Where's the action?

[Jo]

I was super excited for Breaking Dawn, and maybe my expectations were too high, but I felt like the whole lovey dovey honeymoon went on too long and then all of the romance was too much of a theme for the book. There was never any fighting and what I expected to be a big deal(the marriage, Bella becoming a vampire, Bella getting pregnant) were all just intertwined through the book. I was just NOT on the edge of my seat in this book like I was while reading the other three. Anyone else agree?

[Shannon]

Yes, quite a few of us were really disappointed.

[Jael ~ *~ Syhren ~* ~]

It wasn't an edge of the seat series for me to begin with so I wasn't really disappointed on how it ended. I enjoyed the series(except for New Moon Bella was very annoying and her and Edwards relationship was at an heightened co-dependecy in this book) and now have moved on to greater ones.

[PandaRanda]

The Merchant of Venice explains why there was no big fight in the end...it was the second book to inspire Breaking Dawn. Go read it.

I was disappointed that there was no big bloody battle too...but it makes sense...I guess.

[Shannon]

Panda,

I think the problem (for me) with The Merchant of Venice explanation is that Stephenie's "battle" scene didn't really play out like a legal drama. It read like a cop-out. I enjoy a good game of mental maneuvering as much as the next reader, but this one lacked substance. It seemed very much like this ending was written simply to avoid the deaths of any major characters rather than being written to add depth and drama to the story. (She has even admitted, in an interview, that this is EXACTLY what she was doing. And it shows.) So, no, I don't buy into the whole "chess game" metaphor.

[PandaRanda]

Maybe the mental maneuvering was happening in Edward's and Aro's head and no where else, but I'll guess we'll never know since we're in Bella's head...how unfortunate.

[Shannon]

Panda, you may be right. The mental maneuvering is sort of a necessary element for setting up a convincing game of strategy, so I think she failed. That's why the ending seems so anticlimactic to me. As I said, it lacks substance and we can hypothesize that all the substance was left in the minds of the mind-readers.