Eclipse...

Hello Ladies!

Okay, I have to start off by saying that I read this book like a crazy woman when it first came out and was fit to be tied that I had no one to talk to about it when I was done! lol. So, needless to say, I'm glad Katie chose this one (though I did read about a third-ish of Calamity Physics and its end, for which I can review it with this: GET TO THE POINT, Blue!!!!! Yegads. That girl cited more sources than half the academic history journals I had to read during grad school!!!! It dragged down the book and the story so much that you really didn't care who was killed and for what reason. I DID however, find the "final exam" at the end of the book funny. And that's my review of that book.)

Alrighty then. Eclipse. I, too, really liked this book because I was so curious as to how things were going to turn out and I like Stephenie Meyer, as a person (I've seen a couple of the interviews she's done for Borders, GMA, etc.) and as a writer.

That being said, man was I miffed when I was done reading it the first time (I'm currently re-reading it)!!!! In fact, I was like, "ARGHHHHH!" I felt that SM had made Jacob too much of a character in this book, had neutered Edward, and had notched up the whine factor for "poor" Bella. In fact, Bella was so guilt ridden and angst filled that at times I wanted both Edward and Jacob to leave her alone so she could find a good therapist!!! The girl, seriously, has issues (more than just hanging out with vampires and werewolves). She is too much a people pleaser for me to really feel that she knows what she wants at the tender age of 18...and this is spoken from a mega-people pleaser who is still reeling from an unfortunate photo event between my divorced parents at my wedding.

So, here's some of the things that I didn't like: I didn't like the fact that Jacob kissed Bella into recognizing she really LURVED him too. I should have known when we had the Wuthering Heights analogies that NO GOOD was going to happen to this little love triangle. But seriously, he had to kiss her before she realized she LOVED him? WHAT was THAT about????? I think that she kissed him and actually had, quite literally, a heated response; I don't know that I would classify that as love. As Katie said, WAY too Harlequin Romance for me. Once again, if Bella was so out of touch with her feelings for him that she had to be forced into admitting them...THERAPY! That's what she needs before she really commits to EITHER of them! And truthfully, I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that Jacob was only 16, though he looked 25, and wasn't being considered a near date-rapist when he was forcing her to kiss him. That wasn't romantic to me at all. Yes, he acted foolish like a 16 year old in love for the first time, but the fact that his character is physically so strong made all that too creepy for me somehow. Just as Edward was seriously over-protective of Bella and often over-reacted, Jacob came off as some bad cologne that was sprayed on too strongly for my personal taste.

And Edward...of the three, I probably had the least problem with his character because I felt that he at least made some emotional progress. You really do have to allow the person you love to chose and he did that. I'm glad that he stuck to his guns about his morality (being that kind of guy). I'm still a little put off about Bella being so opposed to marriage, and at the end, I wanted to see her really embracing the idea of being married to Edward as opposed to the idea of having the wedding to say good-bye to friends/family and to please Alice and Edward.

Bella...was shrill and whiny to me. In Twilight, though she seemed klutzy, at least she seemed strong emotionally. Now, I realize that she's been through alot. But her character kind of regressed to me. I was often rolling my eyes at her antics. As I'm typing this, I think that the word that keeps coming to mind was that Bella was consciously selfish. She knew it and refers to it several times in the book, but still chooses that selfishness. Maybe that's what bugged me. I understand that in the end she was supposedly choosing, but I was mad at her character for agreeing with Jacob that he was more like "sun" and "natural" stuff, whereas her love and need for Edward was likened to a "drug". ugh.

I should mention that I'm writing this practically a MONTH after the book came out. Since I first read it, I've lurked on the Twilight Lexicon to see what other readers thought and I've read SM's website. She recently posted some FAQs about Eclipse that she heard repeatedly on her book signing tour, and she says that Jacob did NOT imprint on Bella. She agreed, too, that Jacob was playing dirty with Bella because in his mind, he was not only trying to win his first love's heart, but trying to save her life. And Bella had to go through all that so, as Katie and Karen had discussed, so she could see and recognize her choices and truly make the one that she wanted. All that extra input has been helping in this second reading, but still...I find myself rolling my eyes.

All that being said, I actually did like the book--quite a bit. I enjoyed that once again, I could totally submit and enter the world of Forks quite happily. I liked all the new things that we learned about Rosalie and Jasper, warring vampires and how to combat them, and about the werewolves in general, and I thought the conversation/negotiations about waiting until marriage was part of a relationship, especially when you have two moral compasses/generations at work. And most importantly, eyes rolling aside, I'm still excited about the next book. A year seems like a long time.

Great choice, Katie!!!! :)