New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2)

In the first book Bella was dreamless, hobby-less, and hopeless. Now she becomes a lush for adrenaline because her precious vampire boyfriend dumps her. One can only wish she'd succeed instead of making the reader suffer along with her for 500 pages. Bella's self-confidence and self-worth rest on the whims of a boy, and a vampire at that, and that's hardly a good message for any girl to take away from the book. You get sick of hearing Bella whine about the hole in her chest.
The werewolves are actually decent, and one embellished the most also achieves what neither Bella nor Edward can: actual reader interest. Jacob Black has a hobby! He has some legitimate angst! He is flawed! And he and Bella actually have chemistry that goes beyond "You are my sun, my moon, my stars, my love!" Jacob strikes me as the kind of guy one could actually LIVE with for the rest of one's existence, morning breath and all. But don't expect Bella to actually LISTEN to any of this logic.
Perhaps more jaded sorts, such as myself, shouldn't read this. I am not a romance reader; I'm a fantasy buff and a stickler for character logic. I just kind of ended up in the wrong kind of territory. It baffles me that shallow, blah characters like Eragon and this series can become bestsellers hand over fist. I think in order for these books to work for me I'd have to believe in the happily-ever-after for these characters, and all I find myself thinking is "Okay, what are they going to DO for the rest of eternity? Stroking each other's ego's over how beautiful they are would get really old really fast ..."

This book perturbed me. A lot. Though I did enjoy Ms. Meyer's first installation of this series very much (even though the vampires glitter. go figure.) this one fell quite short of even being engaging. The Fault line? The protagonist. Where in Twilight Bella is her own person, intelligent, competent and refreshingly mature for her age, in New Moon she is selfish, codependent, bored, boring, stupid, irrational and just all around irritating. Instead of being someone who makes things happen, most of the book's major events transpire as a result of Bella's odd gravitational pull for danger. This gets old. Very old. Mostly, it is Bella's irreverent and irate actions that pull the story down and drown the reader. After a certain event (avoiding spoilers here) near the start of the book, Bella simply dissolves into a puddle of pathetic mush. Why should I give a hoot about her if she doesn't even give a hoot about her?? Never once did I feel an ounce of pity for her. Truthfully, she had more than enough for herself. Get a grip Bella! Pick yourself up! Be a strong character! DO something for crying out loud!
If I could smack her, I would.

P.S.
This book's saving grace was Jacob Black, the only character I could sympathize with. Don't worry Jacob, you're not missing much...

As soon as I finished reading "New Moon" I wanted nothing more than to be able to contact Stephenie Meyers (a face-to-face interview would be preferable!) and ask what the hell she was thinking when she decided to make Bella Swan such a co-dependent, pathetic excuse for a character. I mean come on, its only so obvious that many young, impressionable girls are reading the "twilight" series and (god forbid) thinking that they need a man in their life or else there's nothing left to live for. And by the way, I know some of you are probably wondering why I've read not only "New Moon" but "Eclipse" as well, after writing a less than wonderful review for "Twilight" but ill get to that later. First, lets go over the basic plot of "New Moon" and ill tell you why I especially despise Bella in this book.

At the beginning of "New Moon" Bella and Edward are happily in love (atleast as far as I can remember) until an unfortunate event happens during Bellas birthday party at the Cullens house, in which Edward realizes that his being near his dearly beloved puts her life in danger. So then.....*dramatic pause* Edward decides to leave, for Bellas own good (gasp!) and doesn't plan on ever coming back (oh no!) and worst of all, before leaving he acts as if he hates Bella and informs her that he no longer loves her (is it really so?!) for months afterwards, Bella turns into a catatonic headcase, barely able to function without her beautiful Edward around. She can't eat, can't listen to music, and can't even watch TV because something on it might remind her of Edward. (Rolls eyes) she makes pretty much no effort whatsoever to help herself and let her friends cheer her up, and she might have never recovered if not for....Jacob Black. Jacob Black, aka the werewolf (by the way, werewolves are enemies with the vampires which I just had to mention because I love how Bellas future best friend happens to be an enemy of the love of her life) Bella starts hanging out with Jacob more, and slowly starts to complain a little less about the "massive hole in her chest"....etc etc (skip ahead to the best parts) but of course Bella can't get Edward out of her head, especially when she realizes that she hears his voice when she is in danger, so then what does she do? Starts purposefully putting herself in ridiculously unecessary dangerous situation, even practically committing suicide just so she can hear his voice. Of course, the vampires find out and Alice Cullen informs Bella that Edward thinks that she is dead and so he decides that he no longer has a reason to live and decides to pay a little visit to Italy, in hopes that the volturi will play a role in ending his life as a vampire. So of course Bella immediately hops on a plane to Italy, and of course gets there just in time to save Edward. And then of course he ends up going back with Bella, realizing that he can't bear to live without her....blah, blah, blah! (Oh and I do love Edward, atleast until I read Eclipse, so I'm not trying to diss him I just couldn't help but roll my eyes at his dramatics in this book)

Ok, so now that I've finished with my summary of the book, here are some more things I'd like to add. Feel free to stop reading at anytime, really as I'm aware that I've written quite a lot already and I'm sure much of what I've said has probably angered many of you twilighters.

first, let me start off by saying that I did understand Bellas depression in this book (I just can't believe the extremes that she took it to) after all, I'm 19 and I've had my heartbroken before. But come, practically going into a catatonic state for not just weeks, but months and months, because your boyfriend left you? (And yes I understand that its definitely not easy to get over someone, especially someone that you love. I know this takes quite a bit of time) and not even being able to watch TV? And not being able to function in general, until another guy comes along? (Yep another great message there, girls: remember that having a man in your life is the only thing that will make you happy!) and seriously... are we really supposed to believe that Edward no longer loves Bella? And better yet, are we really supposed to believe that Bella really believes that Edward no longer loves her? Please. And worst of all is the fact that Bella was intentionally hurting herself in order to simply hear Edwards voice. Yet ANOTHER great message for young girls (missing your man? go jump off a cliff and commit suicide and hopefully that'll get his attention! Life without him isn't worth living anyway!) and then there's the extreme and completely unecessary drama of Edward deciding to end his life over Bella, and Bella getting there just in time (but of course) to save his life! Now, I know I may be making a huge deal out of nothing, seeing as how this is just a book, but there are many books out there in which the characters go through so much worse (I.E. Losing a loved one to death or something of the nature) and none of them act half as bad and self-pitying as Bella Swan. Someone needs to give her a swift slap to the face and tell her to wake up and smell the sunshine and inform her that having a man isn't the most important thing in the world. Perhaps somebody should inform Mrs. Meyers about this as well. A bit harsh? Maybe, but reading these books just made me realize how much I hate reading about female characters with no backbone whatsoever. And really, I have nothing against Stephenie Meyers so don't get me wrong. I think she could be a very talented writer if she wanted to be (after all, I haven't met one person who has never heard of her book series) but I just don't agree with the way she portrays Bella (as you can tell) and I don't like the kind of message young girls will get because of that.

And as I said, yes its true that I didn't like "twilight" and had no intention of finishing it, but my sister (who is a huge fan by the way) didn't understand how I couldn't like these books, and persuaded me to atleast finish the first one. So I did, and I came to the conclusion that the second half of the book was only slightly more interesting than the first. And was I the only one rooting for that vampire to kill Bella? And yes, even despite my dislike for "twilight" I still decided to read "new moon" because you know what I realized? These books are like a bad soap opera, something you don't necessarily like, but can't help but get caught up in it all, if only to laugh and say to yourself "seriously, why does everyone love this so much?"

And just one more thing I'd like to add. I don't necessarily dislike "twilight" overall. Atleast not the idea of it. After all I like the cullen family, and the volturi are actually pretty interesting. I just think that Stephenie needs to make some HUGE changes with Bella (if only!) and add some events of actual interest to the pages of "twilight" (instead of just Bella describing how beautiful Edward is every other paragraph) and then maybe ill have some nicer things to say about it all.

There are already alot of reviews for this book, but here's one more for you.

I bought it on a whim. I did not like "Twilight" - I thought it was poorly written. It had a romance that had no real flare or reason behind it, the heroine had a brain full of marbles. And there was the ridiculous stuff - vampires playing baseball, glittering in daylight, etc.

Why did I get "New Moon" then? Because it was at Wal Mart and I had run out of books and it was literally the only thing that seemed interesting. I wasn't completely revulsed by "Twilight" so I thought I'd give her vampire world another chance.

And she blew it. The breakup was ridiculous. Bella leading Jake around as she did was irresponsible and completely horrible. Of course she was hurting him and she knew it and did not care. Bella is a selfish character in general, and a delusional one at that. Despite the fact that Jake cared about her, she kept using him to force herself into more "dangerous" situations so she could "break her promise" and "even the score" to counter the promise that her vampire wannabe lover did not keep (that she supposed anyway). So "dangerous" motorcycle riding (oh shock, that's the worst you can think of?) and cliff jumping come into play so she could hear Edward's voice (it came to her only to warn her of doing stupid things, which of course, made her want to do even more stupid things).

Trying to get into a situation with some potentially dangerous strangers hanging out in front of a bar, while she was out walking in a dangerous area WITH HER FRIEND was even worse. Just so she could hear that voice and get her delusion fix. They could have been attacked, raped, or worse.

The book gets stupider, just as Bella does. Her relationship with her father makes her seem more like a 12 year old than an 18 year old legal adult. Through it all I think the most disgusting part was this: Throughout the whole entire book - Bella is begging to become a vampire like Edward so they can be together forever (she is afraid Edward will leave her once she's over the age of 20 or something since he is "forever 17" and as long as she's human she will still age). She manages to make a deal with "The Family" regarding the future state of her mortality after a particular set of circumstances. This makes future issues become nonissues. Edward is against this but says that he would help her along her road to immortality if she would marry him first.

Which she won't commit to.

EXCUSE ME?

You are willing to be bitten and changed by vampires to become an unsleeping, glittery-in-the-sun blood sucker for the rest of ETERNITY, and leave your parents and friends to rot and suffer without you, but you will NOT agree to marry the man that you *kept trying to kill yourself over just so you could hear his voice after he had faux dumped you?*. The one you absolutely cannot live without? Who gives you that freakin HOLE in your soul that we had to read about ten billion times while she ignored her friends and wallowed in self pity. The heck?

I know the author may be trying to discourage young marriages, but that just smacks of ridiculousness. I have no problems suspending disbelief for good fantasy takes on reality but its things like this that just blow it right out of context. It's also strange how attached she is to these people. When her vampire-friend Alice showed up, she was hanging on to her so hard and being so obsessive and overflowing with love that I thought they would end up being a same sex couple before the book was over.

In short "New Moon" is implausible, ridiculous, emo in the whiniest way, and finishes with a clunking thud. Character development is nonexistant, there is no sensual spark between Edward and Bella - just a creepy obsession, and thus leaves no reason left to read it. Yet, I'm sure there are zillions out there that lap this up like its the best thing since sliced bread.

Before the rabid fans of Stephanie Meyer come for me and trash my first review on this website I would like to add an adendum. I am a twenty-two year old Undergrade, and I enjoy a little "brain popcorn" every so often. Warning! Spoilers ahead.

I labored over a decision to buy and read the Twilight series for weeks. After asking/begging for information over the series at my local B&N reading reviews here on Amazon, and my Library Patrons I decided to give it a try. I read Twilight and was hooked, I finished it in about 2 days and moved on to the next two in the series. Then, I labored over wether I should write a review of this book or not. Funny, the laborous process should have been my first hint.

I want to ask Meyer, if she lost inspiration, had something traumatic happen, or just lose her drive to write these books? I was never interested in Edward as a character, or love intrest for Bella. By the time I finished New Moon I could care less about either of them and was just hoping Jacob would find a new, more interesting girl to suit him.

Bella is uninteresting, incredibly Emo (and not in an artistic way), and so Co-Dependent that you just want to bash her head in so that you can be done with it. Watching her stumble, bumble and "live" without Edward is incredibly painful and embarassing just to read about, let alone be caught reading about in public. She is so disgustingly set on Edward and his disgusting, vapid, rather uninteresting and beautiful family that her own life gets put on hold.

Perhaps if this book was written and released in the 80's, or prior to "Girl Power" this wouldn't be such an issue. But to market this kind of literature to a demographic is 13 to 20 year old Teens and Young Adults is just plain irresponsible! Sending the message that being incredibly selfish and leading someone on to deal with your own pain is both unforgiveable and sickening. The fact that Bella is so interesting in putting herself in harms way just to hear Edwards voice is just plain unbelievable at best and if you want me to believe that little miss "I don't want other people to realize that I exist" wants to cliff dive, I've got a bridge in Wichita to sell you.

Don't get me started on the forced, horrible literary refrences to Romeo and Juliet. The analogies, allusions and personifications of people were enough to make me tear my hair out.

So there you have it. If you're upwards of twenty something, read classic literature and/are a fan of the Bard, have self esteem and don't need a "man" to complete your life do not pick up these books and if you must, borrow from your local library.

Maybe I'm being stuffy, maybe I'm out of touch now that I'm an old lady of 28. But I generally like quality young adult fantasies, and I liked the original book a lot.

What got me about this one, like others have mentioned, was Bella's inability to function without her boyfriend, and later without a man in general. Like Charlie told her, she's not the first one to have gone through a break-up or have her heart broken. I wish she would have just sucked it up, gone on with her life, maybe gotten ANGRY with Edward for being such a drama queen. Instead it's wah, wah, wah, I've lost everything. Even though I have a home, two parents who love me, friends who are willing to support me even though I dropped them to be with a guy...none of it means anything because my true wuv, my high school boyfriend of one year, is gone. Boo-friggin' hoo, Bella. Her identity is so wrapped up in her boyfriend that her conscience speaks in his voice. Gag me.

Then, naturally, the only person to pull her out of her depression is another boy, and naturally she can't just tell him she ISN'T INTERESTED before things spin out of control. She thinks she's ready to become a vampire, but she can't break it off with a dude. It just bothered me.

All that aside, I liked the parts where Bella wasn't moping! :)

Twilight was a good read (the first time, not so much the others) so I felt compelled to pick up this one and find out how our "star-crossed" lovers were doing.

Instantly I was launched into a story of angst and Emo! to the extreme, cardboard cutouts, and plot-lackingness abound.

For the majority of the story all Bella does is mope around and play with another boy's affections until Edward finally returns and it concludes with the decision of whether she is to become a vampire or not. In the end nobody goes home a better person and another long and drawn out chapter in the life of the Twilight saga has ended.

I resisted throwing this book at the wall in disgust. Well written, my neck. On the topic of necks, I'm not betting my neck (or Bella's) that the next one will be any better.

...if you're an aspiring writer in need of a primer that gives never-ending examples of what NOT TO DO.

I'm working on a teen fantasy novel of my own, and Meyers' Twilight series never fails to remind me of the things I want to completely avoid in my own writing. Let's consult the list, shall we?

1) THE BORING SUE HERIONE. You may have heard of the Mary Sue, the perfect female protagonist who can do no wrong, who has unnatural beauty, who is beloved by all; Bella isn't quite a Mary Sue. She's described (by herself, at least) as plain and is endlessly clumsy (though her clumsiness is so contrived that it seems like a magical Sue ability, practically). She also has no interests, hobbies, or anything that she excels at in particular. Despite these flaws, Bella nevertheless ends up a Sue because everyone loves her for reasons that defy explanation or logic. Even when she is behaving in a selfish, whiny, and intolerable way, Bella is never called out for her behavior. The only character who ever seems disgusted by Bella is Jessica, but since Jessica is written as a shrew anyway, we're clearly not meant to put much stock in her opinion.

2) FATED TRUE LOVE. In my world, Fated True Love isn't romantic, it's lazy. It says "hey, instead of working out why these characters are attracted to each other and showing how their relationship develops, I'm gonna just put it in the hands of FATE and have them fall in love for no reason whatsoever!" Edward loves Bella because she smells good, which means Edward loves Bella like I love freshly baked bread. Bella loves Edward because he's beautiful. God-like. So beautiful...really BEAUTIFUL, in case you missed it in all the numerous descriptive reminders. But really, why do they love each other? I have no idea. Shakespeare was all too aware of the ridiculousness of star-crossed love, which is why he was smart and killed his teenaged lovers off. But Bella and Edward's happiness hinges entirely on their togetherness. What a strong, solid message to send to the young women of the world: happiness isn't something you create for yourself, oh no, it's something you can ONLY find in a beautiful, immortal man. Bella's slow recognition of Jacob as a potential suitor was far more interesting and realistic, and it was teeth-gnashingly disappointing to see Bella repeatedly insist to herself that no one would ever do it for her again but Edward.

3) THE ZERO-HOUR PLOT. Nothing much happens in Meyers' books, aside from Bella's enthrallment/suffering over Edward. In the last few chapters, Meyers will attempt to inject some kind of conflict into the narrative, either in the form of James, Victoria, and Laurent ("Twilight") or the Volturi ("New Moon"). It's difficult to get invested in this conflict at the last minute, and again feels like a lazy, tacked-on, "oh right, I am writing a book, maybe something should happen!" move from the author.

Of course, as someone who hopes to be successful at writing teen fantasy, it's depressing to know that all I would need to do to achieve this success is construct a BORING SUE HEROINE, a FATED TRUE LOVE, and a ZERO HOUR PLOT.

Or maybe it's not depressing...maybe it's an incredible relief! After all, coming up with those three things shouldn't be too hard. If a lazy writer like Meyers can do it, anyone can!

For readers looking for good, solid teen-level fantasy featuring interesting heroines, more complex and realistic portrayals of love, and truly gripping plot, I recommend Diana Wynne Jones and Libba Bray.

After reading TWILIGHT, I hoped Bella might grow a backbone. But no. She goes from too stupid to live to "shouldn't she have died fifty pages ago?" I skimmed ahead and found her riding motorcycles too fast, leaping off cliffs, etc. just so she can hear Edward's voice in her head. I obviously share no damsel-in-distress fantasies.

As in the previous book, Edward and the rest of the vampires are far too perfect for me to even faintly imagine they could ever be real. They're immortal, strong, fast, beautiful, telepathic, and gee! They sparkle, too. Why don't they have any flaws? Why should I care what happens to any of them? The werewolves seem like yet more excessively powerful males to rescue Bella. I don't like the gigantic rage-driven wolf concept, either. It seems too Hollywood. I do, however, like the use of Native American skinwalker legends.

Disclaimer: I never read the last fifty or so pages of the book because I chucked it aside.

You end the book hating the character of Bella more then you could have ever thought possible. She comes off as two things throughout the book. First a bit of a bitch to one her father, for ignoring him for months then running off to Italy with only a note to tell him where she is. Also for obviously jerking Jacob around by his heart strings throughout the book.

The second thing? She comes off as very much not in her right mind. She goes catatonic for a week and into a zombie trance for months because Edward left her. I'm sorry I refuse to believe one's soul mate leaving them would warrant a reaction like that. She's obsessive about Edward to a degree that if it weren't for the fact he's equally as obsessed, we would have a set of psychotic stalkers on our hands. Instead it's true love, ain't that just the most darling message?

Edward comes off as a dick for leaving Bella, who is very much not in her right mind (she goes catatonic for a week then goes zombie trance for months?), and honestly seems very suicidal. He constantly tosses around the idea of suicide so much and how he's going as soon as she goes, you get the idea that he's going to cut her brakes, just so he can off himself.

Any actual plot was procrastinated off to the very end, when Alice deus ex machina's in and tells Bella about suicidal Edward. Then it's off to Italy, a narrow save of Edward (who could have seen that coming?), and the Volturi lovingly shoving it down our throats that Bella is the most special snowflake of the lot.

And I very much appreciated the Romeo and Juliet comparisons being shoved down my throat every other chapter. Ms. Meyer, I'm sure you've read it (because Bella is so obviously a young Mary-Sue version of yourself), the main things I took away was a cautionary tale of feuding and how it will destroy what you care for most.I never saw the true love of the play, and it always seemed like a plot point more then anything, for the rest of a more interesting story to go off of. Hey maybe New Moon is more like it then I thought... except with the lacking of a more interesting story.

In review what does her brand of true love tells us what? You can't live without your man. It's perfectly okay to drop entire lives for someone you love. It's perfectly okay to commit suicide just to hear your ex's voice. It's perfectly okay to go comatose because you where dumped.


I only have one question after being forced to read this book. Why. Ms. Meyer, Why?