Like all of Stephenie Meyer's books, this one was a page turner. But now that it's over and I've given myself time to mull over it, I realize how little I like it.

***MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD***

Stephenie Meyer took me by surprise this time with her direction. That doesn't mean it couldn't have ended up ok, but it didn't. I was so used to constant angst over Bella's two lover boys in the previous books that I definitely anticipated more Jacob vs. Edward story line in this. But Stephenie Meyer nixed that right away and shoved engagement, prophetic dreams of a child and marriage to Edward in our faces as fast as she could. All the tension she built up in the first three books over who Bella would choose is resolved in the first three chapters and replaced by a very muddled story line.

Shortly after their honeymoon, Bella finds herself feeling oddly hungry all the time, and then suddenly very sick. This is followed by a realization that she is pregnant with Edwards spawn. The fetus is growing at an alarming rate as well. Only five days after her missed period she feels the baby nudge her. Here's where we go from puerile teen vampire love story to most bizarre.

In the second part of the book we find Jacob Black narrating as Bella is slowly being killed by Edward's spawn. She refuses to let Edward or Carlisle abort the baby in order to save her life and she's recruited Rosalie to help her in this endeavor. With Jacob at the helm, we witness Bella's declining state and his anger over it. Then, thanks in part to Jacob, the family realizes that perhaps the baby needs blood to thrive. So Bella starts drinking Carlisle's stash of donated human blood. What the fudge?!?!? I found the casual manner in which Bella accepted this idea most horrifying. Then comes the bloody and gruesome scene of delivery (they won't be able to put that in the 4th movie if they want to keep it PG-13), the snapping of Bella's spine by the little nudger, so called, Edward's desperate frenzy to start the process of transformation before Bella's heart stops beating and Jacob's resolve to kill the newborn as he faces his most acute pain ever in losing Bella. A pain I frankly did not share with him. Then he imprints on Edward and Bella's new baby girl instead! I saw that one coming but really hoped I was wrong.

After this point, things really get ridiculous. Bella doesn't die after all and not only that, she's more amazing than any newborn vampire they've ever seen. She can control herself around humans and her physical desire for Edward has only strengthened. One gets the feeling from her descriptions that just to touch him causes her to...*shudder*, I can't say it. But you get my drift. It's seriously creepy.

Suddenly everything is easy street for Bella. Just like she's always deserved, eh? Whine and cling and stay with the man who controls you and one day all your dreams will come true. You'll embrace unexpected pregnancy on a whim, your physical pleasure will be heightened, your unhealthy relationship will right itself overnight, the lover you didn't choose will suddenly fall in love with someone else and you'll be stronger and more beautiful than you ever expected. Fantastic message! The end was also very anti-climactic. Stephenie Meyer spent 7 or so chapters building up to the confrontation with the Volturi and at the end Bella's shielding power (which she conveniently figured out how to control right after they arrived) scared them away.

The last chapter is titled, The Happily Ever After. Sometimes I'm ok with a happily ever after in stories. Sometimes it's hard earned and well deserved and is simply...right. But this one felt too contrived. By the end of the third chapter of Breaking Dawn I felt that the interest and concern I invested regarding whom Bella would choose and how she would grow while reading the previous books was wasted. I felt that an easy way out had been in the authors plan for Bella all along. The emotional growth and soul searching possibilities for Bella alluded to in the prior books had no place in this book. It was a disappointing end to a story with such potential.

Originally posted at summersnook.com