Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (amazon)

I enjoyed the first couple books of the Twilight saga. By the third book I had grown tired of the constant “Bella in peril and is rescued” plot line that Meyer uses over and over. I was hoping that the fourth book would be better, but it wasn’t.

Spoiler Space!

I’m finding the comparisons of the Twilight saga to Harry Potter a little annoying. I can see why someone would compare the two just in terms of both being a publishing phenomena that cause people to line up at midnight to buy books, but Rowling is by far the superior writer. At least in the Harry Potter books good people die because they are fighting evil! Characters are sacrificed. Death is sometimes arbitrary, and life isn’t fair. There’s actually dramatic tension, and the characters grow and change. In contrast, Meyer is so in love with her own creations that nothing negative ever happens to them.

• Edward and Bella get married and have a magical psychic baby half-vampire baby (the sperm of the undead must be something) who is apparently so perfect that she doesn’t ever have a dirty diaper (hard to see how that would happen on a diet of blood) or a late night crying fit.
• The Edward-Bella-Jacob love triangle is wrapped up nicely when Jacob falls in love (imprints) on Bella’s infant daughter. There’s no emotional fallout to deal with. All of the tension that was built up over the three previous books goes away due to the magical baby.
• There’s the possibility of some tension due to Rosalie’s obsessiveness over the magical fetus in utero, but Meyer keeps going to the edge of something horrible happening and never delivering.
• There’s no real fall-out when Jacob becomes an alpha wolf, with his own mini-pack.
• Bella has the easiest transition to vampirehood in the history of transitions to vampirehood.
• There’s a vampire standoff at the end where nothing happens other than Bella getting more vampire superpowers, and the fighting is averted due to the power of democracy.

The lack of dramatic tension and character growth is a book that is extremely bland and a vampire saga that is the equivalent of generic vanilla pudding.