Stephenie Meyer - Eclipse

Eclipse is the third book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga.  In the first two books we have a story about Bella, a new girl in a new high school that falls in love with a vampire.  The story is about Edward and Bella's relationship and develops their relationship into something that they can never break.  In the second book, New Moon brings Jacob's character into place.  Jacob is Bella's best friend that ends up falling for her after spending so much time together when Edward left her and as it turns out, he is actually a werewolf.

This book picks up where New Moon left off.  Towards the end of Twilight and through New Moon, Bella comes to the conclusion that she wants to become a vampire herself.  She knows that Edward will stay 17 years old forever and she turned 18 in the previous book.  Edward is against letting her do this and so she decided to ask his family to vote on it.  They agreed that for them to be together, changing Bella would be the best for their relationship and keeping her out of danger including her dad Charlie and her mom.  Carlisle, Edward's dad agreed that he would do this but not until she graduates from high school.  Edward is not very happy about this but he knows Bella would do what it takes.  He tells Bella that if she wants him to change her, then she must agree to marry him before he will do it.  When he first told her this, she had her reasons for not wanting to get married but she still had Carlisle willing to change her after graduation.

The Story

In Eclipse, we have Bella and Edward getting ready to graduate from high school - definitely not a first for Edward.  Bella is going through something with Charlie.  Her dad doesn't like Edward much after he came back because of what he put her through when he left in the previous book.  Even though she has restrictions on when she can see Edward and being grounded for the rest of her life it seems, she continues to keep it civil with her dad.  I think she does it a lot better than I would have at her age.  While getting ready for graduation, Bella and Edward apply to colleges and keep looking toward their future.  The plan is that they find a college a good distance away because when Bella is turned into a vampire, she will need to stay away from humans because the thirst will be too much for her like it is with any newborn vampires.  It will take some time before she can adapt to the Cullen's way of life.

In this book, Bella is also torn between her best friend Jacob and Edward because she can't see Jacob anymore.  This is between werewolves and vampires mostly but there is also a bit of jealousy between the two of them.  A few times Bella sneaks off to see Jacob and Edward wasn't very happy about it.  His reasoning is because werewolves are dangerous creatures and he doesn't want anything to happen to Bella.  I thought this was funny because aren't vampires dangerous too?  Anyway, the last time that Bella snuck down to La Push to see Jacob, Edward didn't get mad at her.  He told her that he realized that he can't tell her what to do and he doesn't want to hurt her.  He knew it was hurting her that she couldn't see Jacob so Edward tells Bella it's okay to see him as long as they do it the safe way.  After all, Victoria is still after her.  There were also killings going on in nearby Seattle which they find out that the killings are caused by newborn vampires.  Could this have anything to do with Victoria?

Once again, I didn't really get the feeling that Bella was leading Jacob on in any way.  Of course, Jacob still being Jacob continues to think that Bella should be with him and he just won't let it go.  Bella just wants to see her best friend.  Once again, I was getting pretty annoyed with Jacob.  I kept getting more annoyed with him as the series went on.  He even had the nerve to kiss her when she tried to fight him off.  She ended up breaking her hand when she slugged him one.  I just don't understand what his problem was.  He never had her to lose her and if he loved her so much, why doesn't he just let her go?  Let her be happy?  I get the feeling that Bella does love Jacob just not in the same way.  She knows her heart belongs to Edward and it will remain that way forever.

My thoughts.........

I thought this book dragged on more than the other two did.  It was still a good book and the story between Bella, Edward and Jacob was pretty interesting even though I was pretty annoyed with the whole thing.  This book builds up to what Bella and Edward plan with their future.  Edward still won't change Bella unless she marries him which she didn't really want to do.  She also has to deal with her dad, and fighting with her best friend.  There's graduation coming up and Bella knows the time for change is coming really quickly and she still doesn't know what to tell Charlie.  Bella also wants more from Edward than just kissing and so she has some marriage stipulations of her own if she goes through with the whole marriage thing.  There is a reason why Edward never went further than kissing because Bella is still human and he could kill her.  He wanted to wait until she was changed.  I thought Meyer had done a great job adding everything she could into this teen-relationship to give her readers wanting answers.  Will they get married?  Will Bella get what she wants?    

I thought this book was more of developing the story for the next book once again.  During all the Edward and Bella relationship stuff, there was still the fact that Victoria was out there searching for Bella.  There wasn't much action in this book but on top of the relationship issues, they still had to worry about Victoria and if what was going on in Seattle had anything to do with it.  This book was also about building some sort of relationship with Edward and Jacob because even though they didn't like each other whether it was because of the vampire/werewolf thing or for other reasons, they knew that Bella needs to be safe.  As much as I like the story about Edward and Bella, I liked the action as well.  I just wish there were more of it this time.  It is the third book after all.

This series was targeted for the young adult readers.  I agree that most teenagers would like this series a little better than most adults however, I actually enjoyed it myself.  This book wasn't as good as the first two but it did make me want to read the last one in the series.  I think that this book had more to do with Edward and Bella again and I do appreciate the waiting for sex until marriage idea no matter which way Edward and Bella came about it.  It's a good teenage love story for teens.  Once again, there isn't any sex in this book although there was talk about it between the two.  There is a little more gore in this book than there was in the previous two.  I would still recommend this book along with the previous in the series for about ages 14-15 years of age.  I just think that Meyer could have summed this book up a little because at times it did get a little boring.  There wasn't a whole lot of excitement until the end.  Like I said, I think it was another set-up book.  I do recommend it though if you have read the previous books in the series.  I say that because if there wasn't a fourth book in the series and it ended with this one, I don't think I would have been very happy with it.