Stephenie Meyer - Eclipse

The lamb fell in love with the wolf....wonder how the heck that turned out. Apparently, it's turning out quite well considering that the lamb - or human - Bella Swan, is still very much alive while she remains still very much in love with the wolf - or vampire - Edward Cullen. Eclipse - spellbindingly yet also somewhat overly written by Stephenie Meyer - continues the quirkily romantic relationship between Bella and Edward as well as the rough going best-friendship with actual wolf, werewolf Jacob.

The first two novels of the Twilight saga - Twilight and New Moon - I found to be exquisite. The immediate plots, as well as the threaded ongoing plot, were fairly compelling and have kept me reading this far, while, despite a fairly dragging tempo and significant lack of action, the primary characters were very well developed, which I loved. Yet, although reading Eclipse was enjoyable, this book seemed to lack significantly where the previous installments thrived; the character development was cut short, the immediate plot was not as compelling as could have been, and, although I dislike to say it, I found Bella to be somewhat obnoxious.


Story Synopsis

Despite her beloved's worries for soul, Bella would give an arm and a leg to become immortal; Bella believes that her transformation would solve the numerous life threatening problems that currently plague her as well as her family, some of which include a mourning yet crazed vampire Victoria, who is desperate for the revenge of her slaughtered mate. Bella's seemingly inescapable marital engagement, as well as a merciless army of newborn vampires attacking close to home, is also frequent on her mind. I would consider most of this to be secondary plot as most of the book focuses on Bella's realization that she's in love with best friend and werewolf Jacob. However, the wild and murderous vampire army as well as other secondary details ties into the primary plot and story resolution, making for an interesting story escalation.

Well....

Firstly, Meyer's writing is extraordinarily good. Very detailed and, for the most part, compelling as well. Her writing is thorough and her sentences are usually fairly long, quite like this one actually, which is fine, but after a few hundred pages or so, this can become somewhat monotonous unless there is a wondrous story working to hold the attention. Luckily, Eclipse contains more action when compared to the prior Twilight installments, which is an adrenaline plus. It's mostly all downhill from this point on.

There was little character development of primary characters in this book. Also, the action build up was somewhat weak. Therefore, when the action did come, it did not carry much adrenaline and I did not quite care as much what happened to the characters as I expected of myself due to the lack of development. On the contrary, the minor characters were interestingly developed and it was neat learning a little about those on the fantasias sidelines.

Jacob and Bella become somewhat romantic here. I found the romanticism to be kind of awkward and I became a little annoyed by Bella's...attitude, you could say. I could not quite put my finger on it, but the protagonist did not seem as lovable or as charming as before for an unspecified reason. Hence, I found the book to be somewhat tedious coming from Bella's first person point of view.

I thoroughly enjoyed the ending as it finished with a bang - both literally and as a figure of speech - and it left much to be anticipated, many of the smaller, secondary plots now running together to make something almost like sense. Overall, the writing was good, but the plot and romanticism could have been better conducted. Also, I miss the overabundance of character development from the previous books as Bella, Jacob, and Edward did not seem quite the same. Hopefully, Breaking Dawn - book 4 will prove to be more worth while than Eclipse.

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