Book three: Eclipse
This is the point where it feels like the author is merely writing more to satisfy the fans instead of having a real story to tell. It should have ended in book two with them realizing they can’t be apart and the decision to eventually turn her into a vampire as well. The author couldn’t do it. Unfortunately, this meant that she had to artificially create conflict to move things forward.
It starts out with life going on like normal, or as normal as they can get, and the news that there are odd murders happening in a nearby city is the only excitement. The only real possible antagonist is a vampire from the first book who wants Bella dead since Edward and his family killed her mate who nearly killed Bella. Oh the drama of ‘I must seek revenge’ and all that jazz. It’s just so predictable that you can see it coming from a mile away.
Not satisfied with this the author goes into the deal with Bella insisting that she has to see and continue to be friends with her friend Jacob who is a werewolf. Bella, in this respect, is anything but perfect. She’s the typical pigheaded, selfish, stupid teenager. There is nothing she does that isn’t all about her and making sure she has everything she wants. She has her perfect love, but regardless of how much it may hurt her friend, she wants him around too. This attitude of hers is nothing more than a set up for book four, which I’ll get to in a bit here.
Anyway, there was a tiny bit of interesting story telling in the theory behind newborn vampires and how they’re so strong; and were used as armies in the past. However, I couldn’t get past the concept, or rather wouldn’t accept that being newly born as a vampire meant that one was ‘super’ powerful, even more than ones that had been around for centuries. It was too pat, too convenient, since it gave the vampire who wanted Bella dead a means to get through those who would protect her. Yet another cheaply developed conflict to propel the story forward and force Bella to admit that she loved her childhood friend too.
It had an interesting bit of mythos for the vampires, but it felt forced and contrived in order for there to be some conflict for the couple. At this point you are either enjoying the clashes or tired of the shallow means being used to propel the story. More of the mythos surrounding the werewolves is woven in but when they end up becoming temporary allies to fight this army of newborn vampires, who naturally are bent on killing Bella, you want to shake your head in disgust.
There is nothing to differentiate the various vampires from anyone else. Instead of being glad to finally learn a little more about their backgrounds and history, all I wanted to do was pull my hair out over yet another ‘tragic’ incident where their fake father ‘saved’ them from dying by turning them into a vampire. The lack of originality in their origins as a vampire is a bit maddening. Just as Bella’s desire and willingness to sacrifice herself during the fight to save them is pathetic.
Was it beyond the author to do more? I’m beginning to think so. You could see it coming from a mile away, but even the ending where Bella realizes she loves Jacob too was so cliché that it was downright painful to read. You know she’s going to stick with her perfect love so it was just pointless melodramatic crap. It was her being tempted in the other direction, to love something that was a ‘protector’ instead of an evil vampire.
