Eclipse

I actually read Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer while I was in Washington and wrote most of this review on the train, but between all the posting of pictures and some general laziness I haven’t taken the time to sit down and finish it. I’m planning to pick up Breaking Dawn this weekend so I wanted to get this done before I get influenced by the rest of the story. Anyway, the Twilight series was recommended by Stephen and Sylvie and, as always, spoilers follow.

Wow! Let’s start with wow. Eclipse is so many light years better than New Moon. This is the sequel I was looking for when I finished Twilight. How wonderful it is to regain the sensuality that made me love the first book. Sure the characters are still thinly drawn, but the story is too good for me to really care.

Eclipse picks up soon after New Moon left off. Bella is still grounded for running off to Italy and having a motorcycle and her father is still unhappy about her relationship with Edward. Soon she and her father come to an agreement, he’ll let her leave the house if she’ll spend more time with her other friends. This is complicated by Edward’s distrust of Jacob, who her father particularly wants her to see. After trying, and failing to keep Bella away from Jacob, Edward agrees that she should be allowed to see him. Reports of deaths and disappearances from Seattle complicate things and eventually warrant an uneasy alliance.

First of all I was glad to have a least some attempt to give Bella a reason to not want to get married. “I’m just not that girl,” is not the best reason in the world, but it worked well enough for me to go back to willfully suspending my disbelief.

I was worried early on that I was going to find Edward as irritating as Bella was in New Moon, but once he got over his refusing to allow her to see Jacob, I fell right back in love with him. Jacob spent a lot of time being annoying, but that’s his character so I can let it slide.

There was more interesting lore from both the vampires and the werewolves. Back stories were revealed for Rosalie and Jasper and Bella got to hear the Quileute tribe’s story of the werewolves’ origins.

The story was much less cliché and predictable which is not to say that is wasn’t at all, it was quite obvious that Victoria was the one coming after Bella and that there would have to be a vampire/werewolf alliance, but having Bella genuinely conflicted about her feelings for Jacob was nice. No, I never thought she would choose him, but I liked seeing the choice actually be made. The teasing at their chemistry was one of the few things I liked about New Moon and I welcomed its return. And that was quite an impressive kiss. I’m sure thirteen year olds everywhere are still swooning.