Celia's review of Eclipse
Eclipse (Twilight, #3) by Stephenie Meyer
I raced through this book, and enjoyed it, mostly because I'd been hanging out to see what the characters would get up to next. But bloody hell, both the major love interests' attitude towards Bella irritates the crap out of me. "She needs a lot of taking care of," one mutters manfully to the other. "I trust you to do that if I can't." Oh gag me. One reason I can't wait for Bella to get vamped is so she gets a bit of power and stops being this endlessly clumsy, endlessly in need of being saved, little girl in love with an incredibly old man (despite his gorgeous teenage body). But yeah, I'll be reading book 4, whenever that comes out. Bring on vampire Bella, I say.
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Bella is beginning to get onto my nerves as well, and I haven't even read Eclipse. What some might term 'romantic' is what I think is irritating. I think she just should never have met Edward and fallen in love with Jacob.
But then there would be no story, and no scary, obsessed fandom.
And why does everyone think Edward is so perfect? Doesn't he kind of remind you of Hamlet? i.e. He thinks too much, but when he acts it's rashly with often disasterous results.
I liked the romance in the first book, although I was I found it a bit amusing that I did - it's just so over the top, so teenager, you know? "He's the most perfect guy in the world! He smells so nice! Ooh, he looked at me!" And I thought it was a good depiction of that teenage intensity. But it turns out it wasn't teenage intensity, it was real - he really is that perfect, he does smell that good, blah blah blah. And that makes him far less interesting to me.
I must admit, the Hamlet connection hadn't occurred to me :-) Edward puts me off because he's so controlling. Plus the fact that the only thing that attracts him to her is her smell, and that he can't hear her thoughts. I have a feeling that if he could hear her rather banal thoughts, he'd leave her to Jacob in a shot :-) A Jacob/Bella relationship would have been much more equal, and I think Bella would have been a more interesting character.
Also, I find the obvious no-sex-before-marriage agenda the author has a little creepy too.
It depends on whether you consider the fact that Bella's mind is 'shielded' just a quirk or something that is part of Bella like her height or hair colour.
Now that you mention it, the intensity is quite realistic. But I thought Edward actually got less perfect as time went on. I think with this series the one thing readers have to take for granted is that Edward and Bella are soulmates. Full stop. All their actions stemming from this can only be judged in light of that fact.
