella and will stop at nothing to win her. To add to the tension, there has been a spate of murders in nearby Seattle, and there is reason to believe the danger is centered on Bella - but can everyone put their melodrama away for long enough to keep themselves and the ones they love safe?

Review: First, the positives. Number one: DAMN these books are addictive. I had to force myself to put this down to go to sleep late last night, and I came home this afternoon, picked it up, show more and didn't move (except to turn pages) until I'd finished it. This book also does a much better job than the previous two of balancing the angsty teenage melodrama with the action - instead being five hundred pages of whining followed by fifty of action, this book spread out the action and interspersed it with the angsty whining, which made it more tolerable, and probably accounts for most of this book's improved rating compared to the other two.

Next, to the negatives. Far and away, the main thing that bugs me about these books (not this one in particular more than the others, but the whole series) is what a messed up model for love, relationships, sex, and romance they are providing for the legions of teenaged girls who are the target audience. Edward's treated like this perfect, wonderful, self-sacrificing guy, when in reality he's arrogant, selfish, stubborn, arrogant, manipulative, arrogant, emotionally stunted, and immature. The book holds up this idea of "literally can't live without you here" as being an ideal, instead of a frightening level of codependecy and self-effacement, and, at least in the first half of the book, Edward and Bella's relationship doesn't just hover near the boundary of creepy, it actually leaps over the line into legitimately over-controlling and emotionally abusive. The "hostage" scene was played as maddening but maddeningly-charming, when in reality, isolating a partner from "non-approved" friends is a classic sign of abuse, and Bella writes it off as "just jealousy" and instantly forgives him as soon as she sees him - because he's so dreamy. Is that really what we want teenaged girls to be absorbing as okay behavior? And let's not even get me started on the issues these books have surrounding sex and sexual morality.

I don't have nearly so many issues with Jacob - admittedly, he's also immature and selfish, but at least he's also honest about it... and I do, ultimately, agree with him that he'd be better for Bella in the long run. Actually, this book does a pretty good job of dealing with the reality of obsessive teenage relationships, it's just that it so desperately wants us to believe that Bella's choice is the right one, that it's true love, when from the distance of a little maturity it just looks like hormones and overwrought teenage drama.

Recommendation: I have so many issues with these books, but I can't stop reading them, and if you've got through the first two, you can't either. Better than the first two, and the compelling story makes it easier to overlook all of the melodramatic angst. show less