[.ca] New Moon (ISBN 0316160199)

Superficial, silly, selfish.:
Those are the three words that best describe Bella Swan, the main character in the Twilight series. I enjoyed the first book enough to make me purchase and read the other two, but I really wish I had my time and money back. Bella's character degenerates so far in the second and third books that I found myself wishing a vampire or werewolf would hurry up and eat her. I've never seen a more helpless, useless character outside of a Harlequin romance. I hate to think that THIS is what young girls are being given as a role model. Elizabeth Bennet she is most certainly not. It would amaze me if Bella could walk the length of herself without having to be carried, or make it through one week without some imaginary emotional apocalypse. I realise that all this drama appeals to teen readers, but I think Stephanie Meyer is shirking her responsibility to provide a strong role model for her reader base. As far as I can see, the message she is sending to young girls basically translates to "You are helpless and useless without a man to take care of you. Your boyfriend should be your entire world." I hope my future daughter doesn't end up so pathetic. She certainly won't be reading this tripe.

Two stars, all for Edward and Jacob:
I just finished the second book (literally minutes ago), and haven't read the third yet, so excuse my possible ignorance of some facts. I had this huge rant full of spoilers that I obviously can't post here ready, but the main idea of it is that it's so frustrating that some obvious aspects of Bella's personality don't make sense! She contradicts herself so much. Her actions sometimes just make *no* sense. I obviously can't use real examples here, for fear of giving away the storyline to people, but her reactions to some things are just ridiculously illogical and, most of all, inconsistent. It bothers me. I seriously don't like her. I guess I'm just a bit bitter about the books, altogether. I'm not going to lie, I enjoy Edward. He charms me as much as he charms every other female who reads this book (well, almost..). I can't stop smiling when he does something ridiculously sweet. And I actually like Jacob Black too. I think he's the least "fake" of all of the characters. Edward has a cockiness about him that I don't think Jake has, which I appreciate in Jake. But besides the characters, who you can't help loving or hating, I don't actually think that the book is very well written. It's not what I would call "art". Interview with the Vampire is art in novel form. Tom Sawyer is art. Catch-22 is art. I would even argue that Harry Potter is. But I really don't think this is, in any way. In my honest personal opinion, Stephenie Meyer just takes what she KNOWS every teenage girl wants to hear. A "beautiful" and altogether perfect "bad guy" who's actually chosen to be good, who plays piano, who writes songs for her, who repeatedly saves her from grave danger, who words everything flawlessly, and who absolutely can't live without her, an *ordinary* girl (being ordinary and human is something we can all relate to). She takes every girl's fantasy of being swept off her feet by a perfect bad-guy-turned-good despite her flaws, and she milks it for all it's worth, with an overwhelming amount of descriptions of their loving encounters. She adds some fairly weak, simple storyline. It's not intricately written. It's not the kind of book where you can re-read it over and over again and discover something you missed the first time because the story is so well woven. I don't mean to bash the author. I'm sure she's a very nice person, and she has developed a very strong character in Edward, someone we ALL want to be with. But I just feel like she's cheating because she's writing books she knows we all will like, no matter how badly written they are.

Errmm, okay?:
I have to admit, I did not enjoy this book as much as Eclipse or Twilight. When Edward said those words to Bella on page 68, I almost died! I was so mad at Edward, but I still had to love him. I couldn't let go of that. Edward made the biggest mistake of his life, and everyone that I mentioned this to, had to agree with me. Edward, we still love you, just don't ever do that to Bella again. By the way, I HATE JACOB BLACK. HE NEEDS TO LEAVE BELLA ALONE. Ok, byee!

quite depressing, but still really good :):
the first chapter had me hooked! after that, bella just gets a little annoying. the things that she does, just to have a hallucination of the one thing that she wants, proves that she is VERY STUBBORN. later on though, i LOVED every page. i can't wait to but the next book :D

Very disappointing:
Belle went from being independent and confident to being a whining co-dependent child. She annoyed me throughout this book. The relationship that she has with Edward went from being intriguing to deeply disturbing. I was hardly able to finish this book and don't care enough about the characters to bother reading the next book in the series.