carradee's Full Review: Stephenie Meyer - New Moon
*No specific spoilers for New Moon; some for Twilight*
She… didn't.
If you like character analysis, you can guess a few things that might happen in New Moon, the sequel of Twilight, after you read the first book. One of them in particular might occur to you since it's the most logical choice for Edward, but it will probably be promptly dismissed because no author does that route, and with reason. Readers would be so annoyed that they probably wouldn't read the book.
Guess what Stephenie Meyer did.
Not only did she chose that "forbidden" plot, but she pulled it off surprisingly well. That doesn't mean that readers don't still skim most of the story waiting for that element of the plot to end, but once they can bring themselves to read the large middle, there's a lot of development of Bella and her younger friend Jacob.
Bella Swan wants to be a vampire. Badly. Edward refuses to let it happen (for reasons relating to God which I'll leave Stephenie Meyer to explain for herself). A paper cut at the Cullen's nearly turns life-threatening, and Edward basically panics and acts stupidly albeit logically considering what he assumes. That action has repercussions throughout the book and makes it impossible to say much more about the plot without spoiling it.
Werewolves, hinted at in Twilight with Jacob's forbidden mention of his tribe's treaty with the vampire coven who pose as the Cullen family, are a major element. A potential plot inconsistency does appear, unfortunately, which I'll mention after the main review to avoid spoiler contamination.
Like the previous book, New Moon offers a surprisingly clean vampire (and majorly romance) novel for young adults. It's pretty dependent on Twilight, though it's set up so you probably could read it independently; but you wouldn't want to. The writing is the snappy—and sappy—same first person style that Twilight had. Lovesick teenagers may want to avoid it for their sanity's sake.
Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprising because Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon, New Moon adds a discussion about God and His relation to vampires. I won't call it minor, but it is limited despite its inherent contribution to the logic behind the plot. Most vampire books ignore or scoff at Him, making New Moon a welcome change. Again, cursing is extremely limited and the potential for graphic violence is converted into a book perfectly suitable for juveniles except for some more mature themes.
On the didactic level, New Moon does teach that Bella's purely independent attitude has problems; she ends up in major trouble for it. (And punishment can be pretty strong when your father's the chief of police.) Nonetheless, it also still affirms that attitude to some degree, with Bella making demands of her father and rebelling against his authority despite outwards compliance with the well-deserved punishment. The behavior is consistent with Bella's character, again, but young readers should have a care about its influence.
Overall, it's a bit annoying a read because of the plot choice, but it's definitely worth reading again from the great story and content. Just be prepared to skip ahead to the end before reading the middle, to restrain your urge to skim the middle to get to the end, or to be so upset that you want to throw the book across the room. (I think one of my friends did that.)
MINOR SPOILER:
What is the potential plot hole that I hope Stephenie Meyer fixes in Eclipse? The mentioned treaty says that the Cullens can't so much as bite any people, or it's broken and they'll attack, so the tribe is holding that over the Cullens' heads about Bella. But the treaty also involved the tribe not telling any humans the Cullens were vampires, and that was broken, so how can the tribe demand the rights to both break the treaty and hold the Cullens accountable to it? The only way to really fix that flaw would be to either make Bella Swan a non-human or to renegotiate the treaty, unless there's something major about it that she won't be revealing till the next book, Eclipse.
Legions of readers entranced by Twilight are hungry for more and they won't be disappointed. In New Moon, Stephenie Meyer delivers another irresistibl...More at HotBookSale
Star-crossed lovers Bella and Edward face new obstacles in this vampire love story--the second installment of Meyer s #1 New York Times -bestselling T...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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