Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

January 25th, 2008 at 9:52am |

Audience: Young Adult (mature content)

Rating: A

Synopsis:

Edward’s back, but Bella’s life isn’t perfect yet. There is a string of mysterious murders going on in Seattle, Edward and Jacob are battling, and Jacob hasn’t given up his claim on Bella’s life, or her heart. There’s a battle brewing between vampires and werewolves and the tension is building.

Chatter:

(Spoiler Alerts! ) Unlike Twilight and New Moon, I wasn’t satisfied with the ending of Eclipse. Unlike the first two books in this series, I didn’t think Eclipse had a happy ending. I guess I should clarify that, I thought that the chapter “Needs” was a great happy ending, but then found the epilogue “Choice” unsettling. This book took me longer to digest, and had deeper moral questions than the first two.

Of the three themes used in the books (Garden of Eden, Romeo and Juliet, and Wuthering Heights), I thought that Wuthering Heights was the most effective. It was a subtler theme- I couldn’t predict how it related to the ending, but Bella’s connection with Catherine made sense. Bella was very selfish in her dealings with Edward and Jacob. I do find fault with the way she treated them both. Bella’s known since Twilight that Jacob saw her as more than a friend; she shouldn’t have used him as a crutch.

On a related note, could Jacob just hurry up and imprint already? Despite his best efforts, he isn’t going to imprint on Bella, so if he could just go ahead and imprint on someone else, everyone’s life would be a whole lot easier.

Eclipse also gave more attention to what Bella will be sacrificing if she becomes a vampire. First, there’s the question of whether or not the werewolves will react if the Cullen’s violate the treaty to make her one of them. Second, there’s the issue of her family. Third, there’s the new issues of whether or not she’ll still have a soul and how uncontrollable she’s be as a ‘newborn.’ I expect the first and third issues will be central in Breaking Dawn.

Fall 2008 seems like a very long time to wait for Breaking Dawn. As soon as the pre-order window is open on Amazon, I’ll let you know.