Breaking Dawn

The final volume in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn, is perhaps the most well written of the four volumes. As I noted previously, Eclipse was a major step up in quality from the first two novels and Breaking Dawn is just a little bit further along. Perhaps this is because there is a whole section dedicated to Jacob’s POV. It could also be that Bella finally gets what she wants, or it could be that Meyer finally learned something from her editors.

That being said there are still some major issues here. The premise of this novel is, to be honest, pretty wacky. Bella finally gives in to marriage, but holds out on getting turned because she wants to have sex with Edward before she is overcome by newborn bloodlust. The result of this is Edward being all angsty after he basically beats Bella during sex, oh and she somehow gets knocked up too.

This of course leads to all sorts of drama involving Edward wanting to protect Bella, Bella wanting to keep the baby, and Jacob and company getting all uppity over how this may or may not break the “treaty.” The first half of the novel, in which Bella’s pregnancy takes place is pretty out there, and I again ask where does Meyer even come up with this stuff?

However, once you get past all that and to the second half of the novel things improve. The storyline in the latter half of the book is actually decent, and does bring the saga to an decent end. This is not to say it couldn’t have been a lot better, because Meyer is clearly not operating in the same mode as the better writers of this era. I will only say that in my opinion she could have made some choices that would have actually given the saga some real credibility. Instead she chose to take the easy route.

Is this the end of Twilight? I am not sure, the Bella and Edward story is pretty well closed out, but I believe there is still material that could be built on. However, would it be Twilight without Bella and Edward? Probably not.

Breaking Dawn could have been bad, and it could have been better. I think overall Eclipse is probably the best novel of the four. The writing is marginally better in Breaking Dawn, but the story arc of Eclipse is stronger. Breaking Dawn does bring the story to a good conclusion and it is a much better book than either Twilight or New Moon. I give it a 3/5.