Jaclyn plays catch-up.
So, I finally read Breaking Dawn this weekend. It had been sitting on my desk for the entire month, waiting to be read as I finished off another series I was reading, called The Black Jewels Trilogy. VERY good books, and if you’re into fantasy stuff, I definitely recommend them. They’re a bit tougher to get through in the beginning because the world in these books is rather complicated and very different than anything I’ve come across, so much so that I wouldn’t even know where to begin talking about it here. But if you’re looking for something to read, check out the wiki page, just don’t read the whole thing. 
Anyway, BREAKING DAWN. If you haven’t read it, just stop reading this post now. I’m going to talk about spoilers, so last chance to get out. I managed to avoid all spoilers about the book, and I’m incredibly glad I did. It was very, very tough for me to avoid all Breaking Dawn topics on the internet, so I’m quite proud of myself.
I never in a million years thought the book would take the turn it did with introducing Renesmee. I didn’t know how SM was going to handle turning Bella into a vampire, because I didn’t believe Edward would do it willingly under normal no-stress circumstances, no matter what deal he made with Bella. But I must admit, this was a good turn of events! To be honest, I also didn’t think he would have sex with Bella while human, and that was a humorously pleasant surprise as well.
I will say, somewhere along the way during Jacob’s book I figured Bella was going to have a girl and Jacob was going to imprint on her. It fit in perfectly, and finally I got to stop being annoyed with Jacob. I still haven’t checked out the internet’s opinions on this yet, and I VERY much wonder what all the Jacob fanatics think of this! Do you guys like the fact that he didn’t end up with Bella and ended destined for her daughter instead?
I LOVE IT. This is one of my favorite parts of the book, to be honest. And I want a sequel about Jacob and Renesmee badly now. The idea brought forth here is actually a similar plot (a bit anyway) brought up in the Black Jewels Trilogy. Man destined to be with a very unique individual, who is just a young thing when the meet. I just find the whole idea interesting, and I want to know what it will be like in a few years when Renesmee is older.
Overall, I found Breaking Dawn ridiculously satisfying. Just happy-ending galore. Even a happy middle! I was glad we got a real good heavy dose of Edward and Bella happiness, and it seems like such a good spot to end the series. Well, Bella and Edward’s series anyway, with them as the main focus. I must know what happens in the future with Jacob and Renesmee.
Bella turning into a vampire was funny. Before Breaking Dawn, I thought more than I didn’t that somehow SM was going to find a way out of turning Bella into a vamp. I was dreading that big time. SUCH A RELIEF. And her super-power! How brilliant! Should have seen that being it, but I totally didn’t.
Okay, I think that’s all the gushing I have for today. There really wasn’t anything I didn’t like about the book, but then, as I’ve said before, I’m rarely critical of entertaining stories.
Dangit. I couldn’t finish reading your post. My birthday is in a couple weeks, so I’m not allowed to buy Breaking Dawn. Which kills me every time I walk past it in the store. It’s the same with Acheron. I want them both so bad I can taste it and of course, they both came out less than a month before my birthday. That’ll teach me to get caught up in a series so I have to actually wait for the next book.
On the bright side, I’ve been getting my reading fixes by rereading the Mansion so I can write the synopsis and start submitting it. And when I’m done with that, I’ll be working on the second one so I can finish it and write the third for NaNo. November is really really close but hopefully I can pull it off.
*warning to anyone who hasn’t read the book yet, spoilers ahead* I was actually really disappointed in Breaking Dawn. I love all the other books to death, but this one was just sooooooo lacking to me. All the characters just seemed kind of two dimensional in this one when they had once been multifaceted and super interesting in all the other books. BD seemed to focus more no the events rather than the characters, when all the other books did the opposite. Thus, BD just didn’t seem to do it for me. I was also really annoyed with everything just working out so perfectly for Bella, and nothing really gripping or wrenching took place that wasn’t fixed and ended up coming up roses. Like Bella just happens to be the only girl for many, many years to have a half vamp baby, and even though it came close everything turned out okay. Then she just happens to be the only vamp to have extraordinary control for being a newborn. And of course on top of all that too-perfect-ness; she just happens to have an extraordinary talent for shielding people. I also found the ending sooooooo anticlimactic. She goes on for like a whole chapter about how the show down with the Volturi is going to be the huge epic battle and how so many are sure to perish in it and then when the big “fight” finally happens, Alice just happens to show up with a loop hole to get them all out of it and the only action in that whole secne is Bella shielding people from Jane’s attack and the snitch girl getting burnt up, and that was it. I don’t begrudge people who liked this one, but I personally felt like SM really dropped the ball on this one and where she should have gone out with a bang she went out with a whimper, a VERY predictable and cookie-cutter whimper. I’m not saying it should have been all doom and gloom, but at least a few more twists and turns and way more action than there was. There was scene after scene of characters talking about fighting but barely any really happened.
*Spoilers ahead so just stop now if you don’t want to read them*
I disagree completely with the opinion that SMs ending was cookie-cutter,or predictable. In fact my prediction for the end of Bella’s pregnancy was that Bella was going to die. It would have been predictable for that to happen, with all the foreshadowing, and the fact she switched to Jacobs viewpoint… I just cried over and over in anticipatory grief for Bella. That she made it through was a very pleasant and surprising ending to that drama. I do have to agree that the battle scene was lackluster, no matter how happy I was with the outcome. This in itself left her open for many many sequels. Not only Jacob and Renesme’s but for the rest of the special new characters introduced. Now the only question I was left with except for “what next” is “where is Leah’s imprint?” I wonder if she might imprint on an actual “werewolf” There are SO many levels to which this story could take us and I am so excited!
Haha, Deb, I know what you mean. And the Dark Hunter series is on my to-read list! Granted I have several long series on my to-read list (currently started Southern Vampire series–heard they were making an HBO show out of it), but it sounds like a good one.
That’s awesome you’re going to work on the Mansion for NaNo this year!! Remind me so I can go catch up when the time comes.
*More talk about Breaking Dawn spoilers*
RayRay, LOL, I don’t think I could possibly disagree with you more. I saw your same opinion written over at the Hangout. I really don’t think it’s fair or appropriate to say something such as “SM really dropped the ball.” While you may not like the direction she took the story, I don’t think it’s fair to say she didn’t put her best into it.
I don’t think there should have been some sort of epic battle seen with the Volturi. It wouldn’t have made any sense, and to me, some lamo huge fight based on lack of communication and sheer ridiculousness would have been more “cookie-cutter” / typical to me. They already did the fight thing in previous books. No need for a repeat in my opinion. I liked the added bonus of Bella being able to shield. I think it fit very well.
I just don’t think the story was in any way meant to be about this battle with the Volturi. It was about Bella and Edward, her new family and new life, and her compromises and adjustments. And what Bella was willing to do to protect her new family and new life and how she handled the threat of it all being taken away so soon. I think the plot leading up to the confrontation with the Volturi is what mattered, not the actual battle (or lack there of) itself. (For this reason also, I’m having a hard time understanding how you don’t see this story as being as focused on the characters, because to me it absolutely was.)
As for Alice showing up–it’s not like she came out of no where. No way since she left could I believe she didn’t have an ulterior motive, and I expected her to show up with something actually. Her finding others like Renesmee was over-the-top perfect, I’ll agree, but I still liked it.
I just like the happy ending. God knows there was enough angst in the earlier books, it’s about damn time they have the happiness. Just because it ended happy, didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of twists in the book though. Renesme, Jacob…LOL. Those were so out there, it hard to believe someone wanted more craziness than that. But meh.
I agree with you, Ash about Leah! I enjoyed the insight we got into her character this book! And I’m curious about her future as well. If we ever get a follow-up book about Jacob and Renesmee, I’m hoping it will focus lots on all the wolves.
Hmmm…I didn’t mean any offence with the “drop the ball” comment. That was the only way I could really describe how it felt for me. The last installment just seemed to kind of drop out of place with the feel of the others. So If I came off seeming insulting I do apologize, but I consider that a very mild comment compared to the things that were said at Scribs by the people who don’t enjoy SM’s work. I do love SM‘s work, but this one just didn‘t do it for me, but yeah I can seem where I came off kinda harsh. I was just ubber disappointed by the last book and my frustration just got the best of me. It’s not that I expected more craziness, I just wished that SM would have gone in a different direction than she did, because the one hundred percent happily ever after thing just didn’t seem fitting for a vamp story. I really didn’t see the Renesme thing as that much of a twist. I honestly saw that coming a mile away; considering Jacob hadn’t imprinted yet and the constant mentions that they couldn’t tell the sex of the baby, and try as he might Jacob just couldn‘t find his soulmate. Right then and there I figured out the baby would be a girl and Jacob would imprint on her. I dunno…this one just didn’t seem to have the same feel as the others and the characters just seemed to fall a bit flat. Their once bright personalities seemed to get lost in the flurry of everything that was going on, where as in the other ones she managed for them the shine through no matter what. But that’s only my opinion, it really doesn’t amount to a hill of beans *lol* I just thought I’d give an opinion on the other side of the spectrum of someone that wasn’t completely in love with BD, but again I apologize if I cam off harsh or anything like that. So no worries I was just feeling a bit crabby because I had been looking forward to this book for so long, and perhaps I just built it up way to much. Hehehe
(oops, sorry! forgot to add something) BTW I’m not an active member of the Hangout. I use to go to Scribblers, but I don’t much anymore. So If something was at the Hangout with a similar opinion I can guarantee you that wasn’t me. I didn’t put my opinion on Scribs either. This is actually the first and only place I’ve put my opinion of BD up.
Haha, yeah, there were actually a few pages written at the Hangout with opinions similar to yours (is how I meant to say that)! So you’re definitely not alone! I can understand not liking it, it’s just the SM dropped the ball / dumping it off as cliched statements I hear that irk me because I don’t think it’s fair. Anywho no big deal.
Bummer it didn’t live up to your expectations though–it definitely did for me! Now I’m more worried about the Twilight movie not meeting my expectations, or rather, I worry the movie won’t please me due to too many changes haha, though I do enjoy the actor choosings.
Oh I hear ya on that! I’m worried about the same thing, because no matter what the story will have to be changed for the movie so it can fit into a two hour time slot. I’m okay with them changing the things I’ve seen and have heard about so far, I would just really hate for the Twilight movie to be one of those book based movies where the only thing it has in common with the book is that the title is the same, like the Blood And Chocolate movie, but the clips I’ve seen so far look promising. So who knows, perhaps it will be as good as everyone hopes *crosses fingers* I too am pretty fond of the actor choices.
Oh yes, I DID
I got half my co-workers reading these books as well Jaclyn, lawl
We share the same opinion about the book and the movie. We are all apprehensive that the movie is going to let us down. I know from my Harry Potter experiences that as long as the movie isn’t craptastic, and provided I haven’t read the book very recently, the movie doesn’t turn out ot be a let-down. I even saw the previews for the Twilight movie while going to see The Dark Knight and I was SO excited I was grabbing my husbands arm and bouncing in my seat
It’s like being a kid again I swear! Heheh
I Love Twilight i did not know you read them! i guess i should have know!!! i thought that jacob was going to imprint on some random girl!! god bella was pissed that jacab had imprinted on renesmee!!! god i thought it was hilarious that she got him bye the nack and started to strangle him!!! i don’t like Jacob much b/c of the way he treats them! i like the younger jacob in the first book!did you stephine meyer is writing a book about edward’s perspective!!!!! if you go on her website stephinemeyer.com you can read the 1st chapter it sounds really good!! Also did you know that the twilight movie is now comeing out on november 21 instead of december 12!!! november 21 is only 6 days after my birth day YEY!!!!
I didn’t want to read the whole post b/c of spoilers, but I am interested in checking these books out as I love just about anything in the fantasy genre!
Have you read George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Fire & Ice” series? Simply *the best*. Myself, my brother, my sister, and our mother have read the entire series 2-3x’s; we just love it. I’ve never read anything so deep and real and amazing all at once. If you love fantasy, I highly recommend them!
Cheers!
Awesome, I’ll definitely check them out! Thanks for the recommendation!
Good Lord!! I LOVED those books so much!!
I’m so sad that the series has come to an end, but SM has promised that she will at least come out with Midnight Sun, which is pretty much Edward’s version of Twilight. I’m really happy, but the book isn’t completely written yet so that’s a bit of a sad point..
But about Breaking Dawn..
I’m so glad that Jacob is going to end up with Renesmee, I was so hoping that he would get someone of his own..AND HE DID!!
Introducing Renesmee just brought a whole new facet to the book that i was hoping for, but never expecting. I READ THE WHOLE BOOK IN 12 HOURS!!
I was technically supposed to be reading Fahrenheit 451,but i left that alone so i could read Breaking Dawn. And about the Twilight movie, I’m really excited about it!
*Spoiler Spoiler for those who don’t wanna know who plays Edward*
One of the reasons that I’m really excited about it is because Robert Pattinson is playing Edward! I mean I really hoped that they could get a perfect Edward, but that is technically like impossible..So Rob is probably their best choice..
I’m just hoping that they won’t screw up any of the important scenes. I’m sure that it won’t be a let-down, they will probably do the best that they can, and I will continue to count down the days!
And for anyone who STILL hasn’t seen this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aLjcyekOoI , WATCH IT NOW! I cried laughing so hard!
RAWR! =D
You had BD sitting on your desk for a month? Lucky, I had to wait almost a month for the thing to come in the bloody mail. Gah!
I liked it though, although two things majorly pissed me off.
1. Had to suffer through all that crap of BellaxJacob through NM and Eclipse only for him to imprint on the daughter. It seemed so Bold and the Beautiful to me, couldn’t have the mother, went after the daughter.
Although since Bella is finally out of Jacob’s head, he is growing on me - a little - like less than a millimetre little.
2. No battle. I soooooo wanted the Volturi to kick some arse! I didn’t want anyone to die, just have a lil fight. It was very anti-climatic.
And I thought of another thing. The fact that they are not werewolves but shapeshifters. That was a let down.
But it was good though. There wasn’t enough of Emmett’s one liners though!
I forgot about the mention that they’re not true werewolves! I actually found that quite interesting–not really a let down or let up (haha) for me, but I think if she ever continued the series with Jacob, it’d be something neat to develop further.
LOL–Bold and the Beautiful! I really like that he imprinted in the daughter, all weirdness aside (I like weirdness). He annoyed me to death when he was after Bella too, and I like him oh so much better now.
Hey Jaclyn, hehe long time no talk, Just came across your website today and started reading your blog, dude you’re so interesting.
Aha thank you so much for the insight about The Black Jewel someone told me about it but I didn’t really look into it, now that I’m reading more about it in that link you share it looks like its so amazing, geee I want to go to B+N right now and buy it.
Spoiler of Breaking Dawn as as well…
Ohh man I just loved the beginning not so much the middle, while Bella was preggers, it kinda gave me a bad head ache since I always tend to make myself understand how all the characters feel at the same time like as if I were there too, I had the same awareness as you did about the baby Renesmee being a girl and Jacob imprinting on her. I couldn’t stop laughing at that part when he first saw her and instantly you know exactly whats going on through his mind. “OH SHIT!”
Ahh and that whole scene where Bella just almost killed Jacob when she realized what Renesemee was to him was hilarious too.
I pretty much knew before I read BD that Bella would somehow have to be on the verge of death so then that is how Edward would finally decide to let her become a vampire and he would do it himself to be her savor. But I never thought that SM would add a huge bump into the pic.
All I gotta say is, poor Jacob, his life is pretty messed up in a way… I mean he falls in love with this girl who’s in love with a vampire then deals with all this crap of seeing her go through pain because of the love she made with Edward.
Then after all that he find that he’s in love with her daughter which he wanted dead before the very second she met her eyes. But that whole situation sounds incestuous in a way because he’s kinda got a sibling like relationship with Bella later on so he’s like Renesemee’s uncle but… soulmate. Ahh and then to top it all off when him and Renesemee are actually together as a couple he’ll really have to be careful not to think of her in any dirty way around Edward or he’ll just die. There’s a high chance that if he even thought of doing anything with Renesemee before he was married to her while Edward was around he’d pretty much be dead.
I agree, I’d love to read about Jacob and Renesemee’s life together too, and seeing how Jacob gets into the shapeshifting life and Renesemee growing up the half half life.
Okay. I finally got to buy and read BD. And I almost didn’t finish it. I think the part where I started to get disappointed was when Bella got pregnant. I just really felt like it was just there so that the people who were upset about Bella not getting to have children would be happy. I don’t know. It just didn’t feel natural to me. It felt imposed. Like “I have to make all my fans happy.”
I’m a total Jacob fan, so I felt a little better when it got to Book Two and the whole thing was from his POV. Though Bella was really pissing me off. She’s always put other people before herself, but it just seemed so extreme. The baby was breaking her ribs and she was just “Oh, he’s strong” like that was okay. My daughter didn’t break any of my bones or even come close, but she she was hurting me, I didn’t just say “Oh, feel how strong my baby is.” I said ow and poked at her. It just seemed like she crossed the line into insanity a little too far.
Then there’s the imprinting. I guess I was thinking maybe the dreams were from the baby, so maybe they meant something, but I was actually surprised that it was a girl. As soon as I read girl though, I said “Dammit, Jacob better not imprint on her.” It was only my great love of books that kept me from throwing it across the room when I read the end of the book.
But I made myself continue. And there were parts that I liked and parts that I didn’t, but mostly, I just wanted Renesmee to exist for some reason other than making fans happy. I agree that the Volturi thing was a little anti-climactic, but I didn’t really want anyone to die, so I didn’t mind.
In the end, I felt like the book was completely redeemed by the setup for a potential love triangle in the future and I really hope there’s a book for Renesmee and Jacob in the works. Because I really do love Jacob. And I guess that means that I end up loving who he loves. Which means Renesmee.
Haha, knowing you were on the Jacob-fan end of the spectrum, I’ve been curious as to what you thought of Breaking Dawn. XD
I didn’t really get that impression about Bella’s pregnancy, but then, for whatever reason it was just so unexpected for me that I welcomed the surprise twist.
I’m definitely with you in hoping for a future storyline with Jacob and Renesmee.
Do you think you’ll end up loving the movie version of Jacob? I’ve been watching videos with Twilight cast lately, and the actor interviews with him bug me–much in the same way Jacob often annoyed me in the books, interestingly enough. So perhaps they did a good job casting there. Ha. >__>