Let it be known that is the last time I'll ever touch a Twilight-related book again. I won't cover Midnight's Sun or any of the other adjacent works, I just wanted to experience for the first time what all my friends in high school kept going on and on about. Spoilers and extreme cringe ahead. Also, trigger warnings for grooming, pedophilia, racism and pregnancy/birth mentions.
After getting married, Bella ends up pregnant with Edward's half-vampire half-human child. The first major conflict in the book is finding a way to bring the child into the world without killing Bella, the second part of the book is dedicated to the Volturi trying to kill the child and anyone who sticks up for her because of the danger she might pose once she grows up.
What even is there to say. Like all Twilight books, this one is boring. Boring and offensive. It easily could've been a third of the length if all the pointless filler was taken out. The characters are also too weak or unlikable to carry the story, so spending so much time with them is the opposite of a treat.
The whole handling of the Quileute people is still awful, and the whole imprinting-bit gets even worse once Jacob, who is practically a 25-years old man by now, imprints on Bella and Edward's newborn child (Renesmee). And they're okay with this. Imprinting is basically just grooming and pedophilia, with the imprinter waiting for the imprintee to grow up until they will get married and probably produce offspring. It's just so very yikes. The whole concept of imprinting on adults only is already kinda iffy, with there basically being no other option for the two getting together regardless of what they want since it's pure instinct. But on a child? In the last book Jacob was already defending one of his friends imprinting on a toddler, and now he's bloody gone and done it himself as well? And Meyer clearly sees this as something romantic and not horrifying, since it's just condoned by our main characters, even her parents. Nobody even for a moment considers that this is slightly fucked up. But okay, I'll continue, because I could honestly talk about how problematic this series is all day.
Much like the previous Twilight books, there is little to no plot until a final conflict arises in the last third of the book, in this case the Volturi desiring to kill Renesmee. Everything before that was just Bella pregnancy/birth drama (very disgusting and disturbing scenes regarding her pregnancy and birth-giving, by the way), Bella becoming a vampire and dicking around doing vampire things. Then, after the Volturi make it known they want to see Renesmee, a bunch of random side characters who do little to nothing in the final conflict are gathered just so the Cullens have somewhat of a force to be reckoned with against their foe.
Then the final showdown isn't even a showdown. Just some back-and-forths between the Cullens (and allies) and Volturi (and allies). There isn't even a climax. The Volturi show up, declare they want Renesmee dead, they talk a bit with the Cullens and allies and then after Alice shows up with another vampire-human hybrid who isn't unhinged they just leave. They aren't defeated or anything, and will continue to murder tourists in Italy en-masse. They just leave. That's our ending.
Just imagine the disappointment. We've had four books so far, most of them quite lengthy and rather plot-less for the most part. And now even the final book is just some characters just doing stuff until a conflict finally arises, only for it to be brushed off pretty quickly with no final resolution to the bad guys or anything. It's just boring and so anticlimactic.
I don't think Meyer is a very competent writer. Even sidelining the huge amount of problematic aspects in her work, the fact that most of them are rather plotless and focus so much on our characters who aren't even likable just makes these books a slog to read. I'm not saying she's incapable of coming up with interesting concepts, there sure are quite a few. Heck, even the idea of this predatory romance between Bella and Edward could have been written about if Meyer actually bothered to explore why it wasn't healthy. As a good cautionary tale for young-adults. But instead these things are romanticized to hell and back.
This needn't be said, but don't touch these books. I read them once for the heck of it and am now instantly parting with all my copies of these books.
Rating: 1/5
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