Twilight tempted the imagination. New Moon made readers thirsty for more. Eclipse turned the saga into a worldwide phenomenon. And now, the book that everyone has been waiting for…
Breaking Dawn, the final book in the #1 bestselling Twilight Saga, will take your breath away.
SPOILER ALERT. This review is likely to contain every spoiler in the book. So if you have yet to read Breaking Dawn, or even watch either of the two movies, and want to, you probably don’t want to read below.
Breaking Dawn was – is, will always be – my favorite book of the Twilight saga. It was full of twists that, reading up to that point, I never expected. It starts out with a drama-fied bang, and, in my opinion, never lets up until the very end.
I didn’t pick up Twilight until 2008, a full three years after it had been originally published. To say that I was late starting this phenomenon was a severe understatement. I had never even heard of the saga, until a friend at work begged me to read it, and lent me all the books. By the time I started Breaking Dawn, I felt like it had taken forever to get to that point. Not a bad forever – I mean, my experience with the first three books started my obsession with the Young Adult genre. I was in love. – but, if I may be frank, I wanted Bella a vampire. I wanted her a vampire from the very first book, and Breaking Dawn was going to give me what I wanted. I knew it was. And it did.
I’ve read the book as a whole a few times, but the second part of it, from Bella’s transformation, I’ve read countless times. The whole thing, it’s just so beautifully done. The pain that Bella goes through during her transformation just bleeds onto the page. It’s so apparent that she’ll do anything to make it stop. And it’s just how Edward described it. Unbearable. It was heartbreaking to watch this, after everything she’s been through. But then she wakes up. She wakes up, and she belongs to this beautiful world where every sight, every sound, every feeling is intensified. And Meyer delivers it so well. She spent what felt like a lifetime building up to it, and, as readers, once we have that moment, we realize that it was so worth the wait. The love that Bella and Edward share has intensified along with this new world that she belongs to, and everything comes together so well.
I think Bella’s transformation from human to vampire marks her transformation as a person. A lot of people dislike or even hate Bella Swan. They think she’s pathetic. I just… I can’t agree with that. It’s not because I’m in love with Edward or I’m shallow, or whatever number of reasons one could come up with. I’m not making excuses. Bella Swan is a lost teenager who is privileged enough to connect with the man she is destined to be with at a very young age, and she loses him. Not because they are not meant for each other, but because the world is a cruel place and is working at tearing them apart. And she goes in a downhill spiral in what she believes will bring her closer to him. She’s not pathetic. She’s human. She’s in love. If you lost your one true love at this vulnerable age of teenhood, and didn’t want to do something, anything, that would bring you closer to that person, then I don’t believe you have any concept of what true love is. And that’s why I love Bella. She is so achingly human that I can relate to her. I can relate to her weaknesses, and, as time passes, to her strengths. And in Breaking Dawn, Bella Swan has become a very strong person. And I believe in her. Rightfully so, too, because ultimately it’s Bella, who saves her family and makes her forever last forever.
So call me a twi-hard if you like, but I’m not a mindless person who just accepts that which society chooses to throw at me. I have my reasons for loving this book, this series, this phenomenon, and am not backing down from my beliefs in it. I think it’s completely worth the hype.
Mark Brassington 