Thursday, June 16, 2016

Book Review: Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

First Published: 2007
Paperback
Young Adult, Fantasy
Rating:
"BELLA?"
Edward's soft voice came from behind me. I turned to see him spring lightly up the porch steps, his hair windblown from running. He pulled me into his arms at once, just like he had in the parking lot, and kissed me again.
This kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine - like he was afraid we had only so much time left to us.
--
As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob - knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?
Readers captivated by Twilight and New Moon will eagerly devour Eclipse, the much-anticipated third book in Stephenie Meyer's riveting vampire love saga.
Edward's back, Bella is still dependent on others but in a less pathetic manner and all is well with the world again! Well, except.... we still have that annoying love triangle. 
Eclipse was a lot better than New Moon plot-wise, no contest, but that doesn't mean I didn't wish Jacob was erased from the equation. At the very least on the love front. I detest love-triangles. 90% of the time, they ruin my enjoyment of the romance in a book.

And in Eclipse it's especially grating, because Twilight started off as basically the ultimate love story between Edward and Bella. I was behind these two as a couple 100% in book one. But now, how do you expect me to believe they share a pure and deep love if Bella herself doesn't seem so sure of that? In fact, she is so unsure she falls for another guy!

Speaking of Bells, I hoped this book would redeem her to me. It doesn't. For a girl who gave up living when her boyfriend left she is very... fickle. Also, Eclipse emphasizes Bella's most defining feature - she is useless. In the first book, I admired her courage despite this. By the third book, I'm mostly exasperated that her only course of action is sacrifice.

Moving on to Edward. He's better than he was in New Moon, granted, but at this point I feel like I love him more out of loyalty than anything else. He's just so apathetic about this whole thing. His excuse is that he brought it on himself - which, yes, he did - but that doesn't mean you need to appear as if you don't care!

Despite Eclipse being one of my least favorite of the series, it contains one scene that never fails to give me such strong feels. I shall call it the Rejection Scene. Feel free to ask in the comment for explanation, but the bottom line is that it gets me in every way, and I just think that's magical. Even if it's hella painful.

Aside for this scene, my favorite parts of this novel were Rose and Jasper's background. Here are two characters that were always on the sideline, but they get the spotlight for a while and it's cool and it's awesome and it makes you love them so much more and understand them. Especially in the context of the next book ;)

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