New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

This book is the sequel to Twilight, which I read I think right before I started this little project.  New Moon.  I can't remember how long it took me to read this, but I can't imagine it took very long, because this is a kick-ass book.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Bella Swan and Edward Cullen (vampire) are in their senior year of high school, enjoying every minute of being together.  The only thing spoiling Bella's happiness is the fact that she just turned 18 and Edward is still in his 17-year-old's body.  But at her birthday party at the Cullen's house, Bella nicks her finger, and the Cullens can barely control themselves.  Edward decides that he is a danger to her, so breaks up with her, and the whole Cullen family leaves.  Bella becomes distraught, and basically shuts down.  She does not come out of her zombie-like state until she reconnects with her old friend Jacob Black, who's going through some rough changes of his own.

Some spoilers

Good Stuff

Jacob and Bella's relationship makes up for the fact that Edward is missing from most of the book.  I had checked Amazon before reading the book, and I was a little distressed to learn that Edward wasn't in the middle of the book, but I didn't even notice his absence with Jacob there.

The whole book is about love and relationships.  It's a young adult supernatural romance novel sans sex (sadly).  

I love books where everything is exaggerated and in which things that happen that you just go, "Real life isn't that way."  I'm not explaining this very well, but I don't want to give away too much of the story.  Suffice it to say, the romance is heightened by unrealistic happenings, but it makes everything so good, you just don't care.

Meyer described Bella's break down in the most amazing way possible.  LOVED IT.

Lots of other good stuff, but way too much to list.  Just go read the book.  It's PHENOMENAL.

Bad Stuff

Bella only cares about Edward.  She does care about her dad and Jacob, but Edward supercedes everyone.  It's a little annoying.

Bella relies too entirely much on Edward and his family and, when the Cullens are gone, Jacob.  She can't hardly take care of herself.

BIG SPOILER coming up (part of bad stuff)



At the end, Edward proposes marriage to Bella, and she doesn't want to have it.  The girl wants him to make her a freakin vampire, but she won't marry him.  Idiot.

There really isn't a lot of bad stuff in the book.


So, recommend INCREDIBLY highly.  Everyone should read this book and Twilight before.  There's a third one coming out next year I think.  Also, everyone should go check out Stephenie Meyer's website, www.stepheniemeyer.com, because she's got a bunch of great extras on it.  She's got extra chapters from Edwar's and Jacob's points of view, playlists that she feels captures the mood of the chapters, even info on the movie they might make of Twilight.