**SPOILER WARNING** If you have not read the book before and would not like certain things to be revealed please stop reading now.

A friend of mine originally turned me on to the The Twilight Saga. She was so excited about it and was so anxious to share that she bought me an Amazon.com Gift Card for the first two books. Now, while I wasn’t quite as excited over the series as she was (I’ve read the series once as opposed to her five or six times and numerous fan fiction stories), I did enjoy the first three books of the series. In parts of the story, I could even identify with Bella. I thought they were well written and engrossing.

Therefore, I had to know how the series ended. I put in my pre-order for Breaking Dawn within days of it being posted on Amazon and settled back to wait. When it finally came out, Amazon was a little slow in shipping my copy, but that was okay, because I had books I need to review for Bitten by Books and really wouldn’t have been able to get to it. Of course, I had to avoid the spoilers that were rampant on the web. I finally broke down and read the first couple of pages and then from there I couldn’t help myself, I had to know what happened.

I know there was a lot of anticipation for this book and that there was a lot of speculation on what would happen. Would Bella and Edward get married? Would Edward change Bella into a vampire? Or would things take a completely different twist and would Bella somehow end up with Jacob? Would Jacob ever imprint? What about the Voultri? Would all the loose ends be tied up in this book? Or would there be an opening somehow for another book to ever be written?

I have to admit, as I started to get into the first half of the book, I was highly disappointed. I had to check and make sure I wasn’t reading a really bad fan fiction story. Bella got pregnant after having sex once or twice with Edward? And the baby was slowly killing her because it was a vampire hybrid? Huh? This was totally not what I expected when I got my copy in the mail after all those months of waiting. Where was Stephanie Meyer’s editor to bring some sanity to the train wreck that was happening? And even though I kept telling myself after reading numerous author blogs, that they were Ms. Meyer’s characters and that she could do what she wanted with them and knew where the story was to go, I was still a little…shall we say disturbed.

I must admit, I thought that the story from Jacob’s point of view was interesting, although that was a little unexpected since the first three books were written from Bella’s point of view and now, all of a sudden, Ms. Meyer’s entire style seemed to have changed. A nagging part of me wondered if it she even actually wrote the story. I shoved all of that aside in my quest to find out if the story got any better. I found a good stopping point with the break between halves and did some reading of the spoilers of the first half of the book. It seemed the prevalent opinion was that it seemed like bad fan fiction. My friend told me to hang on and that the second half had promise compared to the first.

So I stuck it out and dove into the second half of the book. It was almost everything I had expected when I started reading the book. Well, almost. There was still the baby issue, but as the story progressed, I see how it helped tie all the unanswered questions together. Bella’s transformation was well written and it was how I would have thought she would be as a vampire. I really enjoyed reading about her learning to become a vampire. I did think it was appropriate that Jacob would imprint on Bella’s daughter. Although, I was surprised at Bella’s reaction to it. And I thought that the showdown with the Volturi went the way I would have thought it would from the prior books foreshadowing.

If I could have wiped out the whole first half of the book and just read the second half of the book, I would have probably enjoyed the book much more than I did. But in order for the whole story line to come together, parts of the first half had to be written. I was glad to see that Ms. Meyer did not leave too many loose ends by the time Breaking Dawn ended. But, I can’t help but wonder if maybe, someday, Stephanie Meyer will write Jacob and Renesmee’s story. I think I’d love to read that story at a later date.

So, if you haven’t read Breaking Dawn yet because of all the people who wanted to return the book, I would say that if you stick it out through the first half of the book with all the unexpected surprises, that you will truly enjoy the second half of the book and all those unanswered questions will probably be answered. You’ll enjoy reading about Bella the Vampire. And Jacob’s protection of Renesmee. Or if you’ve read it once and you’re on the fence? Go back and read it again. While I wouldn’t give this 5 tombstones, I certainly would give it 4, based on the entire second half of the book.

Book Stats:

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Hardcover: 768 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers (August 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031606792X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316067928

To purchase a print copy of Breaking Dawn click here.
To purchase a Kindle copy of Breaking Dawn click here.
To purchase the complete unabridged set of audio CD’s of Breaking Dawn click here.

Books in the The Twilight Saga in the order they should be read:
The Twilight Saga Boxed Set
The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide
Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn

To visit the author’s website go here.

(13 votes, average: 4.31 out of 5)

 Loading ...