'Eclipse' by Stephenie Meyer - Book Review

Chances are, if you’ve enjoyed the first two installments in Stephenie Meyer’s addicting Twilight Saga, picking up Eclipse is a foregone conclusion. And while this book offers plenty of vampire action and teenage romantic drama to thrill fans of the series, it fails to soar quite as high as its predecessors.

Eclipse opens with teenager Bella Swan and her vampire boyfriend Edward reunited after their tortuous parting in New Moon. Bella’s eventual transformation into a bloodsucking immortal is now guaranteed, yet all is not well in the drizzly town of Forks, Washington. Her best friend, the werewolf Jacob Black, harbors a generations-old vendetta against vampires in addition to unrequited feelings for Bella herself. To top it all off, a plague of murders in nearby Seattle points to an impending vampire threat.

With the question of Bella’s fate sealed, Meyer’s new sources of conflict feel heavy-handed at some points and over-the-top at others. The book begins sluggishly, with the first several chapters stifled by issues of jealousy which are slow to develop. Still, Eclipse picks up steam as it revisits the tensions of romance and friendship between Jacob and Bella. Readers will find the deepening of Edward and Bella’s relationship pleasing, and the final battle delivers on excitement, though it seems thin on justification.

Despite its shortcomings, Eclipse offers an absorbing read which will likely keep you up past bed time to finish. Meyer’s ability to express the workings of the teenage mind is uncanny, though Bella sometimes frustrates when she is slow on the uptake of plot points which have long since become obvious to the reader. Ultimately, Bella and Edward’s tale of impossible, fervent love remains compelling, and this penultimate entry in the Twilight series is sure to leave you thirsting for its conclusion.