Breaking Dawn – Stephenie Meyer

★★★★

Oh the memories. The angsty teen memories. They’re all flooding back.

It should come as no surprise that I have a dark and dangerous past – I was a Twihard.

I loved this series with every beat of my teenage heart. I had a poster, I had a vegetarian vampire shirt, I had a themed birthday party, and (worst of all) I did this to a book:

I can’t even open it anymore for fear of the pages falling out and the spine splintering…yet I can’t bear to throw it away.

And now (ten years later), I’m revisiting the series to see how my opinion’s changed over the last decade. For the most part, I still am pleasantly pleased by how much I enjoyed rereading.

I very nearly memorized the series as a teen so during the reread, it was nice to see the scenes with fresh eyes after all this time. It was like visiting an old friend.

However, this time around there were several moments/aspects that stood out so much clearer to adult-me:

Jacob went from a lovable sidekick to a mopey and whiny teen in my eyes.

It wasn’t unbearable, but it was so much more noticeable this round:

“What do I look like? The Wizard of Oz? You need a brain? You need a heart? Go ahead, take mine. Take everything I have.”

15-year-old me thought this was perfectly reasonable (and undoubtedly romantic).

25-year-old me couldn’t stop noticing how he kept trying to force himself on Bella in Eclipse and then did the whole woe-is-me when Bella kept trying to tell him to stop (even when she was married.) That werewolf needed a firm kick in the teeth. 

AND (for the first time) I noticed how conveniently and absolutely perfect everything worked out for Bella. The sheer amount of coincidences drove me a bit bonkers:

And then we continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever.

15-year-old-me was so relieved that the tension/uncertainty was resolved. We could finally get those super-cute moments with the Cullen Family. 25-year-old-me kept waiting for something to happen.

I mean, the first 2/3 of the book consists of Bella getting married and being pregnant. Lots and Lots of filler-fluff.

She’s the calmest newborn in centuries, she makes leaps and bounds with her gift and has a super adorable precocious child. It’s verging on Mary-Sue territory.

Stop being so… optimistic. It’s getting on my nerves.

Most notably, the series’ end wasn’t as all-consuming and life-altering as I remembered it being. I still enjoyed the series but it just doesn’t hold to my memory. (I guess that’s a product of growing up).

I’m a bit disappointed about that. Ah well. It’s still a four-star-er in my book – here’s to nostalgia and memories!

Audiobook Comments
For such a popular book, you’d think the audio would be a bit better.

The female voice (done by Ilyana Kadushin for Bella’s parts) didn’t have enough variation in tone – especially when she did male characters. Nearly every adult male had the same voice and the accents of the new/visiting vampires wasn’t distinct enough.

The guy voice (done by Matt Walters) was a bit better for the distinction but sounded wooden throughout the book.

The 2018 Popsugar Reading Challenge – A book with the time of day in the title

Interested in this one from Stephenie Meyer? Buy it here:  Amazon