Second in the series (New Moon - Stephenie Meyer)

Member Name: diamond_sparkles

Product:	New Moon - Stephenie Meyer
Date:	10/09/09 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Vital information for the following books

Disadvantages: Plot breaks at certain points

(update: I accidentally pasted my Twilight book review in this New Moon section. Apologies to everyone!!! Just corrected my mistake!)


In comparison to the intensity and profound aspect of the first book in the Twilight Saga, I would say that New Moon is quite dull and flat. I did not particularly enjoy reading this book, mainly because of the too fast pace and lack of emotions in the wordings. However, even when read without comparison to Twilight, New Moon can stand as quite an average novel on its own. The cadence of this book can be considered as somewhat heavy or gloomy, but I think that this might have to do with the fact that the various situations in the story are a lot less cheerful or romantic than in the first one. The story, according to me, is nice but the wordings and flow of sentences seem to occasionally break.


PLOT:

When Bella accidentally places her life in the face of danger, due to some unexpected circumstances, Edward gets fed up at having to constantly risk her life and constantly place her in danger. He finally ends his relationship with Bella and leaves without a trace. She is completely shattered at his decision and for Bella; it's as if life is not worth living after all. But when she starts coming out of her shell with the help of her friend Jacob Black, will Bella ever be able to forget Edward again? Or will the suffering that he left her with plague her for the rest of her life?


I think that it is very obvious from the plot that romance might be the last thing on a reader's mind in New Moon. I would rather describe the plot as being a journey towards the Edward Cullen aftermath recovery. However, like I mentioned above, I was not particularly pleased with the flow of the plot as a whole. There are, according to me, a lot of breaks in the plot and the flow is very far from being smooth. It might be just the impression that I got but I felt like Meyer was trying to fill in blank spaces- there are a lot of petty unnecessary details and for the first time since Twilight, she delved very deeply into descriptions.


In fact, I have to say that while I could not lay Twilight down without completing the whole book, New Moon got quite boring at some points. I have read the whole series and I admit that some details were quite important to the continuity of the series as a whole, but it really did not score points for the styling of this book. I think that it might have been better if there were some occasional breaks in the heavily depressing parts, because sometimes, the intensity got really too much for me to be able to follow the happenings easily. More than once, I had to go back on the same paragraph all over again in order to understand what was truly happening.


On a good note, however, like I said, there is quite a lot of vital information given which might served into enhancing one's understanding for the books to come. In fact, the reason why I am rating this book as four stars instead of three is because I would say that in the whole series, New Moon is the book which can really claim to open the reader's mind to some specific aspects of the whole plot and happenings. I would recommend anyone who is reading the book to pay attention to details, even if the vast number of descriptive details can get really exhausting at times! But for a reader who is planning on going through the rest of the series, such details are really going to be helpful. I have to say that I just skipped over the details because they were too complicated for me to decipher, and by the time I reached the end of the third book, I found myself reaching for the second one again to understand certain situations better.


This is also the book where some minor characters that have been passed over in Twilight really come to life. I have to admit that despite the breaks in the plot and despite the long and somewhat unnecessarily complicated sentences, some characters just jump off the pages: They are really beautifully painted in this book, and Meyer remained more or less true to her style of letting the reader discover each character based upon dialogue and actions. I just wish that the sentences and wordings could have been just a little more clear, though. It would have made the character descriptions so much better!


Overall, not a highly recommended novel on its own, but certainly one that you have to read if you are planning on completing the series. Trust me, reading the third or fourth book without opening this one will lead to pure undiluted incomprehension!


Thanks for reading!

Summary: What will happen to Bella Swan?