BREAKING DAWN (TWILIGHT #4) - STEPHENIE MEYER

To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare for Bella. 
Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a human life has become the thread from which the fate of two tribes hangs.
Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating consequences. 

Spoiler Warning!  This review may contain spoilers that might give you more information than you should know in approaching this book.  I do my best to avoid giving away too much but some things slip through...

The final installment of The Twilight Saga.  Whew.  Reading this was actually amazing – I had a lot of fun with the first three but Breaking Dawn really tied it all together in a way I wasn’t expecting.  

This book is divided into three parts with part one and three written, like in the previous books, from Bella’s perspective and part two, from Jacob’s point of view.  Now that, I wasn’t expecting, but I rather liked it – Jacob’s perspective was quite interesting and provided insight into an aspect of the story that we don’t get much of a look into in the earlier books.  

The story picks up where Eclipse left off – Bella preparing to marry Edward.  When Bella gets back from her honeymoon pregnant, no one knows what's in store for the family.  The danger of this unknown divides the Cullens and threatens the balance of life in Forks.  The birth of Renesmee, the half-vampire, half-human child, brings the Volturi to the Cullen’s door.  But there is more to Renesmee than anyone was expecting.  She is a child who can unite the wolves and the vampires of the world to take a stand against the despotic Volturi.  

*Warning: Spoilers in the next few paragraphs*  
Breaking Dawn was amazing.  While it still had a few of the problems, which I pointed out in my reviews of the earlier books, I absolutely loved it.  I really liked the idea of all the foreign vampires coming together, learning from each other and standing for what is right.  It was great looking more into the world of werewolves from Jacob's perspective as well as the vampires, seeing beyond the little pocket that was the Cullen family.  I do, however, wish that this could have been used more.  As I was reading, I could not help but hope that there would be a killer battle at the end, something to really unite the different groups.  A battle where people are faced with tough decisions.  That is one thing that I think the movies did better than the books, we could see the vampires working together despite all differences, for this one child.
  
I found it a bit disappointing that everything seemed to work out in Bella’s favour.  She never had to make the tough decisions, never really even felt loss.  While, yes, she was prepared to make a heartbreaking choice, it never really came to it.  The happy ending was perhaps too unrealistic for me.  Then again, maybe I am a little morbid and pessimistic.  Either way, it had a really sweet ending that made even me grin foolishly and squeal inhumanly.

I wasn’t expecting for this series to be as enjoyable as I found it.  While a bit cliché, I think Meyer managed to capture the emotion really well and I found I was sad to turn the final page.

Please, form your own opinions on this series.  I avoided reading The Twilight Saga for a long time because of its bad reputation in the general reading community however, once I started reading it and speaking openly to others about my thoughts on the series, I found that those that don’t like the books are a lot more vocal with their opinions than those that do like them.

Rating: 3.5/5



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