The writing:
I still don't think the writing was fantastic, but Breaking Dawn definitely was the most well-written in the main saga. It is a significant improvement from Twilight, but it was far from perfect. There were many parts about the writing that still annoyed me. For instance, there was a part after Bella dies and is beginning to transform into a vampire where she counts Edward's breaths. This is a direct quote from Chapter 19:
"I went back to counting Edward's breaths to mark the time. Ten thousand, nine hundred forty-three breaths later...."
Who has the energy to count ten thousand, nine hundred forty-three breaths? Isn't Bella supposed to be nearly dead? Isn't the transformation from human to vampire supposed to be painful? Because I know for sure that I would not be able to count ten thousand, nine hundred forty-three breaths while in pain, much less one hundred.
Also, not many pages later, Edward asks Alice how much longer for Bella's transformation. This quote occurs after this:
"How many more seconds would I burn? Ten thousand? Twenty? Another day--eighty-six thousand, four hundred? More than that?"
Is this the kind of information Bella decides to retain? How many seconds there are in a day? No wonder this girl isn't smart enough to get herself away from dangerous creatures. She's too busy storing useless information in the brain she doesn't have.
The story:
Unlike the previous three books, Breaking Dawn is told in three parts, beginning with Bella, then switching to Jacob, and finally ending with Bella. The beginning starts with Bella and Edward's wedding. After the wedding, they travel to Isle Esme, a private island that Carlisle owns off the coast of Brazil to have their honeymoon. While there, Bella gets pregnant with hers and Edward's child, though this causes immense confusion; the Cullens were under the impression that vampires couldn't have babies.
Since the baby is half vampire, it grows at a different rate than normal, human babies. They return to Forks, where Carlisle tries to make sense of the situation. Instead of the normal pregnancy time (around nine months), Bella is only pregnant for about 2 months.
Soon after this, the novel switches to Jacob's point-of-view. The moment Bella and Edward return from their honeymoon, he is immediately suspicious after Carlisle prevents him from visiting Bella. Jacob assumes that the Cullens broke their treaty not to bite another human, and decides to intrude on the Cullen's house, intending to kill Edward. Once he arrives, he finds out that Bella pregnant and having a difficult time. The fetus is slowly killing her. Carlisle and Alice aren't optimistic about her pregnancy, seeing as none of them knows if she's even going to survive (Carlisle doesn't know what to do, while Alice can't see a future; the fetus blocks her).
Edward pulls Jacob aside to talk to him. He tells him that he wants him to convince Bella to abort the baby before she dies either before or while in childbirth. He suggests that he and Edward should "share" Bella. Edward says that Jacob can give Bella as many babies as she wants and he won't care, as long as she's happy. Jacob then goes in to talk to Bella.
Bella, believing she can survive long enough to give birth, decides not to abort the fetus inside her. Her plan is to "die" giving birth and then being transformed into a vampire. The rest of the Quileute pack finds out about Bella via Jacob's thoughts. They set out to kill her and the child she's bearing, believing she's going to give birth to a dangerous, bloodthirsty child similar to a vampire. Jacob immediately warns the Cullens that the pack intends to kill Bella.
Jacob breaks away from the pack, becoming another Alpha wolf. He runs off, not wanting to be a part of the mission to kill Bella (he wants to kill the baby, but not Bella). Seth Clearwater, one of the pack's younger members, breaks off to join Jacob's pack. Soon after this, Leah, Seth's older sister also joins them.
They head back to the Cullens house. Bella enters labor, and is incredibly close to death. Edward performs a c-section, saving the baby. Just before Bella dies, Edward injects his venom into her heart. While Edward's trying to save her, Jacob can't stand watching her die, and decides to leave. He blames Renesmee for Bella's death and immediately moves to kill her. However, just before he does, he imprints on her. This is where the second part ends.
The third part returns to Bella's perspective, starting with her transformation into a vampire. After this, she is now fully recovered and is a vampire. Renesmee grows as rapidly as she did while in Bella's womb. She has now matured to a toddler. She is spotted by a vampire who mistakenly believes she's an "immortal child," which is when a child has been turned into a vampire (this was outlawed by the Volturi). The vampire, whose name is Irina, goes off to report the Cullens to the Volturi. The Volturi see the Cullens and Renesmee as a threat, and plan to kill them.
Because Alice is able to foresee the future, the Cullens are aware that the Volturi are traveling to Forks to destroy them. They decide to gather vampires from other clans to stand as witnesses to prove to the Volturi that Renesmee isn't an immortal child. Meanwhile, the Quileute-Cullen animosity has faded due to Jacob imprinting on Renesmee, making them allies.
When the Volturi confront the Cullens and the other vampires, they see that Renesmee isn't an immortal child and decide to execute Irina for misinforming them. While they no longer recognize Renesmee as an illegal immortal child, they still see her as a threat. Around this time, Alice and Jasper (who had left prior to the Volturi arriving) return with another vampire-human hybrid named Nahuel, who has been alive for 150 years. It is explained by his biological aunt (who traveled with him, Alice, and Jasper) that her sister fell in love with a vampire and became pregnant, but died while in childbirth. The reason Nahuel's aunt is still alive is because he bit her after he was born, transforming her into a vampire.
Nahuel proves that he and Renesmee (vampire-human hybrids) aren't threats to vampires or the rest of the world. The Volturis decide to leave the Cullens alone. The Cullens, along with their allies, part ways, though they realize that Volturi may return one day. The story ends with Bella letting Edward hear her thoughts, sharing how she feels about him.
The characters:
Bella Swan
I feel as if I've already talked about how I feel about Bella in my previous Twilight installments. Normally, I would talk about character development, but honestly, I fail to see where Bella has any. She's still 2-D and has no life outside her new vampire husband. She doesn't really have many hobbies and is overall still incredibly boring and dull. Her actions still make no sense to me. Not to mention that the only "personality trait" that she seemed to have (clumsiness), was also miraculously eliminated, because I guess there are no vampires that are clumsy.
Edward Cullen
I don't feel as if Edward changed much either. He isn't as controlling of Bella, but he's still not great. He's more three-dimensional than Bella, but that isn't saying much. He at least seems to have a life outside his vampire wife.
Jacob Black
As I mentioned in the story section, the second part of this book is told in Jacob's perspective, which was new, but also wasn't very engaging. Jacob is more interesting than Bella, but he's still pretty boring as a whole. I wasn't a big fan of his character voice. It just didn't read right to me.
Jacob was interesting in Twilight and New Moon, but after that his character seemed to take a completely different direction. He annoyed me in Eclipse and was mediocre in Breaking Dawn. I just wish that Jacob didn't seem to turn into a possessive, jealous jerk overnight between New Moon and Eclipse.
Rosalie Cullen
Rosalie was one of the few who actually supported Bella in her decision to keep Renesmee. I thought we got to see a much softer, more maternal side of Rosalie, which was a pleasant change from the aura she seemed to give off before.
Jasper Cullen
Jasper wasn't in this book as much as I'd hoped he would be, but he was still present. As always, Jasper was one of the only positives besides Alice.
Overall Thoughts
I know that what most people didn't like about this book was that Jacob imprinted on Renesmee, but to me, that is the least weird thing about Breaking Dawn. For me the weirdest part is that if Jacob and Renesmee end up having a romantic relationship in the future, she's probably going to find out that her partner not only kissed her mom and desired her romantically, but that he, her mom, and her dad were all involved in a love triangle. Plus, Renesmee's dad (Edward) told Jacob that they could "share" (I am not going to define this; if you're old enough, you know what I mean) Bella, and that Jacob could give Bella non-vampire babies as a substitute for Renesmee, which I mentioned the story section of this post.
To me, this is 10x weirder than Jacob imprinting. Especially when you consider that if Renesmee and Jacob were to end up together, then he would be Bella and Edward's son-in-law. Here's hoping he just stays either a family friend or an older brother figure, because no matter which road is taken romantically, they all lead to WeirdTown.
To me, the ending felt a bit rushed and conveniently wrapped up in a neat little bow, but then again, that's pretty much how every book in the series ended. It kind of feels as if Nahuel came out of nowhere, and I know that he and his aunt were probably in a more secluded part of the world, but still. Maybe it's just that I don't fully remember Breaking Dawn, but the ending feels as if it's a deus ex machina.
Overall, I give Breaking Dawn 3.5 stars.
That's it for this installment in my Twilight Saga review series! We only have two more books until I am finished (Midnight Sun and Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined).
I hope you enjoyed it!
Until next time,
Lexi K🖌
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