You may wonder why I’m writing a review of/evaluating the third book of the Twilight Saga. Why not Twilight? Or Breaking Dawn? The reason is that I deplore the entire series, and I find Eclipse to be the most difficult to bear. This review might just turn into a huge rant about the series as a whole, because, as an adult, I’m horrified if anyone even brings up vampires in books. The entire series has put me off against the idea of having a vampire as the male protagonist. Unlike many readers, I don’t see the appeal of guys with fangs and pale skin, with shockingly black hair in contrast.
Twilight, to a seventh/eighth grader, is seemingly normal. There’s shy, complacent Bella, trying to adapt to a new high school, and being confused about the entire Cullen family- Edward brooding on most days, and intimidating on others. The revelation that Edward is a vampire comes well into the book, and it isn’t anything jarring. The entire book has at least some sort of plot: Girl moves to a new town, tries to figure out Edward Cullen’s game and understands that the eighteen-year-old boy, is actually over a hundred years old, with his being a vampire bringing immortality along the way. The plot moves along with the blood-thirsty James, trying to find Bella. In all, Twilight is a pretty good start to a series, if you ignore the silly teenage romance happening along the way. The premise and the plot of Twilight are pretty average, but not intolerable.
I was a pretty big fan of Edward myself when I started reading New Moon. Edward seemed to be pretty big on morals and tried to lead as normal of a life as possible, given his circumstances. However, New Moon started to rub off on me, and not in a good way, when Edward leaves. We are left with multiple blank pages, just to represent Bella’s agony during the months he’s gone. Yes, I get it, Edward’s a pretty big deal, but is it worth giving up life over? Absolutely not. It’s during New Moon, that I begin to regard Bella as such a passive protagonist, she has absolutely no ideas of her own, everything’s just Edward this, Edward that. Even then, I did finish New Moon and was even content as a fourteen-year-old reader, that Bella would stop pining about her favourite vampire, once the entire standoff with Edward and the Volturi came to a close.
Why do I despise Eclipse? There’s absolutely no plot line unless you consider introducing a triangle, to be a good substitute. The entire story again revolves around a string of murders, basically a rerun of Twilight, just this time around, there are a bunch of murderers. There’s Jacob too, and I understand that he was a pretty good friend to Bella, during the time Edward was gone in New Moon, but that doesn’t mean that he’s anywhere near as good as Edward. He lacks any kind of emotional maturity, and plays into Bella’s insecurities, out of mere spite towards Edward. The inclusion of numerous pages of werewolf history does nothing to add to make me even remotely Team Jacob. Most of the book also deals with Bella’s wish to turn into a vampire. Why? Just why? So that she can marry Edward and live happily ever after? The entire thing seems absurd. In my opinion, Bella’s problems with Edward and Jacob, are very subpar compared to L.J Smith’s books with Elena Gilbert vs. Damon and Stefan Salvatore. (Those two vampires are much better, and have their priorities straight). Eclipse even ends with a cliché- Bella’s agreed to get married, and she’ll become a vampire (yay, I suppose). Jacob is left in the dust. Could we have had a trilogy, without the entire drama with Jacob? Absolutely yes. Twilight, New Moon and Breaking Dawn would have been much more bearable. I know I dislike New Moon as well, but Twilight to Breaking Dawn, in just two books, would have been a bit too much.
I suppose Eclipse appeals to audiences that like slow books, with a ton of angst. Personally, for me, it’s a requirement that books have good world-building, along with interesting character arcs. It’s not even the sappiness that gets to me, I pretty much ignore most of it, and try to find mentions of the murderers/ the Volturi, but even that takes a sideline in comparison to the author’s obsession with Edward and Jacob. I’d understand the hype if there was some kind of character development over the course of books, but all that happens is that Edward becomes more mother-hen-like, and Jacob is still the usual immature teenager, who believes that he’s better than he actually is, with him being a werewolf.
In all, I’d say this: The Twilight Saga is definitely a series one should read: just to get a taste of what not to read in the future. It’s a pretty good introduction to get a hang of what exactly people are not like in real life- no one’s going to be as morally straight or as perfect as Edward (the guy glitters in the sun, for god’s sake). Eclipse is pretty much a skip for me, but I’m not going to pretend that Twilight wasn’t a big revelation to me, as it is to most teens- Twilight for newbies is perfectly fine, it’s just that the entire Saga as an adult is just like a dream I’d like to forget.