Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer

Title: Eclipse
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Hardcover: 629 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publish Date: September 2007
ISBN: 9780316160209

“Can I tell you what the worst part is?” he asked hesitantly when I said nothing… “The worse part is knowing what would have been…” Jacob shook his head. “I’m exactly right for you, Bella. It would have been effortless for us – comfortable, easy as breathing. I was the natural path your life would have taken…” He stared onto space for a moment, and I waited. “If the world was the way it was supposed to be, if there were no monsters and no magic…”

I could see what he saw, and I knew that he was right. If the world was the sane place it was supposed to be, Jacob and I would have been together. And we would have been happy. He was my soul mate in that world – would have been my soul mate still if his claim had not been overshadowed by something stronger, something so strong that it could not exist in a rational world…

Two futures, two soul mates… too much for any one person. And so unfair that I wouldn’t be the only one to pay for it. Jacob’s pain seemed too high a price. Cringing at the thought of that price, I wondered if I would have wavered, if I hadn’t lost Edward once. If I didn’t know what it was like to live without him. I wasn’t sure…

“He’s like a drug for you, Bella.” His voice was still gentle, not at all critical. “I see that you can’t live without him now. It’s too late. But I would have been healthier for you. Not a drug; I would have been the air, the sun.”

The corner of my mouth turned up in a wistful half-smile. “I used to think of you that way, you know. Like the sun. My personal son. You balanced out the clouds nicely for me.”

He sighed. “The clouds I can handle. But I can’t fight with an eclipse.”

–Eclipse, pages 598-600

I am soooo addicted to this series. It’s everything I’ve loved in reading. It’s Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice (Twilight). It’s Romeo and Juliet (New Moon). It’s Heathcliff and Cathy from Wuthering Heights (Eclipse). In fact, I found that Edward points to these three couples on page 28 when I checked back to make sure I spelled Heathcliff correctly 😀 . Makes me wonder if Breaking Dawn will be Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester. (Those of you who’ve already read it, DON’T TELL ME!!!!)

I really enjoy Meyer’s writing style. Yes, this series is romantic in that it’s about lovers whose love is epic and the opposition to their realization of this love almost insurmountable. It’s everything I fell in love with when I read Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice as a teen. This series brings the same feelings of hope, agony, love, desire and despair, all occurring at the same moment, that I had at 15 with my first real boyfriend (by real I mean the first one you kiss for hours and wonder what’s beyond the kissing but the kissing is satisfying enough not to cross that boundary… the first boyfriend you park with… that first boyfriend that when we broke up it felt like my heart had been ripped out with a dull spoon).

Okay, I admit it… The Twilight series isn’t an intellectually stimulating set of books, they are more like brain candy. But it’s so nice that at 35 I can feel those fresh and new emotions. I give Eclipse 4 out of 5 stars.

Advertisement

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Title: Twilight
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Paperback: 498 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publish Date: 2005
ISBN: 9780316015844

“It’s not only your company I crave! Never forget that. Never forget I am more dangerous to you than I am to anyone else.”

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer is the ultimate good-girl-falls-for-bad-boy story. Bella, daughter of the local police chief, fall for the mysterious Edward Cullen… whom she discovers is a vampire. It is everything I remember from being a teenager, some of it wonderfully nostalgic and some of it painfully annoying. While there were parts that dragged, and I honestly could have stopped at the hospital scene at the end… about 50 pages less than the final 498 pages, for the most part it was fun, arousing, and quite a page turner.

I definitely want to linger on the point of arousal. Twilightfull of the kind of sexual sensations I remember from being a teenager. The flutters of the attraction, new and exciting feelings, and the lingering over the first moments, uncertain and inexperienced about what comes next. The long lasting moments spent staring, lightly touching and feeling the skin of the object of one’s affection. All this innocent (or mostly innocent) pleasure before the actual end-run of sex becomes common and mechanical, losing all the magic it once held. I really enjoyed this aspect of Twilight.

“So what you’re saying is, I’m your brand of heroin?” I teased, trying to lighten the mood.
He smiled swiftly, seeming to appreciate my effort. “Yes, you are exactly my brand of heroin.”
“Does that happen often?” I asked.
“Never.”

While Twilightis definitely no literary classic, for me there were aspects of other stories that are classics. I couldn’t help but see that obvious Romeo and Julietaspect of it. The fated lovers, separated by their identity (Capulet v. Montague, Human v. Vampire), brought together by their love. I also saw a parallel of Pride and Prejudice: Edward as a Darcy of sorts, loving Bella against all his better judgment, and Bella as an Elizabeth Bennett, opinionated, headstrong, and impossible for Edward (Darcy) to read.

It is definitely a YA fiction, but there is a lot in it for an adult to love, as well. I can, however see how it could seriously grate on a reader’s everlasting nerves. There is a soppy-sweetness to it that is, at times, indigestible. It’s a bit aggravating that Bella tends to be a bit dippy and put herself in dangerous situations… again and again. She could also stand to grow a spine, as she hooks up her potential suitors with her girlfriends instead of saying “No.” Damsels in Distress annoy me. But I couldn’t help loving Edward all the more for rescuing her. I couldn’t help, at thirty-four, imagining myself in the role of Bella.

He rolled his eyes and set his lips. “Bella, we’re not having this discussion anymore. I refuse to damn you to an eternity of night and that’s the end of it.”
“If you think that’s the end, then you don’t know me very well,” I warned him. “You’re not the only vampire I know”

With the end of Twilight, Meyer’s sets up New Moon with the possibility that Bella may get her way and become a vampire with Edward. This question is left hanging, and I have my suspicions it with remain so until Breaking Dawn. A new American Gothic, Twilight is a fun, fast read that will leave you thirsty for more. 😀 4 out of 5 stars.