Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer > Reviews (38)

Breaking Dawn is the fourth book in Stephenie Meyer's series, aimed mainly at the teenage girl market, with elements of romance slightly outweighing those of horror, fantasy and action. It is a brilliantly scripted fourth book, and does the other three justice.

It is worth pointing out that it would be very hard to read this book as a stand alone novel, as events that have occurred in the previous three books are very relevant, and I feel you may flounder with incomprehension should you attempt this fourth tale without the experience of the first three under your belt.

Similarly, in reviewing this fourth book, I may reveal elements of these previous three books which could spoil them for you. Indeed, I believe it necessary to get a grasp of the characters and events unfolding. However, I will not give any spoilers for Breaking Dawn. Trust me - there are some huge revelations!!

At the end of the thrid book in the series, we finally go to see things from a different perspective. Having read nearly three whole books from a position of Bella's narrative, we managed to understand a great deal about the innocent teenage girl who came to stay with her dad, Charlie, in the small town of Forks, Washington, only to fall in love with a vampire, Edward, and then subsequently realise she has similar feelings for a werewolf, Jacob.

Time after time, Jacob (Jake) is left empty handed as the vampire wins, and it doesn't help that vamps and wolves are sworn enemies! However, what Meyer manages to do in Breaking Dawn is switch it up a bit, and give us a good chunk of the book as told from Jacob's perspective, as he takes over the narrative. I found Meyer wrote very well as Jacob. Quite often, I find that women don't write well as men or boys, and similarly, men don't completely capture the art of writing as a woman, often. But Meyer creates a bit more of a manly approach to the section devoted to Jake in her writing style, especially when the thoughts and attitude come into consideration.

Reverting back to Bella is like going back to an interesting project after taking a bit of a break: you didn't really want to have to have the break, but it was bugging you that everything looked the same, and a bit of a change of scenery was needed. This is how I felt about this particular section.

The picture on the front cover is of a chess piece, and indeed, a lot of the book has very political edges to it in terms of the progression of the story. The Volturi (Italian 'mafia'/royalty vampires) ener the fray once more with their menacingly strong powers, to put lives in danger, and the arrival of some new characters certainly makes things a bit more interesting. The book has a few great twists, with one or two of them coming quite early and providing a great base from which to establish the bulk of the plot this time.

Overall characterisation is ocne more spot on, with the main players getting an even deeper analysis. We learn more and more about Edward's family, the Cullens, and about how the wolves operate in their pack (through Jake's narrative), and everyone and everything is described in great detail.

However, I'd also like to raise this as a criticism. At times, I felt the book dragged a bit. descriptions went on for too long, particularly thoughts and appearances of people, sometimes described over a few paragraphs where one would suffice to give you just as much info. Granted, the 'waffling' didn't spoil my overall enjoyment of a very good book, but it did stop it from being perfect.

I also know I'm going to ruffle a few feathers when I say that I didn't like the ending. I built myself up for something completely different, and then when I read on, I was shocked. It was a complete surprise, and very well done indeed, but I felt it cheated me out of the ending I thought would have been better.

Still, the book is a fabulously written piece, and I couldn't put it down. At over 750 pages, it's very long, and like I said, could easily be shortened by removing some passages, but others may gain more of an insight into these characters, and I still manged to read the whole thing in a few days, alienating my wife who I am sure wishes she had never introduced the books to me in the first place!

I eagerly anticipate the official version of Midnight Sun coming out. Last year, a rough draft of Midnight Sun, which retells Twilight, but from Edward's point of view, was leaked onto the internet, resulting in thousands of people reading Meyer's unfinished and unrefined work on the fifth book in the series. She also has a book out entitled 'The Host' which I expect to read at some point.

I hihgly recommend reading Breaking Dawn, but again, a warning to read the first three in the series before you do so i you intend on making sense of half of it. Breaking Dawn is available in hardback at the moment, and can be acquired for around the £10 mark at places such as Tesco.