Finally the end.
I feel I can read other books again.

I guess I'll start commenting on the end.
Nice end. a well resolved story. No major ending to happen (I guess Garret and Kate will marry, but that is really other story, and Reneesme and Jacob too), no major conflict unresolved (there is the Volturi, but that is other story too).

The book ended with the end of the fight, and a nice glimpse of the future, and lets me feel that this story has really ended. I can finally move on to other worlds...

The characters are still loosing personality and become too perfect.
Bella turns out to be a "super-vampire", with her shield and her "unnatural" self-control.
Edward is so perfect that he even starts to like Jacob! Most parents think that no one is good enough for their daughter, and Edward, who was Jacobs "natural enemy" calls him son?

But in general I liked the book. ( )

(blank)

my 2nd fav. of the series. Great way to end it! ( )

I really liked this one. It was sometimes a little unexpected, hadn't expected Bella to cross over, but I really enjoyed the way it turned out. Although some things were still shallow it was less shallow then the previous books. I really liked how everything turned out and liked that the book had a definite ending that can be used to start another book. Altough I doubt I will read it. It was good while it lasted! ( )

Okay, this one was significantly worse than the others in terms of the actual writing. Well, the plot too, but especially the writing.

It’s like Stephenie’s publisher knew it would sell no matter what and just decided to save on editing. I agree with pretty much everyone that this was not necessarily a satisfying ending to all
of the actual interesting, gray-area questions about Bella’s future posed by the first three books.

There’s one line at the end that Edward says about Jacob being... “My brother... my son.” that made me literally laugh out loud. Another gem was closer to the beginning, where Jake describes something about Bella being so pregnant she attains gravitational pull. Oh, and there’s one line where it is specifically pointed out that Edward and Jacob have they same expression even though they’re different species. My immediate mental image was just a wolf wearing a slightly crumpled Robert Pattinson mask.

My biggest issue was how much lying is justified throughout the series. Not so much because the characters lied, but because the ends-justify-the-means moral framework is never really examined.

I’m sad it’s over. I’m happy there was a happy ending, even if I wish it had been a more satisfying one.

I’m not overthinking this. I am glad I read it. I enjoyed it. 3.5 stars. ( )

I got this book to satisfy the curiosity of my imaginary friend Noname, who won’t be commenting on the book, because he isn’t real.

(Edna St. Vincent Millay quote) “Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.” I like that…. And re: the whole quote, Edna was certainly, out of all the girls with Edwardian-type names (lol), the most rebellious, right.

…. (I am Bella. I am sad. Maybe I die…. Today!)

OMG, Bella…. OMG.

Yeah, well…. At least you have something going for you, right. In a world of vampires and werewolves: you score high on English tests!

Although, in Bella’s case: she should NEVER have been tested (or, exposed!) to anything from before 1992, you know. They should have given her a psychological test, and been like…. This requires a special intervention!….

…. “I was with Edward in my happy place.”

I don’t think that the WRITING is terrible in the “Twilight” series, generally, although I wouldn’t want these people to be my friends, right: I don’t agree with the stereotype or whatever, you know…. But I DO think that This Last Book, Number Four IS working itself up to be…. Not as atrociously vomit-worthy as the reputation, but…. Much closer to that reputation, than the other three.

…. “the plague of the immortal children”

My gut reaction (of course) is that it’s a disgusting, awful, stupid story, you know. But I guess it makes sense, you know: if “mythology” (in the sense of all non-“realism”) can give you Edward the Edwardian, you know: the ultimate conformist-romantic myth for early 21st century nostalgics, right…. I suppose inevitably it must also give you the evil children legend, right: the ultimate taboo buster, right…. And I mean, children ARE a little problematic, right: they’re irrational; they’re undeveloped; they have to be taught things and kept from wrecking shit…. And they make people get psycho attached and possibly violent, you know. Different from the evils of adolescence, but also destructive, in its own way, the destruction wrought by children is also immense…. Children are the price we pay, to be a dying sort of being, for wanting our kind to continue: but bills can we heavy things, right….

And that’s just to interpret the myth or whatever, according to Middle World rationalist-symbolism interpretation. Stephenie gives the impression of one who cares for little beyond her characters’ twisted interpersonal dynamics—albeit that, if Edward were a Millennial (1991?) instead of a vampire, the whole dream falls apart, right…. But every now and then, she dips into the deep well with her paper cup, and makes me wonder what monsters live in the wild: away from the noise and normality of our world….

Although, it does seem like not such a good novel, even of its type: and worse than the first three.

…. Although it is curious to speculate that many respectable men probably hate this stuff almost equally for its conformity dance (It’s conformist to dance! It’s conformist to dance!), and for its taboo busting (with the unnatural children thing, right), because they hate and fear girls as such, but they also fight because they imagine that that supports society: the new society or the old one, according to their loyalties; meanwhile somebody’s wife is to be heard moaning—“Oh, Society…. I can’t get it off my back; it always rests right in that ~spot~, where I have my ~backache~…. (little whimper)….”

Right?

…. It’s a curious story. First there is, among the nods to the idea of the white wedding and Old Hollywood, the presence of the Natives, right—which has a lot of potential, not least because, although it’s not the Fifties image of a wedding, having a mixed Native-white guest list, right: there was a time when it would have happened a lot, when there were many white-Native weddings, right; and yet somehow we suppressed our own blood, in the name of blood, right…. But it is kinda racist how Stephenie does it. It’s the new racism, you know. It’s a cautionary tale.

…. It would be one thing if Bella had some agency in something, somehow, and didn’t hate herself: and let Edward be the Crown Prince out of her choice. But she just hates herself, and considers herself good for nothing, and then lets him…. mark her, you know. And then they both hate each other so much, they have a fight about who hates themselves the most, right.

Not everything (like that) has to be like, equal opportunity slaying like there’d be in a trad Gardnerian coven, (apparently), and not everyone has to be like me, right: Aquarius Sun, Aries Moon and Rising Sign, Aquarius Venus: C’mon girlie, rule and conquer, and do it vigorous….

But the way Bella is, is not…. She’s not healthy. None of these people are healthy. The intellectuals do the fans a disservice by dismissing the whole thing with contempt, and trying to get the self-haters to rag on themselves more: because someone needs to look at this with a certain detachment, right. I mean, sometimes it IS poorly written, At Times, you know…. But 80% of it even in the worse passages is: are you sure, that this is the kind of life you want, right?

…. It’s funny how Dumm-Dumm Kind is simultaneously fascinated by—attracted to, in a way—the ‘dark’ world, non-paleface-kind, and also, of course, driven to other them, right. When I believed in racism, I felt compelled to exclude—that to me was the only imaginable ‘safe’, ‘honest’ thing; it ‘made sense’.

But I had no idea what I believed, right.

…. And of course she never goes to Dartmouth, because Dartmouth started letting women in around 1972, and with Edward Cullen you’ve taken the vampire train back to 1917, lol.

OMG…. Some of it is bad. 🤖😹

…. “Book Two: Jacob”

Wow, just…. I mean, it’s not About Jacob, right: he’s not a normative, respectable person, right; but we can’t not have this outing where we shove it deep down his throat that we think he’s a mindless-aggressive minority male, right…. The whole thing is meant to Other, Jacob, right; there’s quiet, proper Bella—with her one word or short phrase chapter titles, that come with a Contents page—and then there’s monkey boy Jacob…. isn’t it amazing how whitey can take like, animalism, and make it like something…. Like, have you ever SEEN a video of a monkey, right? But people use it as an insult, because they think monkeys are the-blackpeople-of-racists, right!…. And yeah, Jacob’s chapters are a sentence or long phrase and there’s no Contents page, right…. Because he’s just a monkey male, not like porcelain doll Bella, or Edward, the precious elite over-controlled, you know, ~dead~, lol…. Guy who lives by controlling his girl; Not by…. You know…. “I’ll punch you, bro!” “Bro don’t punch me!”

People act like you can separate the ideas of sexism and racism—like we think that when the man is off burning the red man’s village or whatever: that that is like racism, and sexism is this other project he squeezes in after his main job is done, right…. But I think this—inadvertently—shows how there is no separation; a sort of sexism creates a sort of racism, and vice versa, right…. They’re just different cogs in the machine, right….

There is a certain amount male femme-phobic phobia of this series, but, although “Twilight”, “New Moon”, and “Eclipse”—while they certainly do have new sexism and new racism, and obviously aren’t meant as literary experiments, they are entertaining pop-style romances, with not more and sometimes—If You Read Them Right, OK—perhaps rather less, you know…. Diabolism of every day life, you know: diabolism at the DMV (old name for a certain state government bureaucracy), or at the super market, right…. But “Breaking Dawn” is like—dog shit, you know…. “Infectious Waste: Not For Disposal In General Garbage”, right…. A lot of pop-style romances are like that, right…. For like 2/3 or 3/4 of the series, there’s a delicate tension held between society and freedom: and sometimes it’s held rather well, you know…. But then, when it’s time to get married and finish things up with ribbons and bows, it’s like: (throws up flowers) Hitler’s getting married! Weee! Only the finest human skulls will do—just kidding! (wink wink) (stage whisper) A few epithets will do…. (wink wink)

Like, the trad rich always win in the end, sometimes, right. The things you could do with money…. And people CHOOSE to be the trad rich, right. Fucking…. Fucking…. “All right: I don’t have time for you to come up with an insult: they are bad.” They are, SO, bad, So Bad, that…. “Uh huh. Okay. Well just go with an emoji….” 👹

~Right?

…. I mean, I saw part of the “Barbie” movie and it was like: this is so weird; I love Greta Gerwig’s other movies so much…. This I couldn’t watch at all: it’s like, not bad, exactly; it’s so…. So…. So, much, right…. And Threads was like, Yeah, maybe it was just a case of not being the intended audience, right….

That is not how I feel about “Breaking Dawn”—specifically, right. BD is like…. “Yeah, only a certain kind of beetle can munch on the horse manure, for everyone else, it’s just…. Horse shit, right….”

You know: like, I feel like it’s two very different, stances, somehow, you know…. Two different…. Not the same thing.

…. It’s like: “‘Feminism: A Case of Dirty Blood?’: it’s a book I got for you, Adolf; enjoy….” “Hmm…. (thoughtful) Perhaps it’s like a drug in the bloodstream? It could be a chemical pollutant….” “So scientific, Mein Fuhrer! So masc-y, right! You’re a good dictator! We love you!” “Hmm…. Perhaps, afraid, is the word you meant to use?” “Yea, yes! We afraid you! I mean—“ “It’s fine. Only one of us can be the brain.”

…. Two things make it weird:

One—it’s like, we think of old racism etc, and new racism etc: but it’s like…. It blends, you know. New is added, the old remains; it just recedes…. But it’s still there, somewhere. The old illness.

Two—it’s like, you bring in a new demographic or whatever, it’s like, “Oppression should work for ME!!”, right. So evil; so naive—right…. Like, you’re an 8 year old white boy, you watch some dumb movie about how bookish white boys are generals; then you get up and walk away, and some lady is like, I’m the Head Gossip in this village. You have to cross that ‘t’ differently~you know, some fucking thing that means nothing, except this is the One Way, right, that she can hurt you: the One Thing she has, and you’re like…. The empire is supposed to work for me! I saw the movie—aren’t I the main character?

Bella wants patriarchy, for sure; ambivalent about motherhood, monogamy…. You know: but the empire should work out for her, right?

Isn’t that how these things work? 🤔😸

…. The Four Covers:
—People like hands. People like to eat.
—Flowers are also nice.
—Cloth—Clothing/Decorative ribbons…. And destruction.
—Wait, wait, one more: white women…. Are better…. Than men of color. Ooo! Ooo! 🫨👱🏻‍♀️👹

…. “some Goth version of a bad sitcom”. It’s like, Stephenie has unveiled that she hates herself, right—and not just that Bella, Edward, and Jacob hate ~their~ respective selves, right….

Like, what is the point of that line…. Other than to court destruction…. It’s like the white girl suicide attack, right: she’s dowsed in gasoline and she’s gonna die, but the little Indian boy is gonna end up with third-degree burns, if he’s lucky, right….

“And Then There Were None”, right. Ten Little Indians. Ten, Little…. Epithets!

The evolution of whiteness: from Ten Little Epithets, to…. Breaking Dawn. (wipes tears) It’s been, a Beautiful Journey….

…. “The girl was a classic martyr. She’d totally been born in the wrong century.”

True, and yet…. So popular. 🤔

But yeah: Stephenie either hates: (a) herself, (b) Bella, (c) Jacob, or (d) all of the above, plus more, right.

Ooo. Unpleasant.

…. It kinda is propaganda though, Number Four: I mean, they’re all, lazy, at the very least, but this is positively ~ugly~, you know: the Great-Hearted White Father offered to give his wife away to the red pond scum, but the Noble White Mother, said, No…. No pond scum! No to little red boys! We will give birth to a new generation, and though we should die, we shall keep our blood, cold!…. 🥶 💀 🧛‍♂️ 🧛‍♀️

…. And the Red Men are afraid of an interracial birth, and they have a collectivistic, socialistic government: god, they’re racist red Reds! We can ALL get behind fighting THAT!

~It’s like: some writers think they’ve succeeded if they’ve united their whole culture, or whatever, against the “villain”…. But thank God we’re not racist. We’re, Individualist! 😓😌😗

…. God, and the Indians and the whites are going to fight: and the Indians are going to be all killed, or badly mauled, the “good Indian” is trying to rebel against “tyrannical Indian-dom” or whatever, but the reds will all have to die anyway, or most of them, right…. Because that’s what white people do. Although it hurts us to do it, inside, right. We just have no choice. The collectivistic, tyrannical tribes are too violent, too uncivilized.

The continuing desire of the white race for genocide, right.

…. It really is White Supremacist Individualism, right.

…. Although, yeah: I’m not ashamed of being subtle and ambivalent where it’s warranted, right—albeit that’s, mostly not this volume, right.

Some people have this idea, like: the More Unsubtle, and Unyielding, My Complicated Theories Of Radicalism, Are…. (crushes soda can with robot arm), The More They’ll, Hold The Line. Start to talk, really, talk, back and forth, with the gremlins, (robot arm does chop)—No!

~That’s not my radicalism, you know.

…. The other thing is, the first three books average 530 pages; even Eclipse, a little longer, is 629–but this is significantly longer, at 754, so about 40% longer than the average of books 1-3; about 20% longer than Eclipse—which felt a LITTLE, long, but the actual ~quality~ seemed the same: this feels like the classic “butter scraped over too much bread” (somewhere in that line of Bilbo’s was Something about industrialization and commercialization, right)—just too loose; not tight: long, boring conversations that go nowhere, repeat, and demonstrate stupidity that’s difficult to get a grip on, the way that the stupidity of people in books 1-3 seems…. Real, somehow. It’s just not well written. Not tight, not worked-out right. Not entertaining.

…. It’s like: we get that you don’t like Natives, Stephenie. Enough.

It’s like: she’s Explaining, how the Natives should treat each other, to destroy their race, so she doesn’t have to hold the bloody knife, right. It’s like….

(Hamlet’s Father’s Ghost) (ghostly voice) Kill yourself, Hamlet; you suck…. You…. Suck…. I’m actually French, Hamlet: I hate English people. I want you guys to kill yourselves, so that the French don’t have to invade and kill you themselves, and look bad doing it…. You suck, Hamlet; you’re worthless…. I’m a neutral third-party; you can trust me….

~If Stephenie Meyer were writing “Hamlet” and it was about Natives, lol.

…. It’s like: Hitler hated his father, you know. He called the first chapter of “Mein Kampf”, “In the House of my Parents”, right.

(Hitler: morose/dismissive) Oh yes—my childhood home, my childhood home! Pah! I was living, in the house of my PARENTS! (slams beer can down) (cries)

~It’s like, was there a note of individualism in white racism as early as the first part of the 20th century?…. How “new” is White Supremacist Individualism, anyway?…. I mean, not that it matters: if it’s new; if it’s old…. Right?

…. It is kinda darkly hilarious how Stephenie gave white people this alternate reality where Anglos constantly have to passively take racial slurs from Native Americans, right.

Whiteness is like, some people’s religion, right. It’s just heresy to Think about it—at all. Like, on Threads, someone was like, Can we be proud to be white? Discuss. (Killing babies could provide meat for the homeless. Discuss.) And I just kinda briefly tried to say what whiteness is—looking like a slave owner—and how it’s not something that comes from nature. It’s not you, you know—it’s not real. And then somebody wants to get into it with me, like, he’s saying he gazes at his peach-pink arm every day, and it just fills him with this feeling that life is good—how could I rip that away from him by saying that whiteness isn’t “natural”—notice how he didn’t notice the difference between product of nature, and natural. Like, I tried to make the analogy with height: you’re 5’8”, say, whoopdy-fucking-do: nobody’s ever been killed or made a slave, over that, so there’s no fear/glory, etc. over it, right. So he told me I was making him afraid, basically—like, he was gonna tell the whole world on me, or whatever, saying these crazy things, right. I’ll tell Mom! I KNOW this is a White World: the epithets are just renting the servants’ quarters! If you can’t get that through your skull, buddy—you won’t have any friends!!!!

I knew I was right, obviously, but sometimes just being on the internet and dealing with the sickness, makes you wonder, right: do I have ~spite~ for the sickness? Am I handling this bag of weirdos the right way? ~(being hauled off to the psych ward) I really am 5’8”! (crying, gnashing) I was BORN to be 5’8”!!

So yeah: I did a rune reading, and basically it was like: this shit—whiteness and all that—that’s just not you. You didn’t do anything but tell on shit and tell it it’s not you, basically.

So that made me feel better….

White people are funny, when they air views like that, though. It’s, SO COMMON, for people to be like, “I’m not my ancestors! Who gives a fuck about the ancestors—I piss on my family line, on those who went before!

I’m just trying to be, White. Gotta keep it clean, keep it pink-fleshed, am I right, brothers! We’re not going to let a pack of filthy ancestors, take that away, are we?”

~It’s like…. Do they make pills, I mean: psychiatrists work so hard on this stuff, right—do we know, can we guess, what part of the brain isn’t firing right, in these people? Could we get a few tests done, like what do they call it: a CAT scan?” 🐱 🤖

~But yeah: at least I have a fantasy where it’s understood how often a white guy has to go through life being demeaned by red men and their wives, right. It’s constant. Just constant belittlement by Native Americans. We need to start getting this stuff ~documented~; push for ~reform~, you know….

And some people would be like: yes, yes exactly!…. ~It’s like, if Sarcasm were a god, he’d be worried, he’d feel unsafe: a situation like this is like, an existential threat to Sarcasm’s very existence. How can he deal with a fucking comeback like that, right?

…. “So they had a blood bank ~and~ an X-ray machine?”

Well, they are white people, Jacob.

White people are very…. Science-y. 👌

…. God, you know, life is so unfair. People just don’t know what it’s like to be ~white~. If only we could DO something—like, we could make a movie, write a book. Tell OUR story.
—(nods earnestly) We can try, at least! They might try to stop us!
—(the god Sarcasm convulses in pain, finding that his way of life, his very way of ~Being~, is again under assault—vicious, cruel…. Unconscionable assault)

…. And the gender stuff is less pernicious—there is Some sympathy, some cultural treats, for Bella, right: the little factoids about the difficulties and dangers of pregnancy, the idea that it doesn’t just happen in between scenes of a 1940s Frank Capra comedy, right, (like, the wife says she’s pregnant, and then James Stewart goes to have an Important Talk At The Office, and then, a training montage or something, and then, the next time we see the wife, she is holding the newborn baby, and James Stewart coos over it for thirty seconds, and then says: That really is adorable. Now go on, scram: plot points! I’m just kidding, you’re adorable. No, really, scram: I’m getting paid more than your character, what are you, an extra with a speaking part? I have to go talk with the ~director~, of the film….)…. But it’s like: it is Weird, how like, having a baby, is like, the Culmination of Everything, right…. She doesn’t have to go to college, or learn how to fight; she doesn’t need to figure out how to get her sister in law to stop calling her best non-white friend a fucking dog, right…. She just needs to have a pregnancy which is mysterious and physically difficult, right…. Stephenie doesn’t even pretend-prove that vanilla societal parenting “works”—no mysteriously vague comments that Bella’s child grows up, just as good as any fancy new world order where children are raised by child psychologists who actually had to earn qualifications before the state and the birth-giver would permit her to risk fucking up the kid on their watch, right…. (waves hands) Like no, no…. “She’s too young to be a parent, so why bother; I mean—well, everything WAS right in 1917, right….” ~Yeah, wow: but in the 1910s it was 21, not 17-18, or whatever…. So I guess that’s owes more to that song…. Fuck, it was Sixteen Going on Seventeen, fuck!~ And even in the 60s, the age was like 20, right, not, ~sixteen~, holy shit….

(taps forehead) The games these people play with your head, man.

~But yeah: not only is parenting not a paid, regulated profession undertaken by qualified people, (why blame your parents, right? Why do we delude ourselves into thinking that they were given even an outside chance, right?), it’s like…. You are barely an adult, or a citizen, you know. You’re like the breeding cow, you know. It’s like, New Sexism, so there’s the factoid about babies kicking and hurting the mother from inside, and not like, God smiling and winking at Edward as he haggles over the price of the breeding cow with Charlie, right…. But is she an ~adult~, in any meaningful sense? Like alone an adult qualified to raise a child, right. “Being a parent is the hardest job there is. You know: some people are doctors: I’m a parent…. Regulations? (incoherent rage) It’s a fundamental human right: even people who can’t take care of themselves, and who skip therapy to watch “The Fast and The Furious”…. Goddamn it, I am NOT being sarcastic: these are our CUSTOMS!!…. It’s either this way, or the nuke war! JESUS is coming back! Will he find a nuke-free zone on which to land the chopper? Not if you get what YOU want, buddy….”

~But there’s money for the drink, money for the colonization projects, right….

…. You know, and it’s like:

—Hi. I’m a C-SPAN weirdo. Me and the robots have finished combing over the Official US government reports, and your argument doesn’t make sense.
—Does the official Cylon report take into consideration that we spend this money on the colonial police, when the payout for society is that they shoot the Future Black Einstein, thus losing us all that tax money, and money in the economy, etc? Or the money that corporations waste—I’m talking about societal choices, private and economic as well as public and subject to voting and shit—promoting diet pills whose main payout to society is that the Future Female Shakespeare dies from taking them? Is that on any of these charts, that you and the Borg Queen printed out?
—(contemptuous dismissal, etc, etc.)
—Right. Because that shit isn’t a bug: it’s a feature. You know: we can talk about shit paying for itself when it’s a project that helps the EXISTING elite, right: does anybody ever say: let’s really clear up this issue of incompetent parenting—the new elite it will create will bring in so many more tax dollars for the government or whatever it is, right: it’ll pay for itself!!…. You know: there’s no one the average person is more afraid of than people like them, right, (unless it’s people who don’t LOOK like them), like, you can go to a codependent 12-Step meeting, and it’s like: the 12-Step World Headquarters Committee from fifty fucking years ago, or whatever, playing a Very Safe Game, right: decided who’s quotable. We find that if we carefully edit out the fatwas and terror attack documents of 16th century Christians, we can find Neutral Abstract Sayings Of Gold, right: but a magazine published last month you can get in any old Barnes & Noble doesn’t get that treatment, even if reading the whole thing wouldn’t induce you to call rival religious popes Satan incarnate, and to request beheadings, and shit, right—because when Self-Hating Codependent Mom Sally stumbles into a 12-Step group about working on her patterns instead of assuming that she can either slowly go crazy, but watch television, eyes glazed over while eating ice cream from the tub while the kids scream, or else kill herself, or else gossip, right…. Like, aside from the weird useless crazy lazy personal shit, (“It’s Larry’s fault! I know he’s making eyes at Amanda!”)—she doesn’t respect herself enough to think it isn’t all her fault, right: everything is personal, and everything can be solved by punishment, right…. ~The major road gets shut down by an accident in which somebody died, the sorta, “patriot” type—I don’t know a more polite way, right—yells borderline obscene things at an individual driver, as though he was gonna pull over and call the DMV and have their license suspended—like, literally, right— (white men are the government! Collectively—AND!, ~individually! And THAT, is what we need to start teaching the bureaucrats!), because their car didn’t move because there were other cars in front of them because the roads were shit and closed off because somebody died, right…. Everything is personal; everything is punishment…. (“I am the government, because I am a patriot, But, (raises hand), I’m not here to help you. I’m alienated from you. I’m here to test you. Punish you!”) (You know, it’s legalism—because he knows he’s no good, only Law is good: he’s loyal to the empire: but then psycho id-beast crap is laid on top of that right, or something like that, I don’t know: so the result is: Always Stay Out of My Way! Never Do Something Unusual If It Hurts Me! That’s a Rule! You Change A Custom: You Go To Jail!…. Like, how does this person—I don’t mean to be rude, but how does he get to vote and sit on home owner’s and municipal committees and get to make decisions about what the rules of life are, right?…. I’m sure he’ll keep an open mind when the mutant-spawn have a new idea to suggest, to decrease the number of excess violent deaths by 5%, right! “(explodes) This country was FOUNDED on excess violent death!! Aren’t you a Patriot! I’m talking about the Family, here!”) ~You know, it’s like, people are ill, you know: routinely, routinely ill. How unusual is it, even? But if you wanted to like look at society and the parenting contract that society underwrites, you know: beneath the anger and the colonial defense militia muster to defend the tribes from genetic mutants, or whatever, with their new ideas…. It’s like, Codependent Mom Sally doesn’t think she’s worth it; it’s not worth society’s time to make sure she doesn’t abuse her kids, right. She doesn’t deserve it. It’s her fault….

I mean, obviously, right: she’s a woman. What could be more DISGUSTING, right…. Yeah, the wounds go pretty deep. (Child Hermes evaluating prayers) This century, you guys can try to narrowly avoid collective suicide. Maybe next century you can evolve….

…. I mean, the bottom line is: we’ll never have good parenting while we have racism, and racism is ~entrenched~, right. It just changes the surface-level justifications and methods. The gut of society hasn’t even begun to question it yet, you know.

…. I mean, South Africa ran a white security state dictatorship for decades with the white population at barely north of 10% of the total, right; and even after decades of clean politics (Black majority rule is a lot cleaner than white minority security state terror, at least), and Black presidents and Black-majority legislatures, the country is still essentially white-palace-Black-ghetto, you know. Until white world consciousness changes, even the most dramatic demographic changes just serve to make racial control more ugly and more dishonest, from the level of minority characters in media introduced to perpetuate harm against their groups—to whatever else, right.

I know: I am a little bubble of sunshine.

…. Wow, the female werewolf acknowledging the male werewolf’s leadership is like the one, or—you could probably count them on one hand—instances of truly supportive exchanges in the Twilight books. It throws you, right. Why positive?

Life lesson: without loving, supportive patriarchy, there wouldn’t be goodness in the world.

Surprising corollary: the female doesn’t have to be in a romantic relationship with the male leader to support loving, supportive patriarchy. She just has to submit to him!

…. But yeah: then she immediately eases into dismantling the corollary, right—the horror! 😱—like, a military unit of two is nothing if not a couple, right….

“…. it will be easier to deal with your pain than face mine.” ‘Help’ others because it’s easier than…. Acknowledging reality, basically. That quote belongs in some book about codependence. If it were in the first three books, I’d say that—I mean, the mean way to put it would be, Stephenie having a laugh at their expense, right; a stifled snicker, and a wink behind their back. But in THIS book, wow; I don’t know….

…. It’s like: and then the whole agony of the sterile feminist, right. Back to the 1880s: women touring the country giving speeches, urging girls to get married and be housewives, and can the whole ‘suffragette’ shit, right…. It’s like, how many billions of humans are there: and when has society ever failed to produce enough new members, right?…. It’s like, and when has society ever produced a generation of parents that even usually didn’t scar and traumatize their children, right? The hey-day of the KKK, was it then? What about the witch trials? Does any period in the historical record, at the very least, meet that description?

It’s like: what’s more important, ensuring that we produce “copies of ourselves”—even though that’s NEVER what they end up being…. And even though we ourselves UNDER estimate our similarity to our OWN parents!!—even if it means stigmatizing societal outliers, and producing such an excessively large human population that we make it impossible to the planet to comfortably support human life, or….

Or, you know: maybe it’s more important to ensure that the kids who do get born, get raised by people and a system that won’t traumatize them? I mean, children will be born, right. Think about it. If the government passed like a, Zero Child Policy: how well do you think enforcement of that would work, right? That government would stay in power for like, twenty minutes, right.

Yet people act like if we don’t stigmatize adult non-parents, and other social outliers, we’ll just, go extinct, right?

~So you’re saying the societal contract of parenthood is very burdensome, right? We should amend the contract.
—No! I’m saying people need to be punished! PUNISHED! That is the ONLY WAY!!!

…. It’s like:
—the race agenda: there are other, inferior, social contracts. Eternal vigilance!
—the gender agenda: there is NO POSSIBILITY of another social contract! Don’t make me angry!

—Which are we supposed to believe?
—Yes.

…. So…. You hate Native Americans.
—I do; but it’s important that they love me. I’m ambivalent.

…. (Propaganda professor giving lecture) But I PROMISE you, girls: once you become a MOTHER, all this fear and feebleness will fly away, like the wings of dawn! The intense self-sabotaging that life in an alienating high school couldn’t dispel, that a distant, brooding boyfriend couldn’t fix—and gosh, even flirting with suicide didn’t do the trick! But! But, girls, but! Once you become a Mother—I mean, think what social support society gives to mothers! The cameos in movies! The aristocratic poetry which generates no money, and never did, and not for you! The long hours and no pay! I’m telling you now, that if you asked ANY mother, if motherhood is invigorating, and easy, and empowering, they would say, N—sorry, they would say YES. And I’m telling you, so they don’t have to. Society’s got it All Figured Out, all you have to do, is put your womb, to the wheel! I Promise You, From Now, On: Bulls—I mean, cake! Lots of cake! (waves like, have the servant girls bring in the cake now) You can Trust me girls: I Promise!
(sullen female voiceover) I should have gotten that in writing, while I had the chance.

…. I liked Bella’s voice before: for all its timidness and lack of assertion and self-worth, she was an academically astute girl who in her head, at least, spoke very honestly: very, very disarming candor….

But yeah: contrasted with Jacob’s monkey man act, you know, the red man dog, right…. And now, not only do we have the innocent, wonderful, educated white girl back, (Taylor Swift gasp of surprise) It’s like she isn’t even human anymore…. She’s…. “A white girl bitch in heat?” No! She is a COLD, one, a stature made of stone, of marble…. She is— “I get the idea.”

…. But yeah: I feel sad, I really do, that Stephenie created these pitiable if likable characters in the first three books, and then had to go and turn that sympathy into pot roast, you know—a butchered sacrifice—in the fourth one. Like the one thing she couldn’t do was empowerment. The only way to fake empowerment was…. Contrast, you know: comparison. A lot uglier, quite often, than it sounds, right.

…. It is kinda a sick societal fantasy, you know: you’re ugly and you hate yourself and you’re not worthy; and then, say you have a child: one day, it hurts a little, but then you’re beautiful and superior, and maybe you’re ok, too….

Like, THIS is what meditation teachers mean when they say, “the enlightenment in the future fantasy”, right. You want to start a business or plan some other activity in your life: go ahead, see if you can manage it and pull it off—or else you can’t, and you do it again differently, or do something more appropriate.

But it’s not like—“or else you can’t, and you suck”, right. It’s not like…. One day, when people call me beautiful I’ll agree, because I’ll have chemical changes and psychic powers and a new consciousness and superiority, right…. ~If you’re like, One day I’ll be adequate…. —Like, no; there’s NOT really planning up to that, (although you can wake up into it gradually: but not by planning), and you don’t wake up into it suddenly because you got injected with something, right, (some people have painful enlightenment experiences, but it always involves a choice, and danger—and it’s not the same, “I’m not worth saving bullshit sacrifice self-hatred-pride” that’s been messing you up you’re whole life, right….)….

But yeah: this is bullshit, lies, and propaganda, you know—delusion. Meditation teachers should use this as like, What Can Never Be, Exhibit A, right…. You don’t just keep thinking the same garbage thoughts, and wake up feeling beautiful for the first time, because it’s been exactly six months to the day since you got married, right.

People who have that expectation probably end up in the psych ward, all the time.

I don’t mean that there couldn’t be vampires and monsters. But there couldn’t be this…. This is just BS.

…. God, and she’s the POLITE vampire, right! “Until this moment, I never knew myself, Mr. Darcy! To think I didn’t know to repress my instincts, and to obey society! It’s like—before, I wasn’t English!” “Yes, but you are English now, my love; your reading of English romances and your delusional ideas about yourself have saved you. Perhaps you could write a book: “Domme and Prejudice”, you know: propaganda for a new era….”

It’s like: where does one, BEGIN….? 🤔 💭

…. There REALLY aren’t any words for this, right.

(Jane Austen ladies)
—Own it: you have done wrong, child.
—He said he was from some company: that he was the man to fix the stove. I thought, well, we let Aunt Jemima look after the baby, so~
—Your prattle serves no purpose. You have done wrong.
—You let a strange man in…. You let the DOG in…. Near the BABY.
—I did nothing of the sort! He looked just like you and me, well, ~almost~…. They’re not ~really~ dogs you know…. Aunt Jemima isn’t a dog, is she?
—You rotten sinner! You let a DOG, near the BABY!
—I am afraid she is quite right, my dear; you must own that you did wrong. It was your carnal instincts. And I must say: youthful dalliances are one thing, especially since you only REALLY ever gave him your Left-Over attentions, you weren’t So Bad…. But, God in Heaven, my dear, once you have a real honest to God, White-Baby…. Well, you can’t let a traitorous ~dog~ near it, can you?
—(sobbing) I was wrong…. I was so wrong….
—Well, there there…. The dogs have deceived even our menfolk, you know. They are tricky devils. Every treaty the dogs made with our kind, they broke: until Finally, we broke their back; yet they endure. But I tell you: those broken dog treaties—for them, it has been A Century of Dishonor!

~I mean, it’s amazing, right: it’s an Anglo myth that’s been projected onto Jacob Canis, right…. “Love at first sight”, basically? Doesn’t that more or less go back to the Troubadours in medieval France?…. And it’s like, No, everyone, always…. Oh, but I’m afraid that we live on the Planet of the Dogs, my beautiful corpse-skinned daughter!

~Like it’s, un-fucking-real…. Like, it’s all just gloating in delusions of power she wouldn’t have, and delusions of racism that have seen people, ~KILLED~, you know….

Excrement, you know….

It’s clog-the-toilet-grade waste, you know….

~Like, seriously: if “Breaking Dawn” doesn’t get on some kind of short list for Most Racist 21st Century Romance, right….

What, else is there: how bad does it get?

…. “Don’t worry Karen: just pour a little bleach on your hair; try to get the Italian out: and everything’s fine.”

…. “Red men don’t need your sympathy, children. (sniffs) They heal quick. It comes from being like d—, from being outside a lot.”
(children being conditioned to be racist giggle) (mouths: “dogs”) (they giggle)

~But at least nobody is hurting the children, right. Not even Aunt Jemima!

…. But yeah: I’m glad that white people are the best.

And I’m also glad that there are little porcelain doll girls in the world, too—maybe every white boy who’s born, should get like a, living porcelain doll companion, right: just to kinda…. Yeah, and her starter name could be “Bella (serial number)”, although the little fucker could rename her—you know, as often as he likes. He could call her, Broken Reed: the broken reed, he will not rape, right….

But mostly, I’m just glad that white people are the best. I’m happy for us. We’ve been through a lot: for a while there, people thought that white people weren’t the best, can you imagine?! It was racism! ~But then, Martin Luther King Junior, stood up, and he said, I have a dream, that one day, every white girl will be loved for how Northern she looks; and every white boy will be loved…. Just for how entitled he feels, you know. And maybe, one day, they’ll come together and get married…. And they’ll let us darkies into their hearts, and let us provide free child care, just like we did on the plantation….

You know: or not. They say scram!: we’ll scram. I’m just saying, I have a dream.

~He had a dream, of FREEDOM…. 🗽 🥇 👮🏻‍♂️ ⚰️

…. (Abraham Lincoln) New Racism is founded on the proposition, that when God formed this country out of the 450 false prophets of the Great Spirit, slain by the Four Thunder Beings of Old, John, Paul, George, and Ringo: he put the words in the mouth of his prophet, Martin Luther King Junior—I have a dream today, that one day, every white child will be loved for the color of her skin, forever, with additional superiority cubes dispensed for marriage and child rearing without incident or the necessity of Swift Punishment from the Thunder Beings, and God, and with any woke infractions on the sanctity of the white race and patriarchy resulting in summary dismissal from the white race and banishment to the Land of Hel, where dwell the half-whites and half-giants of the Democrat Party, where Skaldi and Loki dwell, and the wicked beings who chose Hitler, instead of the white race: not shunning racism, but instead doing the racist thing where you say that racism is “bad”…. What is bad, anyway? If I try to shoot you and you run and escape, isn’t that bad for me? I wanted to kill you! Everything is your point of view…. But white people are the best; this I know. Amen, hallelujah…. Let us go to the Promised Land, children: but I may not get there with you! Sleepy Joe Biden and Saruman from the Lord of the Rings may try to prevent us from lifting whitey up above the goblins….!

~Right? It’s like, common sense, is all we’re asking of the epithets, right. Just common sense. We all need to build up whitey…. Together! OMG….

…. The Anti-Social American Teen Wish List:

1. Betray feminism.
2. Paleface power!!!
3. Traumatize parents, hmm (considers) (happy!) Blame it on the Red man dog!

…. As far as the whole vanilla/full pop/girl club things go: on the one hand, I’m still not sure I forgive Stephenie for turning Alice from the sorta awakened millionaire she was in the other books, into a sorta…. Yeah, like, caricature. Like, Jacob is a big black dog; Alice is a little white doll, right.

But it is true that no girl ever ~really~ wants to be the bullied, weaker party, ~every single time~, right: if she were to just follow instincts, as base as instincts can be, informed by nothing by biology and propaganda, (nothing is ever ~just~ instinctual, that’s human), eventually she would want to assert herself—somehow, right.

…. (Voice over) I always knew that someday I would have to fight the government to save the children.
(vampire responding to her thoughts) And how do you know that you’re the one best suited to do anything and everything for your child? And fighting the larger society instead of integrating into it—you know that that’s good for the child, as well?
(flippant) That part’s not important.

…. It is funny how sometimes to be an “American patriot”, to be “normal”, even, you have to be about as sympathetic to the American government, as you’d be to a pack of vampires from Italy, right.

“Can they cook? Can they speak English? Are they really from New York?”
“None of that, Bella—they’re just~ the, /government/!”
(gasp of shock)

…. And just:

(“change my mind” meme) Jacob Black is Aunt Jemima. Change my mind.”

…. Yeah: first Stephenie hardens my patronization of her characters into dislike, and then she rushes in an epic battle in a story that’s already too long, when fighting in her books—I mean, it’s present, more like duels or grudge matches than battles, and very much as a secondary feature of the tales, right…. And it’s like: (turns back) to be generous, and to put the beginning of this plot at page 525, when chapter 27 starts, right: it’s still only slightly over 200 pages ~~to find out that the world vampire government wants to bring you down, and to bring down the world vampire government instead~~…. After literally ~~over 2,000 pages~~ where any fighting was like, two on three, or something like that, small-group fighting: a family vs a group of friends, or else one on one…. It’s just non-sensical pacing, right. It’s just, garbage.

…. “But wait,” said Jacob. “The Cullens’ visitors’ vampirism puts human rights in danger.”
“Shut up, horny Red boy Aunt Jemima,” said Bella primly. “Go back to imprinting yourself on the baby, slave: the beautiful white baby, for whom I would destroy a world.”
Jacob was quiet, doing so, silently and sullenly.

…. “They treated him the way that people who are not animal-lovers treat the pets of their friends.”

(laughing) “I have a dream today.” Oh God, O Isis, please help me…. (laughing)

…. My, what a fucked-up story.

…. Let’s go to the movies, random American movies could be like:

BREAKING DAWN: A NEW DAY FOR NAZI AMERICA
THORIN OAKENSHIELD: SCOURGE OF AFRICA
MY BIG FAT WHITE WEDDING: THIS TIME, I DECIDE TO MARRY A WHITE MALE DOCTOR
SLEEPY JOE: INSIDE A MAFIA DON’S WORLD

—Hermes?
—Yes, friend?
—Are we all gonna die?
—Yes. (nods) All going to die. (beat) Except for me. I can never die.
—Yeah: thanks for that.
—Oh, yeah: I’m always here for you little hoomis. And when you die, I~
—Yeah. I appreciate that.

…. “It made me happy that I didn’t really count as a vampire to him. I was still just Bella.”

Dogs accept me as one of their own. They don’t see me as a white person. They see me as…. Pack Leader. 😸

…. And of course she throws the “psychic’s supply store” (a metaphysical shop?) under the bus, for being, you know—street trash, almost Black, kill ‘em! ~It’s like, new age stores tend to be on the nice side of town, right: but I guess some people literally try to imagine “where psychics would shop” from remembering horror movies, rather than, oh, I don’t know, a Google search? Fuck, right, you could drive around, notice them…. “No no no: the horror movies, they have the answers.”

It’s like, when bad things happen, they happen in threes: (1) the Blacks are so stigmatized, just sticking to them stigmatizes YOU by association, even though (2) in the real world, the metaphysical community can be distressingly Anglo, because although the whole world hates us, low-income and communities of color are more likely to be loyal, at least as far as they’ve been Americanized, to the whole Christian Empire spiel, and (3) Blacks have it so bad: they could literally bring the local Inquisitor the head of a witch that they killed, and the Holy Bishop Persecutor would be like, Who is that, your mother? Hath thou not read, Satan, “Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother?” ~Because we’re all just problems for them, in their mind, right. Some people wouldn’t be allowed to conform if they wasted their lives trying, right.

…. Sometimes I read a passage from “Breaking Dawn”, and it’s like eating something that, according to the highly conservative estimates that are customary, is “expired”, but, you know: it could be ok…. And it might not. I’m pretty sure that won’t make me sick…. I think I threw away all the moldy ones….

…. Jasper is a curious character, although my opinion of him drops each time I learn about him. In no particular order: Southern politician (or could be, easily), “best friend” material, would-be seducer or batterer, Confederate chieftain, fighter, murderer, led-along lover, pathetic-lawyer’s-handler/bully…. Curious people, Stephenie’s characters: but not good friends.

…. It’s not hard to find places on the internet where people vent about well-to-do white men, you know—unresolved trauma and felt powerlessness, as well the whole unresolved system, understandable enough, although it can harden into weird personal slurs, albeit ones without much teeth. (If a certain amount of theatrical skill.)

But yeah: it is funny, the sympathy for the shady lawyer/white collar criminal…. Versus: you know, just being a Native North American, you know. Just literally born of one of the peoples who used to be the only ones here—well, that’s beyond the pale, now. Fraud, for the sake of money, I can understand: but we must draw the line, Somewhere, now!

…. I suppose that’s we are European in the New World, and African in the Old. How charming, no. How charming to be equally alienated from everyone and everything else, no matter where we find ourselves. Americans are truly charming, as a people, wouldn’t you say?

…. Wild conformity, you know. Wild, reckless…. Conformity.

(shrugs) I mean: it’s better than the bulk of Victorian novels, I think. “The Lamplighter”, and unfinishable crap like that: shit that only gets the attention of historians and literary critics writing their strangely historical introductions to Penguin Classics books, or whatever, right. It’s funny: in the 19th century, this would have been a “four-volume novel”, right; now it’s a four-book series, you know: instead of the narration just stopping randomly and picking up again once you’ve placed another coin in the toy car at the mall, or whatever: it reaches a crazy crescendo each time it reaches and end and asks for another quarter, right.

Still basically crap, though…. People would literally risk their lives, risk death: before thinking for themselves—before knowing who they are.

Pathetic, right.

…. And yes: cheap cracks at creative visualization; Old Testament Name Guy > Egyptian Religion Name Guy…. Endless fun. It’s amazing, the way that theologians and church leaders treat romantics, the way that probably a solid majority of romantics just slavishly serve them you know…. When they can manage it. 😁

…. But yeah: it’s funny that this is how it ends, right. It’s like, “I made the government go back through the portal and all my friends are gone, now it’s just me and my lover and our child, and his family, I guess…. What could go wrong? I’ve arrived in paradise, taking care of a child by myself!” And it’s like: that is what it’s about; the sending the government back through the portal was just a function of the familial relationship, right: like, you take your community support back to Italy where it’s always sunny, you goddamn foreign leeches, right…. And it’s like…. What is your diagnosis, doctor?

~And it’s like: Bella is finally a hero; Bella isn’t a wimp anymore; Bella should feel proud of herself…. ~closes book in panic~ Book is OVER. Can’t process that.

But yeah: it’s clever how it ends with a character being described as hating themselves within a few pages of the book ending, right. Because isn’t that what the whole damn series is about, no?

…. That and…. Well, anyway. 😉

{my thoughts} – This book was the conclusion to the whole Twilight Saga. I wasn’t completely impressed with this book as I was with the previous three. However – it is clear that this is the ending and with every ending comes some dis-satisfaction. This whole book builds up to a huge battle. The battle that barely takes place. This book helped to show that Bella had the potential to be her own person – to thrive without the constant help and care of the Cullen family – however, it also showed that fairytales don’t always have the greatest endings. Bella has a little girl that she names after her and Edward’s mom – that baby soon is imprinted on by Jacob which means the werewolves can no longer seek out to harm the baby because she is essentially Jacobs soul mate which makes sense as to why Jacob was so hung up on Bella in the previous books. Anyways – it is a good book in its own way I suppose – but it didn’t have the kind of ending that I was interested in. The ending had left me wanting far more then I was given.

{reason for reading} - I honestly read this series because everyone was all hyped up over the movies that were coming out and I wanted to see what all the excitement was about. ( )

*Spoiler Alert*

This was the one book in the saga that I was most looking forward to after the previous one, yet it was also my least favorite read. A good chunk of the plot was just too domestic for me--all the parts about the marriage, and the honeymoon, and starting a family were saturated with homey bliss and that's something that I really don't enjoy reading. As well, the plot was just too convenient. There were so many beautiful opportunities for conflict that the author just overlooked to make everything work out absolutely wonderful and perfect(e.g. Jacob imprinting on Nessie, Bella not being a normal newborn, Charlie's reaction to everything, etc.). It made the story annoying at times, and not grabbing. ( )

I love breaking dawn and it's probably as good as eclipse if not slightly better. I love Bella's choice and the ceremony and then the surprise. The perspective switch was initially quite confusing but gave me a bit of backstory of Jacob and Leah which was interesting and added to the story. Jacob's relationship with his love was quite odd and he should've just somehow ended up with Leah in my opinion. I love Bella's transformation and it would've been interesting to see more of an after and that side explored but could have equally totally ruined it. Overall a 4.5. ( )

Quite an intense read....

Excellent. Books are always better than the movies! ( )

Estar irrevogavelmente apaixonada por um vampiro é tanto uma fantasia como um pesadelo, costurados em uma perigosa realidade para Bella Swan.

Empurrada em uma direção por sua intensa paixão por Edward Cullen, e em outra por sua profunda ligação com o lobisomem Jacob Black, ela resistiu a um tumultuado ano de tentação, perda e conflito até o momento da decisão definitiva. A escolha entre fazer parte do obscuro, mas sedutor, mundo dos imortais ou permanecer vivendo como humana se tornou o marco que poderá transformar o destino dos dois clãs: vampiros e lobisomens.

Agora que Bella tomou sua decisão, uma corrente de acontecimentos sem precedentes se desdobrará, com consequências devastadoras. No momento em que as feridas parecem prontas para ser cicatrizadas, e os desgastantes confrontos da vida de Bella, resolvidos, isso pode significar a destruição. Para todos. Para sempre.

I remember forcing myself to keep reading. I think I finished, but I don’t remember how it ended, probably because it was a struggle to finish it. ( )

My favorite of the series. ( )

the first "sex scene" I've ever read and made me terrified of getting pregnant ( )

hell, once I was this far into the series it seemed silly not to push on to the end. ( )

Y así es que con este cuarto libro se termina la Saga que debo admitir ame en cada momento. Así como dije en la reseña de Crepúsculo, gracias ya que increíblemente gracias a esta serie arranqué a leer allá por mis 13-14 años. Lo leería hoy en día, no, ni ahí, obviamente hay muchísimas cosas muy mal y muy tóxicas en esa relación, pero bueno, por suerte se aprende al crecer a ser mas selectivo y elegir lecturas mucho mejor y quedarse con aquellas que permitan disfrutar y reflexionar sanamente. ( )

I finished the entire Twilight series in about 10 days, and this installment was really... something. ( )

I've read this entire series and I have to say once again, the books were so much better than the movies. I think with the movies they screwed up massively with the actors they chose to play the parts. I mean seriously half of them didn't even know how to show emotion. And there are parts of this book series that I have so much emotion that you want to see it conveyed on the character's faces and unfortunately it wasn't. So I strongly recommend to anyone read the book. Always read the book. Don't rely on the movies they suck. ( )

Like it as much as the second one...more action and suspense....less oh he is so beautiful! the beginning was a little too creepy/far out for me, but it won me over. ( )

BREAKING DAWN has been a fair read however not as good as new moon or eclipse which had you hooked from start to finish. B.D started off icky with the offset of character but it picked up at the next chapter, and gradually picked up as it went along. when i got to the part from Jacobs pov it made the whole book more alive seeing outside of Bellas fairy tale lifted the book allot and although there was a character introduced that i immediately thought would kill the book (possible reaction because i read negative spoilers from the american amazon site which looked at the book with more reality than fantasy) but i pushed the negative thoughts aside and read with open mind and i must say S.M strange imagination made the whole story tie up nicely.-and i don't even like happy ever afters- i was disappointing that i was deprived of action i hoped would happen but it wasn't a huge disappointment


The two star review is for how anti climatic the books as a series were, never were the main characters sacrificed and always a nobody got the blunt end of the stick, the books were predictable and quite frustrating. ( )

First of all, it's been brought to my attention that I haven't mentioned that these books are racist and problematic in their portrayal of natives. So, let me state: these books are racist and problematic in their portrayal of natives. As a white woman from Sweden I'm not really qualified to talk about this at lenght, so I'm just gonna link this: http://www.burkemuseum.org/static/truth_vs_twilight/ which is a collaboration between Burke Museum and the Quileute Tribe that "seeks to inform Twilight fans, parents, teachers, and others about the real Quileute culture". It's really cool!

That said, now I'm gonna focus on the book. Which I finished five days ago and have forgotten. As much as I enjoye the books and couldn't put them down as I was reading them, they were really easy to leave behind. I'm not saying I'm not tempted to buy the physical copies, read the gender swapped version and watch the Breaking Dawn movies, I'm just saying I can barely remember what I thought as I read it.

Which is why I'm not giving it more than two stars. Sorry, S-Meyer. You never made it :(

Right, so, Edward and Bella gets married, ehh ... I don't think anything happens there. They to go Isle Esme and have sex. I've always heard the sex part describe as "he knocks her out and loses control", almost making it sound like rape, but ... that wasn't what happened. We fade to black, of course, because S-Meyer is not gonna put a sex scene here, but Bella clearly ENJOYED the sex they had, seeking it out again. She also wakes up covered in bruises because Edward was rough with her (and he slaughtered a pillow), but I didn't read that as him forcing himself on her, I just suddenly saw where E L James got the inspiration for 50 Shades of Grey.

The sex is apparently so good Bella suddenly wants to remain human, which is hilarious, but relatable (oh, also, in the Eclipse movie there's a moment at the end where Bella explains why she wants to become a vampire and Edward says "so not just because of me?" with a smile and she's like "sorry, no", and it's so funny because they have the EXACT opposite conversation in the book, and I liked it so much better in the movie. I had some issues with Eclipse the movie that I didn't have with the first two, but that was good). Then disaster strikes and she's preggers and decides to keep the baby no matter what.

I don't know what I think of that plotline tbh. Before realizing she's preggers Bella thinks about how she doesn't want a baby and I really related to her, then she completely changes her mind. Which happens!! I know!! But still. However, I do think that once she decides to keep it, it's her decision, and I like that they're mostly supportive of that (honestly, she has to "conspire" with Rosalie to get protection but I don't think the others would've forced an abortion on her if she'd said she didn't want one ... Edward just assumed she wanted it gone and Bella never corrected him).

Anyway … then we switch to Jacob’s perspective!?!?!!!? Yeah, just what I needed, MORE of him. Luckily we get to hang out with my new favorite character Seth a lot when we’re with Jake, and I did like him taking command from Sam, so it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be. And I see why S-Meyer did it, seeing Bella’s pregnancy from another perspective worked pretty well. Also, her pregnancy is gross.
Then she arrives … Renesme. Her middlename is Carlie and like, why didn’t they name her that?? It’s a much better name, but NOOO, she had to go with Renesme. And her nickname is Nessie!? I see why that pissed Bella off, but really, you’ve only got yourself to blame here. Poor kid never stood a chance. Especially not when a werewolf falls in love with her. I totally see why that pissed BElla off.

Look, I get it. It’s fantasy. Hell, I love it when immortals falls in love with girls much younger than them. I love it when girls have wolfish boyfriends. But even I think this is truly FUBAR. It’s disturbing. The fact that imprinting means the girl HAS to fall in love with the boy when she grows up is not okay. If we’d seen one example of imprinting where it just meant them being BFFs or something that would have been one thing, but it’s made very clear that the wolf is just … waiting. Yeah no. No.

I have complicated feelings on Renesme. She’s a bit annoying, but I think it’s cute how she “talks” with pictures. I wish she would have not aged as rapidly, and not had the ability to speak, because that puts her as more of a creepy character than a simple baby would be. But when she sees Bella for the second (?) time and shows her all that’s happened to her in the past two days because she wants Bella to know about literally everything, that’s very adorable.

Idk, I guess I didn’t hate her as much as I expected to, but I don’t love her.

You know what doesn’t bother me though? Bella being the most awesome vampire to ever vampire. FUCK YEAH, that’s my girl!!!! I always knew you had it in you. Or maybe I didn’t but I’m happy she did. She fucking deserves it!! Deserves being awesome!! I don’t fucking care about that making her a ~Mary Sue~, that’s the same bullshit saying Rey isn’t allowed to be an amazing jedi immediately, but no one questioning eleven year old Harry Potter standing up against Lord Voldemort. You go, Bella!

I’m too tired to finish this properly. I don’t know if I wanted a big battle (like they pretended to have in the movie) or if I liked the way it turned out. I really don’t. S-Meyer has an annoying tendency to never really hurt or kill any major characters and that’s a bit meh, but also, I’m happy she didn’t kill everyone off for shock value, so fuck knows. It’s a satisfying ending, I think. They all live happily ever after.

Oh, also, I wanna know more about Leah?? Why is she the only female werewolf?? Did she find happiness? TELL ME.
( )

Look I LOVED Twilight. The first book was brilliant - I fell in love. And then she wrote the next one. And that was good. Decent. Not quite what I wanted but it was okay. The third one was pretty average. I struggled to get through it. This last one?

What the hell was she thinking? It was like she jumped off a cliff. She threw every crazy idea you could possibly have and honestly left it looking like little more than a parody fanfiction.

I just don't even know where to begin with this, there was so much wrong it wasn't even funny. It was just a disaster of epic proportions.

Renesmee? Are you fking kidding me? Horrible name. The Jacob/Renesmee thing? Jesus Christ. I mean come on, we're just going to write off everything between Jacob and Bella as being because she was fated to have a kid that is his mate? WTF!???? And then Renesmee aging to a teen? It was just a fkn mess. It was like a badly written fanfiction. ( )

3.5 Stars

I thought that since I am listening to Midnight Sun I would finally get around to writing reviews for this series. I'll use the same review for all the books.

I read these books about 10 years ago. I liked them enough to buy the entire series and they still sit proudly on my bookshelf. Ten years later and something still sticks out in my mind so vividly as to why I fell for this series.

Stephenie Meyer captured the yearny kind of love so incredibly well.

It's not pretty. There's anxiety. There's self-doubt. There's fear that it's unrequited. There's crying and staring off into the distance (ala Joey's smell the fart scene from Friends). There's sense defying instalove. It's basically a cluster fudge of emotions. But wasn't it an utterly over the top, self-indulgent, no one in the world knows what I am going through glorious experience! To be fair, you aren't usually worried your love interest will drain you of blood...unless you are dating Dexter...or well, a vampire. I will acknowledge that I had my fair share of yearny love experiences as a teen. I was besotted with a new soul mate every other month. When I was reading some of the cringey inner monologue about the state of affairs in Bella's heart I had to flip to the front cover to make sure I wasn't reading my own journal. I'm sure we have all been there. Well genuinely I hope we have. It's a wonderful, wallowy experience not to be missed. And so that's what struck me as I read it. I saw my own ridiculous self in there. Again, it wasn't the vampire or werewolf thing. It was the messy falling in love thing. Isn't that the one of the marks of a good writer? To draw a reader in and create relatable characters? I never cared about Edward or Joseph, although if pressed I wouldn't choose a panting wet dog. Sorry Team Jacob. I wasn't wowed by the writing, in fact it felt really clumsy in parts, and Bella was a next level 'special snowflake'. So I will just put myself in to Team 'Dramatic Over the Top Ugly Snot Crying Messy Love' and leave it there.

Bravo, Stephenie, bravo. Thanks for the incredibly long walk down memory lane. ( )

'Sparkle Family Reunion Tour 2020' Reread

Yeaaaahh. My feelings about this series, twinkies, loving the Cullens, the writing playlist, and side-eying a whole lot of SM have pretty much not changed in the past decade. // Especially with this one, I don't know that I want to reread it or will. For now, I'm just in here dropping the 2008 review from a billion years ago in the first read.

--------------------
(2008 Reviews / Continued Across all four books / all read in less than 53 hours
Just going to copy these over from the lolarious mass-review I did in 2018)

Let me start this out with saying, I'm sure if I tried I could take these books seriously and in doing so I would abhor Stephenie Meyers with the utter damnation burning hate in ground into me by five years of being an English major, but honestly, I'm not sure how anyone could go into these books expecting (or wanting to expect) more than fanfic-esque fourteen-year-old-wish-fulfillment. Which is what I did and likely why I was willing to roll with it, because lets just start with the bare minimum that I knew before I started reading.

We have a protagonist girl, who comes from a broken home, who's paler than anyone else who's human and blushes as often as the wind blows, who's never been interested in a boy seriously before, with extremely low self-esteem, who is the worlds biggest cultz, who attracts danger like she's got a beacon on her head saying come and get it, who is all helplessly weak and who can not be touched, read, or effected by any type of mental magic.

She is paralleled by the boy protagonist, who just happens to be a one hundred and eight-year-old vampire with the most well-adjusted family of Brady-style vampires, who doesn't drink human blood, with the one-way power to listen to other people's thoughts, who looks like a runway model or God, has never considered any other woman seriously before in his life and unlife, and has to be broody/moody/strong enough to resist killing her every moment he's near her because she's the one thing in the world he'd best love to do that to out of no fault of their own but fate.
I mean, c'mon, Anita Blake wasn't even that flagrantly Mary Sue-Fan Fic-ish until she became the Whore of Babylon. Thus I went into it expecting fourteen-year-old-wish fulfillment and lo and behold I was not surprised or disappointed when I found it there.

I think Cleolinda said it best:

A lot of people are really passionate about these books. Some of them love and defend them passionately; others... well. I'm not going to defend them anymore than I'm going to defend Twinkies--you go and get yourself a Twinkie when you have a very specific kind of craving. If you want a gourmet pastry or even a homemade cake, you know where to get that. If you're eating a Twinkie, you clearly know what you want and why you're eating it, and you know that it's not good to eat very many of them, but... you know... sometimes you just want one.

Breaking Dawn

I don't adore this book, but I don't abhor it either. I think the best description was what I said to evegryffindor, which was that after having read 1800 pages in about twelve hours across one and half days, I was at the point where I could roll with anything.

I had bigger problem with Mrs. Meyer breaking from her established narrator and plot structure than I did with the birth-vamp-making scene or Renesmee, because all of those things threw me, but getting into Jacob's head suddenly and having no way to gauge the real and not real plots confused me. Looking back I can see a week later how she sort of stuck to it, but it's far too loose and fast and much (3/6ths being marriage and honeymoon and baby, 2/6ths being the gathering of people, witnessing and big battle, and 1/6th being the unwind). Also. I'm still miffed, a personal snit, that it wasn't one book from each of the main three. Just randomly getting one Jacob is so off-balance in the whole four books of Bella.

I was glad the wedding went off without a hitch early, and was in awe for a long enough time because of it. And the honeymoon. (and mind you I have another icon to upload sometime that says "Edward gives cars as gifts, Carlisle gives islands" which tells you how they rank in the coolness meter against each other still, even eight years later. Which makes me happy.) The honey money pre-sex bathroom jitters are remarkably realistically handled and I was in awe of the moment actually being in there. After fighting for what she wants this book has her worried about finally getting it (just like last book she got cold feet about getting vamped because of graduation suddenly getting there).

Pillow biter. All I have to say. No, it's now. I lied I wanted the pornz scene. Not so much for the pornz. And very exclusively not from Bella’s point of view. Specifically because of Edward. Because I want to know how much hell that really was at the same time. Because that combination of Bella being both Hell and Heaven always attracts me to his personality and his strength and his control. And this is a situation where all control is given up or held on to. And the pillows denote desperation and embarrassment and loss of control which must have been Hellish while dealing with everything else going on. Not to mention the avalanche of guilt from bruising his soap bubble. (Yes. All my bases belong to him. It is sad.)

Which of course brings us to Jacob and Hope. The wonder child who's beautiful and powerful and ages quick to normal size and can do anything and fool anyone. Wait. We aren't in Xena? I mean Renesmee, who names is fanfic traffic jam worse than JK's kids' names in [b:Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows|136251|Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)|J.K. Rowling|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1474171184l/136251._SY75_.jpg|2963218], who happens to be all that and a bag of chips and make of sparkle poo and pink frosting. The way too perfect aside, I actually like her power, too. Meyer's has a gift for interesting powers. I love that she can get into everyone head but only through touching them and only through repeating an image that she can skew with her own emotion when she sends it back.

Well, this section started with Jacob and the Jacob-Edward bonding of WT? bonding over Bella's safety. I didn't feel his offer to Jacob was out of place (See paragraph 3 from the last in Eclipse about Edward on Jacob) especially with his desperation and Bella suddenly wanting children, and being willing to offer her anything she wanted that didn't involve him walking away. Except this time it's not quiet. It's rattle under the desperation of a husband watching his wife literally dying before his eyes. And that makes it painfully worse. And then he gets Jacob to agree to kill him if Bella dies. And I'm just staring wide-eyed the whole time making incoherent noises.

Seth is awesometasticness in this book. It does not make up for the distinct lack of Alice in this book, even though I never hated her even when she vanished. She is too awesome and too much my second favorite character (yes, after Edward). I'm not a big fan of Leah, who is indeed a powerful amazing female character, though she makes an amazing counterbalance to Jacob and his situation with someone who had dealt with much worse and who could help him through his healing process. Which would be why I dislike his imprinting (not because she's a day old, or crazy perfect, or Bella's daughter but) because he had the first healing right story in process and then it was just not necessary. Why is this amazing plot venue offered up if it's not necessary??? Which. This may all be why I have issues with liking Leah now and it's not even Leah's fault. It's the plot thing again. Also, I don't ship Rosalie/Jacob either, but they did make me laugh with the first few jokes/pranks. By the third or fourth blonde joke I was very tired of it.

I am not horrified about pregnancy!Bella scene except on Edward's behalf, because its about as crazy as most vampy books have in them for crazy medical scenes. Same for the vampifying scene where they think she's all dead. Bella the perfected newborn vampire bothers me. Her power, which just turns out to be that thing which has kept Edward out for three and half books already, was totally awesome in my opinion. But she's our fourteen-year-old proxy mary sue so it's all wish fulfillment and I can roll with it. Now.

I just can't roll so well with Baby!Sparklepoo who sleeps, has a heart, isn't venomous, has vampire skin, drink blood, talks physically, ages miraculously fast, has perfect blonde curls, will never need to worry about being human, is convenient plot device for losing one lover and one vampire-werewolf threat-treaty-pact with imprint from your mothers not-boy-friend and is a perfect addition to your just became dead immortal family. Order one today, for three payments of 19.95 shipping included!

(Yeah. I really may have to get a blonde baby doll just for making it through that sentence.)

And then the plot arrives. You know that 2/6ths in the middle. Cuz everything before now wasn't. Yes. I have issues with this massively. I really liked the crazy plot structure that was stuck to for three books. And now we have to focus on the whole baby!vampires!bad issue and resolve how the Vampire Council of Doom is horribly evil and yet still governmentally evil, which means calling in all the favors of Carlisle's two hundred years and the Forgery paper guys. Who are all not that interesting to me because they aren't there long enough to be for me and will vanish after their convenient stand. .......but the goodbye on the green did get me teary-eyed. Dammit. (But there is an annoyance at the 'my son' comment.)

The only one I want more of I am not getting more of and that is sad: Nahuel. I very much wanted more of him and the hints of him mentioned in Edward-Bella conversation. I did not have issues with Bella's shield (see narration proxy for fourteen-year-old wish fulfillment). And even before connecting it to Merchant of Venice, I did not have issues with the battlefield being one of the mind and clever words. I thought that was inventive given the fact all the other books have had huge physical fights and/or body burnings. ( )