Review: Breaking Dawn

Title: Breaking Dawn - Book 4 in the Twilight Saga

Author: Stephenie Meyer

Pages: 768

Rating: 4.5/5

I'm a walking zombie this morning due to this book. After staying up until 2AM and waking back up at 5, I'm not sure how much I'll get accomplished at work today. But it was well worth the struggle I'll go through this morning. It is horribly hard to write this review without giving away spoilers, so if you've yet to read this or the first three books, don't read this review.

Breaking Dawn opens by telling the story of Edward and Bella's engagement and wedding. The wedding, planned mainly by Alice, is beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. Edward and Bella's hearts and lives are finally joined as one, but Bella has made a great sacrifice to accommodate this. She is leaving behind not only Jacob, her "best man" and other love, but also must begin to prepare to leave behind her family as her main goal is to become a vampire and be with Edward forever. Edward and Bella leave for their honeymoon to a small island off the coast of Brazil. There, Edward finally gives into Bella and makes love to her, not without the remorse and regret that is so his character. Bella being Bella believes that practice will make perfect, and seduces Edward into trying again. All the resulting love making creates a child, despite everything that Edward and Carlisle had believed to be true.

Edward, not happy with the pregnancy and wishing for Bella to terminate the pregnancy rushes Bella home. Bella, however, has created an alliance of sorts with Rosalie and insists on carrying her "little nudger" full term. It is at this point that the story shifts from Bella's point of view to Jacob's.

Jacob, still passionately in love with Bella, flees his "werewolf" pack when he finds that they wish to destroy Bella in order to destroy her child. Leaving behind Sam, he takes his right as true Alpha and creates his own pack with the Clearwaters. They warn Edward's family and watch guard for any attacks. It is at this time when Jacob sees Bella, whose pregnancy is progressing extremely quickly and basically killing her. As a reader you experience all of his emotions and then some as time quickly passes and Bella gives birth. It is a very violent and bloody birth, with breaking of bones and large amounts of blood loss. Edward turns Bella into a vampire, and Jacob almost immediately imprints on Reenesme, Edward and Bella's daughter.

Breaking Dawn then returns to Bella's point of view (my favorite part of Book 4). We see as Bella experiences all the new things her vampire future has given her, and watch as the Cullens are overwhelmed by her unbelievable self control around humans. Also, Bella comes to realize her gift and in the end using that weapon against the Volturi (I am not going to give away the entire ending --- it would completely ruin everything else).

I am 100% completely in love with this saga. I know many readers and reviewers have giving Breaking Dawn in particular horrible reviews, but after stepping back and re-reading the first three books before reading this one, I felt it was a perfect wrap up to an absolutely amazing saga. One must remember that the Twilight Saga is a love story. Any truly good love story ends in a HEA, otherwise it would be a tragedy - much along the lines of Romeo and Juliet. I think one reviewer on Amazon nailed it one the head when she said that Breaking Dawn would most likely appeal to the older married readers of the saga -as they too have already experienced the pure joy and love of marriage and creating a family. I felt everything that happened in Breaking Dawn, to the pregnancy to Jacob's imprinting, was vital to the rest of the story. How else would Jacob get is ending - killing Edward only would have enraged Bella, it would not have made her run into Jacob's arm. I truly believe that Stephenie Meyer did the best that she could for these characters. Edward, Bella and Jacob are her babies and who wouldn't want to see they're babies happy? The only reasoning I gave it 4.5/5 stars is because I was really sick of reading about the sexual innuendos between Bella and Edward after her change --- I mean, he is still really my vampire man not hers.

Now I am off to find something else to read. I hard task after reading this saga, with its electric pull and dearly loved characters.