Okay, here we go, last book in the series.
Breaking Dawn picks up just a few short days away from Bella's wedding to Edward. This is a fairly uneventful part of the book designed no doubt to drag out every smooshy feeling that can be contrived from a female heart. Jacob, who has been missing since the end of the last book, even comes back to town to see Bella on her wedding day. The only thing of note that occurs is that Jacob finds out that Bella and Edward plan on attempting to have sex before she is changed into a vampire. Convinced Bella will die in the process Jacob attempts to start a fight with Edward at his wedding, but is soon stopped by the rest of his pack of wolves. Immediately after the wedding Bella is swept off by Edward to an island owned by the Cullens off the coast of Brazil.
Isle Esme (a gift from Carlisle to his wife) is where the first attempt at coitus takes place. Bella wakes up the next morning feeling better than she ever had in her life, on the other hand, Edward is ashamed of the bruises he seemed to have left all over Bella's body. Edward refuses to try again, in spite of Bella's many attempts after that. One night Bella wakes up from a nightmare crying and attacks Edward (sexually) unaware, and makes it through the event without any bruises. From there on out it's a complete fuck fest. Prompting Bella to reconsider being changed into a vampire. If Bella were to be changed, then all she would care for is blood, the lust for it overtaking her every thought, and she couldn't get her sex on like she was currently. Once again I ask; are you sure you want to be a vampire you crazy fucking dame? First it's "oh I love Jacob AND Edward", now it's "I don't want to be a vampire just yet, I'm really enjoying the cock". Edward should punt this bitch into the ocean and fuck the vampires from Alaska post haste. Also once you get passed the wedding and the honeymoon, you realize that you now know how Meyer wants (wanted? is this bitch married?) her wedding and honeymoon to go down.
Quickly something becomes amiss as Bella has the early onset of morning sickness and a visible preggo belly. Edward calls Carlisle, who confirms that he thinks that Bella could possibly be with child. Edward and Bella flee back to Forks while Bella seems to grow ever larger by the minute. Edward, Carlisle, and anyone else with common sense, want to get the beast out of her before it can kill her, so Bella calls Rosalie looking for a bodyguard for when she gets back to Forks to protect her and the baby.
Then for some unknown reason Meyer decides to mix it up with the formatting of her narrative and switches to telling the story from the point of view of Jacob. Okay, vampire baby I'll give you. It happened in Angel, and it led to the shittiest story lines in the show based on Conner, the worst character to grace a television show since Dawn. I'll let it fucking slide. Switching narrative points is a lousy trick, and you're a hack writer Meyer.
There's some inconsequential attempt at getting Bella to have an abortion and then attempt to have a child that won't be born by eating it's way out her stomach like the babies in Alien by Jacob, Bella doesn't go for it. Bella is determined to have THIS baby, though it's easy to see that it's killing her.
So Jacob's pack find out about Bella's pregnancy, and though they're completely cool with Bella becoming a vampire, her having a vampire child is completely beyond them and they decide they have to go kill Bella. Jacob, who wanted to kill everything in sight when he found out that Bella was going to be changed into a vampire refuses to kill Bella to rid them of the baby. Jacob uses his heritage as the official and actual alpha of the pack to leave the group and set off on his own to basically become the Cullen's lapdog. One of the wolves Seth, goes with him, followed eventually by Seth's sister and scorned woman from earlier in the series, Leah. With Seth Leah, and Jacob protecting the Cullens, the pack doesn't have the nerve to go kill Bella.
Eventually the realization occurs that it isn't that the baby is killing Bella, just that it needs blood, and is draining Bella slowly. so starts Bella on her first vampiric act, a steady diet of human blood, as bought with enormous fortune of the Cullens and Carlisle's medical connections. Once again prompting the question, why not just live on donated blood? Isn't that MORE humane that running into the woods every so often to slaughter some innocent animals with your teeth? Maybe I just know too many vegans.
Now that Bella was in perfect health again, and so was her unborn infant, the infant uses it's new strength to start breaking her ribs from the inside. Damned if you do, damned if you don't I guess.
Slowly but surely the Cullens and Jacob become a tight knit little group of oddities. Even the spats between Rosalie and Jacob, who dislike each other vehemently, seem more sibling like. Even though all of this requires Jacob to be around Bella nearly twenty four hours a day, and takes it's obvious emotional toll on him. At this point you're just kind of waiting for Jacob to imprint on something and get it over with, and actually it seems, Jacob is also. Just when Jacob seems to get most fed with the entire situation Bella vomits a geyser of blood, which I assume is supposed to be the half vampire baby being born to a human version of the water breaking.
What follows is the most violently and gory scene in the entire series. Bella's stomach is torn apart leaving only a gaping hole where the lower part of her torso used to be and her back is broken by the infant in the process. Awesome. Bella's heart stops in the process and Edward injects a syringe filled with his own vampire venom directly into her heart, then proceeds to give her CPR to push the venom through her system. Jacob is convinced that Bella is dead but feels strangely compelled to stay near the infant in spite of his gut instinct to run far away. Jacob is pissed at this baby girl, and just when he's about to tear the baby apart, his last act as a living person as he would almost instantly be murdered by the Cullens, Stephanie Meyer pisses right into my fucking eyeballs while laughing what I can only assume is a witches cackle. Jacob imprints on the fucking baby. Fuck this book, seriously.
By the way, the babies name is Renesmee, a mix between Renee (her mother's name, and Esme (Edwards "mother's" name). I'll be calling her by the nickname Jacob gives her in the book though, Nessie, as it conjurs images of the Loch Ness Monster and not terrible made up names that idiots are probably going to start using on actual children in real life soon.
Hey back to Bella's point of view. Awesome.
Bella lays on the bed completely motionless for three days as she burns in agony from the vampire venom in her system changing her. Bella eventually wakes up a vampire (finally) and takes to it like a fish to water. She feels the thirst, but can seem to control her emotions much better than anyone has ever planned. Out hunting with Edward, Bella smells some hikers and takes off after them on pure instinct. While being chased by Edward, Bella turns to fight him off so she can go drink the hikers, but regains her composure and then flees in the opposite direction of the hikers. Something completely unheard of for a newborn vampire. Of course this bitch wouldn't kill anyone, god for-fucking-bid anything cool happen. We get details as told from Bella's point of view of course about the heightened senses. Smell, sight, and hearing all honed to Wolverine like abilities, and Superman style strength and invulnerability. All of the awesome for Bella and none of the entertaining drawbacks. Bella has enough control to even hold her own daughter without feeling the thirst.
We find out that Nessie has her own ability, to touch anyone and convey her thoughts to them, which is sort of the opposite of what Bella can do by blocking all other abilities out her head. Nessie, I forgot to mention grows at an accelerated rate. even the pregnancy lasted only a few weeks, maybe a month, I don't really recall any actual numbers being thrown around, just that it was FAST. Bella is scared Nessie will grow old and die quickly because of this, but I'm sure you're not worried as I wasn't either because it seems nothing ever terrible and permanent ever seems to happen to Bella ever.
Jacob overhears that the Cullens might move across the country and decides to out himself as a wolf to Charlie. This is so that Charlie would know that the world he lived in was filled with magic, and anomalies and the sort and would be prepared to come see Bella, who he has been told is sick in bed at the CDC in Atlanta. Charlie takes the whole event with the attitude that he doesn't REALLY want to know more than he absolutely has to and that as long as Bella is happy, he is okay. Bella doesn't even have to out herself as a vampire to Charlie in the end, even if being near him was probably supposed to be incredibly dangerous as he was the first human Bella had seen in person since becoming a vampire.One of Bella's super vampire traits, evidently super self control.
So Jacob, Bella, and Nessie went out hunting one afternoon, and get spotted by Irina, a vampire who had come to apologize to the Cullens about something that escapes my memory, and honestly isn't important at this juncture. Irina sees Nessie, and is off like shot to tell the Volturi on Bella. I guess another thing the Volturi are strictly against is infant and child vampires. This shit finally has some hope of getting really interesting. The Cullens know what all this means instantly and they begin whipping an army of vampires together hopefully big enough, not to stop the volturi, but to at least get them to hesitate long enough to hear that Nessie isn't a turned vampire, but a freak of nature, and not as dangerous as the children vampires of before who wreaked enough havoc to be outlawed. Alice grabs Jasper and hightails it out of there, leaving the Cullens convinced they had been abandoned by them.
So the Cullens get their friends together from every corner of the earth. A lot of whom have their own special vampire abilities. The Vampires who come are mostly won over by the idea that Carlisle isn't actually looking to pick a fight with the volturi, just attempt to get them to listen, and by Nessie using her ability to show them her thoughts and prove that she is of no harm, isn't a full vampire, and thus isn't the product of any broken volturi laws. The Cullens are sure that it isn't really what the volturi are out for anyways, but that the mental abilities of Edward, Alice, and even Bella now are more what they're looking to gain by killing the rest of the Cullen family.
Bella learns that as a vampire her ability to block out others mental attacks can be projected onto others to protect them now that she has heightened vampire abilities, this comes in handy later.
So the fateful day that Alice had foreseen arrived and the Cullens and their army of witnesses met with the volturi and their own collection of vampire witnesses from all over in a field. If you're thinking what I'm thinking, then we both thought wrong, because these motherfuckers don't even so much as get into a sissy slap fight. God fucking damnit. What happens is Bella learns that not only can she project to proect against others mental attacks, but that she can do so over a very large range over very specific targets. It works out later when the volturis strong mentalist assault from Jane (makes you feel pain) and another who's name escapes me that can make your senses fail you, including sight.
There's several exchanges between Aro and Edward, Carlisle, and a few vampires who came to bare witness (but secretly agreed to fight alongside Carlisle if that's what it came down to). The volturi discover the truth of situation, and in spite of that want to destroy the Cullen coven anyways to take Edward and Bella as their prizes. there's a great little speech at one point where an Egyptian vampire by the name on Benjamin points out that even though the volturi have seen that the child is no harm to their way of life the volturi press the issue and that it will lead to them all be subjugated by the Italian coven. A very serious accusation to make amongst vampire who all consider themselves above any sort of ruling laws that aren't specifically designed to hide them and their way of life.
Just in the nick of time, Alice arrives back with Nahuel, another half-breed vampire human! Seeing that a half breed vampire human could grow to maturity (which takes about seven years at the accelerated rate pf halfbreed growth Jacob will be glad to know, but my lunch that I vomited up when I thought about Jacob being in love with a baby wasn't) without ever exposing the vampires or their way of life pretty much clenches the vote up .
Pressed into such a hard corner, having to fight what is essentially a fair fight after ages of slaughtering all they came across, the volturi take their votes on how to deal with the situation and decide that they are going to leave the Cullen clan alone. That's it, they just leave. Hundreds of vampires and wolves all just standing around in a field waiting for one cool ass epic battle to break out and they all just walk away. The volturi go down to South America where Nahuel is from to find his creator and deal with him for having purposefully created half-breeds, but we don't even get see them murder him. I mean Irina gets it at one point for bearing false witness against the Cullens, but with armies ready to go, this was a painfully disappointing ending. This was like Battlestar Galactica bad as far as endings go. Everyone lives happily ever after? No one gets killed? What the FUCK. When I read the volturi were just leaving you'll have to imagine me yelling "MEYER!" like I was in Wrath of Kahn.
Want to know what I think?
Not that you couldn't already tell but I'm pissed. I defended you and your books Meyer. Yes, I hate them, but I hate them for very much more validated reasons than the "vampires don't sparkle" army. I gave them a chance, and I can say time and time again Meyer chose the easiest possible path through her stories. A lot of what was going to happen was painfully obvious long before it ever actually occurred (see; Jacob imprinting on a goddamn newborn). Long before it ever happened my little sister received a text saying "if Jacob imprints on that baby I'm going to shove this book down my own throat and choke myself to death".
Not killing any of the central characters? Really? Even Rowling had the cajones to off some of the most beloved characters in her Harry Potter series. Because Rowling knew, like all good writers, if you want to take your story from good to legendary, you gotta kill some people the fans love. Don't believe me? Ask any Joss Whedon fan. End of fucking story. Anya was the best character in Buffy and she got the axe. Wash, log in the chest. Penny, piece of death ray to the torso. It's just how good storytelling works. I went into this book expecting someone to go down. Maybe Bella would eat her own father, thus making the book an instant classic in my heart. Maybe Rosalie would die protecting Bella's child and the two would part being closer than Bella ever thought was possible. Jasper dies protecting Alice. Edward Cullen bites it protecting the child and Jacob marries vampire Bella and they live with the Cullens forever. ALL of these possible plot lines are a million times cooler than anything that actually happened in this fucking book. Why? I have no idea, maybe Meyer is more scared of someone dieing than Bella was before she was changed into a vampire. For whatever reason, fuck you Meyer.
I thought I was grossed out when the wolf imprinted on the two year old, but you proved me dead wrong, it could evidently get much worse. So thank you again from the bottom of my colon for making Jacob imprint on Nessie, it was not only painfully predictable storytelling on your part, but deeply disturbing. Even more so when you take into account that Meyer is Mormon and their history of marrying 13 year old girls to 35 year old men. Maybe you can make polygamy a central point in the next book you write.
Did I mention I was angry about the ending. No battle? None? Is there like an alternate ending version of this book I can buy where instead of drinking too much potion and sleeping too long, Ash kills a deadite in the middle of a crowded S-mart? I'll be glad to rewrite this review if you rewrite the last four chapters of that hellish book Meyer.
Also, lastly, STOP STARTING EVERY FUCKING SENTENCE WITH A CONJUNCTION!!! IT'S JUST BAD GRAMMAR!!! It was REALLY starting to grate on my nerves. That means sentences don't start with the following words; but, and, also etc etc. "But then Alice shows up" works just as well as "then Alice shows up" without the easily corrected grammatical error you hack writer!
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