New Moon (Twilight Saga, #2)

by Stephenie Meyer

[ladygrey]

This is the part where objectivity is a forgotten thing.

I don't like the backs of books. Even when it's a very short paragraph like "I was with him again and the hole was gone" it says too much. They're something like stupid promos that give away the best part of a show. So I normally don't read them. But, obviously, this one I did.

I didn't really think about it much during Bella's birthday party and the amazing moment where he's reciting Romeo's line to her on the couch. But then he left. I liked how shocked and numb she was, how vacant her world was. The whole story seemed empty without him, so I understood how she felt. And then she started hearing his voice and I so wanted it to really be him. I wanted him to be just a few miles away because he couldn't really leave her and he certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to not hang around to protect her. So I kept waiting. When would she get herself in enough danger that he'd come out of hiding and save her? Because the back of the book told me he did. I couldn't read fast enough to bring him back. The race to save him, and the details about airports and plane rides and stealing cars and driving and running certainly didn't help. I had enough tension, thank you very much, I did not need for it to take 2 chapters to reach him.

But she did and everything was ok again. And I might have accidentally read everything from that point on two or three times. And gone back to read the exposition with Jacob and the evolution of their friendship again. And her birthday because this time I wasn't trying to watch my nephews while I read. And I skipped whole chapters in the middle about riding motorcycles and her missing Jacob because it went on forever and I knew what happened. Regardless, I admit to having read New Moon twice in two days. And I feel a little pathetic having said that, but there it is.

I know I'm only two books in, but I don't understand how there's any contest between Edward and Jacob. Stephanie Meyer writes the relationship with Edward as so intense it's almost palpable. While Jacob is rather lukewarm, despite the heat of his skin or the tremors from his rage. None of it is nearly as visceral as everything Edward is. Though, that final moment of Jacob in anguish is heartbreaking, but she doesn't let you look long enough for it to really hurt.

ETA: Now, having finished the series I can say she doesn't rest long enough in any of the good stuff. Stephanie Meyer has several flaws as an author.
- One being that none of her books really get started until a third or half way through.
- Two being that her characters are often universally stupid
- Three being that her narrative draws out the mundane (especially in the aforementioned first third-half of the book) but the good emotional character moments, the stuff you've been waiting for all along, she doesn't linger in at all.