'Breaking Dawn' by Stephenie Meyer - Book Review

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From Laura Buhl

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'Breaking Dawn'

Little, Brown

The Bottom Line

*Spoiler Warning* - This review includes information about some of the surprises and the general conclusion of Breaking Dawn.

For many, Breaking Dawn will be a mixed read. The final installment in Stephenie Meyer’s saga ventures further afield than ever before, incorporating incredibly ‘out there’ elements—even for a vampire romance. The various plot threads which Meyer has been spinning since the beginning of the series find themselves a little too neatly tied up here. This leaves Meyer to explore one final, fresh (though anticlimactic) conflict before closing the saga with nary a sad note.

Pros

Many fans of the series will likely be glad to encounter positive resolutions
Jacob’s narration lends a fresh feel to the story
Despite its length, Breaking Dawn keeps up a quick pace, and is a page-turner

Cons

Certain developments feel more horrifying and bizarre than even the fantastical world calls for
The quick and painless resolution of conflicts leaves one wanting more
The final showdown results in an anticlimactic end to the series

Description

'Breaking Dawn' was published in August 2008.
Publisher: Little, Brown
768 Pages

Guide Review - 'Breaking Dawn' by Stephenie Meyer - Book Review

Reading Breaking Dawn must feel a lot like the diet of animal blood which sustains the vampires central to the story. It slakes one’s thirst, yet it doesn’t appeal quite like the "real thing"—it lacks the tantalizing scent, the desirable taste, of the authentic.

Barely more than halfway into Breaking Dawn, all the open issues which have been gathering over the course of the series have been resolved. Though this should be satisfying for the reader, it comes too easily and quickly. What’s more, Breaking Dawn arrives at these resolutions via the frightening plot vehicle of Bella’s horrifying pregnancy. To a somewhat redeeming effect, this portion of the novel is told through Jacob’s incredulous eyes.

With an entire series worth of plot points neatly out of the way, Meyers brings yet another circumstance of impending doom upon the beleaguered vampires of Forks, Washington. But for all the tense build up, this final conflict also dissipates too easily. In effect, it mirrors the arc of the entire saga.

The book closes without sacrifice, loss, or the pain of difficult decisions. Bella and Edward’s concluding bliss is not without appeal for followers of the series, yet can one reach the peak of true happiness without experiencing the valleys of true loss?

User Reviews

3 out of 5

Breaking Dawn: so much promise, so little punch., Member sdm79

At first, everything we wanted to come true happened, Bella and Edward got married, they went on a romantic honeymoon...but there Stephanie Meyer skipped over the best parts. Gone gone gone was the yearning romance and sensuality that was part of the first three books. Once Bella and Edward finally do have sex, it's glossed over entirely, she gives us next to nothing. Their consummation, something readers have been anticipating throughout the whole series, is told about with such sterility that the longing reminiscence of adolescent-hood is forgotten. That, for one, was sorely disappointing. Even if it needed to be fairly pg-13, it did not have to be that bland. Moving on to Bella's pregnancy and even the birth, it was fine, gore and all. It fit and made sense in this supernatural world. A slightly more romantic twist to her transformation would have been nice, but this is not the part of the book that disappointed. But why, oh why was 1/3 of the book from Jacob's perspective? I like seeing the story from Bella's eyes. ""Jacob's Story"" was a waste of my time, and it was irritating. As nice as the Jacob character can be, he's been a bit pesky through the series, and to take up more than 200 pages in the last book, that was way too much ""Jacob"". Readers love Bella and Edward too much to waste that many pages on Jacob and ""the pack"". Sadly, the resolutions in this book came much too easily and parts that could have been drawn out and relished, were summed into a few paragraphs, if not sentences. Much like the second and third Twilight movie installments. Edward and Bella's time together once she was a vampire was barely described. That is a world the reader would LOVE to hear more about. Why couldn't they go to South America to find out about the toothy Renesmee? (the name is certainly more horrid than her birth) The whole build up throughout the second half led to such an unsatisfying and puny ending. I was surprised at how disappointing this promising book turned out. I am a Twilight series fan, but it was not enough. I felt as if Stephanie Meyer got sick of writing and decided to just quickly finish the story instead of following through with a developed conclusion. Even the last chapter, as sweet as it was, tied everything up into neat little packages and left us with a sorely disappointing ""the end"" moment between Bella and Edward. Their last moments on paper should have taken up at least a chapter, not a page. The book leaves one feeling a little empty, a little hollow; and not merely because you have finished the series, either. For its devoted readers, Breaking Dawn was not all it could have been. I venture to say that Twilight was the best of the four books, with all of it's promise and mystery. Somehow, the concluding installment of this series manages to suck most of the mystique out if a once enthralling magical world.

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