Book #20

New Moon
by Stephanie Meyer

Since Mimi and Toutou took me a week to read (lots of work and even more anger at my students means less energy for reading. Plus we rediscovered the Sims.) I figured that was enough space in between Greywalker and Stephanie Meyer, so I went ahead and read New Moon, the sequel to Eclipse. This book was as good as the first one; I really love the main character Bella, and I like the way Meyer writes. Plus I have to love the idea of a woman writing a lengthy fantasy series that jumped straight to the NYT Bestseller List -- very inspiring.

The problem I had with this book was that there was just so much emotion in it. It's what Ron says in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: "One person couldn't possibly feel all of that -- they'd explode!" This book is about what Bella goes through after Edward leaves her, and takes his family away with him, because he thinks they have put her in danger and she'll be better off without him. Dumbass. I mean, I understand that he's never been in love before, but you'd think that his hundred-plus years of life, plus the example of all six of his family members, would show him that people who are in love are always better off together and not apart. Always. I mean, I can understand not taking your loved one into mortal combat with you, but you'll both be better off if she's on the sidelines (Or he, in my case, since I really can't see myself in mortal combat -- but Toni would make an excellent pit fighter.). So throughout the book, Bella is trying to live through the worst imaginable case of a broken heart. This was what made Ellen Hopkins (I think that was her name -- the author who came to speak to my school) say that Meyer's character was too whiny and too lost without her man, and thus a weak example for teenaged girls (we'll ignore the fact that Hopkins's own character is a meth addict who gets pregnant at 16. She is an anti-hero, of course, but let's not start slinging that "Bad role model" around, hmm?), and I have to say, she is totally wrong -- and for a bestselling author who actually managed to write several books in verse and sell them to teenagers, that woman is kind of an idiot not to see that this is not a weak character, it's a sad character, a broken character, and that makes her realistic. If anything, I'm amazed by Bella's strength in finding a way to survive, and even feel better once she becomes friends with Jacob, after she lost her true love because he's a nimrod.

But admiration aside, and sympathy aside, 500 pages of heartbreak is just a lot to get through. I really liked the places the plot went in this one; I loved Jacob and the Quilleutes, and I really loved the Volturi -- though I was a little disturbed to see yet another vampire concept set in Italy. What is it about Italy that makes it so attractive to vampire authors? Why did I have to choose Italy for the origin of my own vampires? Maybe I should change that, honestly. Hmmm -- now that I think about it, weren't there some Russian nobles who were comparable to Italians?

Anyway, I liked the ending of the book a lot, though I'm really pissed that Edward is so freaking dead set against turning Bella. I like that she's talking him into it, and I like the way Meyer is setting it up with several complications, but I can't believe that weenie actually thinks it would be better to watch his true love die, rather than stay with her forever. I mean, seriously? What the hell? How can he look at himself and his family and imagine that they don't have souls? Or if they have indeed lost their souls, that the soul is anything worth worrying about? Why worry about eternity in the afterlife when you can have eternity in this life with the one you love? What a jerk.