Wednesday, July 09, 2008

New Moon

I finally got around to continuing with the Twilight series, which was recommended to me by both Stephen and Sylvie. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer is the second book in the, so far, insanely readable series. Standard spoiler warnings apply especially if you haven’t read Twilight.

New Moon picks up in the fall after Twilight left off, on Bella’s eighteenth birthday. After a near miss involving a paper cut and Edward’s “brother” Jasper, Edward decides that Bella will be better off without him and his family around. He leaves and she is devastated. After a few months of nonstop moping, Bella begins spending time with Jacob Black and is rejuvenated by his friendship, until he begins to change.

I did not enjoy New Moon as much as Twilight. The best part about Twilight was Edward and Bella’s relationship and that was absentee for most of the book. The mythology of the series continues to be interesting. We have the addition of werewolves to the “monsters” involved. Jacob, whose information about his father’s beliefs helped Bella to figure out what was up with Edward, turns out to be descended from a line of werewolves who function as the protectors of their tribe. Again Meyer rejects common lore having the werewolves change as the result of anger instead of the moon. The idea of the werewolves coming into existence as a result having vampires in the vicinity is clever. We also learned more about the vampires, meeting the “royal family” the Volturi. Many of them have special gifts like Edward and Alice, although Bella seems to be immune to their powers, like she is Edward’s.

The book is structured as a loose allegory of Romeo and Juliet, with Edward and Bella playing the iconic couple and Jacob filling in as Paris. It would have worked better had Meyer not beat the reader over the head with this information. Still I liked the parallels with Rosalie filling in as Balthasar and Alice as Friar Lawrence.

The continuation of the mythology was good, but it could not save the story which was really subpar. As in Twilight most of the “twists” were obvious from a mile away and waiting for Bella to figure it out was annoying. I did not have much of a problem with Bella in Twilight, but I some trouble with her character in New Moon. She did some truly idiotic things, which is explained away by her desire to hear Edward’s voice cautioning her when she puts herself in danger and like so many heroines who have been dumped by the leading man for their own good; she actually believes that he doesn’t love her anymore. However my big problem with her (aside from having a female protagonist who is so entirely defined by her relationships to men) came at the end of the book. Am I truly supposed to believe that someone who is ready to give up everything and become a vampire to stay with the man that she loves and join his family has a problem with getting married to him? Really?

That said I did generally enjoy the book and once again couldn’t put it down. There is something compulsively readable about the series and some willful suspension of disbelief should take care of most of my problems with the book. There were good moments, such as the beginning when Bella dreams of being an old woman with a still youthful Edward. I hold out hope for the rest of the series and certainly won’t be stopping now.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting series, a family of werewolves, similar to Ann Rice's novels about vampires?

You have an interesting reading list Yoda.
Love
Daddy