New Moon

This book is not new. And very old.

There is something weird about these books. Overall I felt exactly the same about the second book as I did the first, except in every case my feelings were stronger.New Moon picks up shortly after the events of Twilight. Bella and Edward are madly in love, the type of love that is so sickly and dare I say it "teenage girly" that has turned so many people off the series and prevented many from even picking it up to begin with.However, the dynamic soon changes. An incident highlights just how fragile and impractical their relationship is forcing Edward to withdraw his love and move away. From Bella's silly opinion, this is because he doesn't love her anymore. Why she thinks this is beyond me. Edward is mean but it is obvious why he is doing it. What follows (I read this on the Kindle so forgive the percentages) is from 5% to 30% utter mind numbing drivel. Bella is distraught, she wallows in self pity and pines like someone has never pined before.This section of the story was way too long. I was wanting to stick pins in my eyes and came so close to giving up on the book. I thought I had finally realised why so many people ridicule the series.Thankfully I persisted a little bit longer. Enter Jacob. By far and away, Jacob is the most interesting character in the story. Bella's attraction to him is believable, their growing relationship (after the initial ooh I think I love him now), is actually well handled. Jacob comes with a good back story and an air of mystery to him. Unlike the Bella / Edward relationship which is too impossible to imagine (both are madly in love with each other, the type of love that when they don't see each other they ache).Following Jacob's appearance, the story also begins to get some semblance of a decent plot. My main criticism of the first book is that nothing happened. Although this story suffers from the same fate, there are story threads going on.The story here surrounds random attacks on innocent hikers. There is also the angst going on around Jacob and his friends and the return of some vampires that appeared in Twilight.The ending of the book is actually quite good. Why it comes about on the other hand irked me. Some minor spoilers follow: Bella in an effort to overcome Edward, resorts to taking part in dangerous activities. The logic being, she hears Edward's voice in her head warning her to be careful when she does these and can therefore imagine him again. I made a logical assumption here that Bella was actually hearing Edward and not imagining him. This proved to be incorrect as later in the book Edward acts upon something he hears Bella has done which proved my assumption wrong (sorry for the confusion, trying not to give too much away). However, later Bella can hear Edward in her thoughts again, which makes no sense whatsoever.Another strong element to the book is the natural and growing hatred between werewolves and vampires. When Edward and Jacob finally come face to face, the animosity is evident. Obviously anyone with a y chromosome will root for Jacob (I can't believe I just weighed in on that argument).Overall then, I had mixed feelings about the book. After the appalling start, the story kicked in and dare I say it was quite enjoyable. The ending was satisfactory and there is enough left over to keep me interested in the next book. My rating: 8.0

Excellent sequel to 'Twilight', and the second in the saga of (currently) four books. After a wonderful summer, Bella's birthday rolls around all too quickly - now she is 18, and officially older than Edward (sort of, anyway). Things go from bad to worse that night, when a clumsy moment at her birthday celebration puts her in mortal danger from all but the most restrained of the Cullens. Afterwards she struggles to understand Edward's sudden coldness and self-hatred, until her worst fears come true and he admits that the Cullens have decided to leave town for good - her best friend Alice included - and that he will be going without her.For months she is left bereft, numb, functioning on autopilot and fiercely blotting out all memories of the Cullens in an attempt to keep her sanity. Then one day, in a potentially dangerous situation in town, she suddenly hears Edward's voice in her head, warning her to be careful and begging her to stay safe. Although the pain his voice evokes is excruciating, she longs to hear it again and sets about discovering what triggers her hallucinations. She renews her friendship with Jacob Black on the reservation, and his presence in her world seems to bring her back to life, putting a smile on her face and giving her an enthusiasm she hasn't felt for a long time. But Jacob has his own growing up to do and his own problems to overcome - not to mention the fact that his feelings for her are well beyond friendship - and all the while, Bella's behaviour is growing more and more reckless. Not only has she discovered Jacob's secret and found out that a fiery vampire is stalking her with revenge in mind, but her desperation to hear Edward's voice is driving her further and further from common sense. In the end something has to give, and Bella goes too far, triggering a terrible misunderstanding that threatens to destroy everything she holds dear.This novel starts out more peacefully than its predecessor, and the electricity between Edward and Bella has faded into something a little more serene, but Meyer still knows exactly how to quicken the pulse and freeze the blood when she needs to. The end of the book came quite unexpectedly, and there was a sense that this was more of a transitional story, moving on from the neat ending of 'Twilight' and setting up a strong background for the conflicts to come. Despite this, it didn't take long before I was drawn into the story as thoroughly as before, and the climax was so nail-bitingly tense that I had to put the book aside for a while to calm down and stop myself jumping ahead too fast! Bella's quick humour also makes a welcome return as her emotional state improves, and I noted with interest the references to 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Wuthering Heights', given that Romeo and Heathcliff have been frequently mentioned in discussions of female infatuation with the Cullen men!The verdict? Not QUITE as compelling and sizzling as 'Twilight', but excellent anyway and leaves a tantalising glimpse of what is in store as the saga continues...

Well, I must eat my words...I have just finished reading this book, and I have to say; it's much better than the movie - so far that is. I say 'so far', since I had already attempted to watch it (see my scathing Review for that title) and failed due to its 'tedium'. However; thanks to the Reviewer 'junie' (great minds think alike!) having mentioned that I'd already ordered the book and then thought it a total waste of money, she advised that the book - though nothing special was at least 'better' than the Picture, and so I thought I'd trust her opinion, and give it a go. To my astonishment (and utter embarrassment in contrast to the harsh Review I did for the movie) I found it very readable indeed! Okay; so it's still no 'Block Buster' in my opinion, but the sheer fact I could quite happily make it through to the end at least says I got my moneys worth if nothing else!To be fair though, I did get more than that, in that I did enjoy it. It was slow (as many have been saying) but still refreshing like the first novel, in that There's no unnecessary bad language or explicit sex scenes which almost always seems to haunt modern writing these days and spoil it.Ironically, (for me that is) this is the VERY first 'sequel' I have read right through to the end! I'm shocked, amazed and quite frankly to use a modern term I hate 'gobsmacked' that it should be so, as I've recently put down a 'sequel' written by someone I admired for their fabulous first book 'Scar Night' - Alan Campbell's 'Iron Angel' (see my Review for those titles) and although it was a more enjoyable read, I could not make it 'quite' to the end, and so the very fact I completed this one... Well... I don't understand it, but as a result, I do now intend to have another go at the movie. I'm not expecting any major retractions from my original Review of it, but hey; who knows!! : - )

***Many Spoilers!***Well, where to begin?First off, I missed Edward! He left by Chapter 4 (Page 69. After Jasper tries to attack Bella when she gets a paper cut at a big birthday party Alice threw for her, Edward decides he's not safe to be around, saying that it wasn't right for them to be together and that he's sorry for letting it go on so long. He says that he doesn't want her to go with his family (who he says leave because their ages (remember, frozen in time and all that) have outgrown their ages.). She does a bit of stumbling around the forest where he left her before Sum Uley picks her up and carries her home.Here follows pages and pages of mild boredom. Not total boredom, but it's still bad that 282 pages aren't really worth talking about. Basically for months Bella is just a zombie. She goes to school, eats, does her homework, but she doesn't really live. Then she finds out that when she does something dangerous, she hears Edward's (always silky) voice telling her to stop, so guess what, she goes out and gets some motorbikes. She gets Jacob to try and fix them for her and she finds spending time with him heals 'the hole punched in her chest'. Then he briefly stops all contact with her and tells her that they shouldn't be friends, that he's dangerous and if she was smart she'd stay away.De ja vu?!She finds out his secret (that he's a werewolf) and he can confide in her that his pack have been hunting vampire 'Victoria'. Bella tells them that she is trying to get into the village to get to Bella, since Edward killed her mate James. She then has another Adrenaline rush / Edward hallucination doing some cliff diving. Then she almost drowns.9 sentences to describe 282 pages...It only picks up by Chapter 17 (page 351). When Alice comes because she had a vision of Bella drowning herself. WRONG. But sadly and tragically she has already told Rosalie who we find out later went to great lengths to TRACK EDWARD DOWN AND TELL HIM BELLA WAS DEAD, EVEN THOUGH SHE KNEW THAT HE WOULD KILL HIMSELF. Why??? So she and Bella set off to Italy to tell Edward that Bella is alive. Do they make it??? I'm going to spoil it so look away.There are another two books so naturally she reaches him with seconds to spare. Then there is a quite exiting part where the Volturi decide wether they should live or die. Guess what???Back home Bella has a hard time convincing herself that it was real and that Ed was staying now.That's it!!Overall I'd say a disappointing Twilight book with some exciting parts but when it wasn't an action scene it got very boring. Some would say that it is a very hard subject to write about, but she didn't have to write about it! What love story has the romance break up and leave each other? At the end of the book we are back where we started. Bella forgives him. Completely. WHY?? I don't understand Meyer's perspective on this one...

I loved Twilight and couldn't wait to read the next book in the saga, but was totally shocked - Edward disappearing so soon, NO!!The hurt Bella felt was so well written and having experienced something similar (obviously not with a vampire but he was a monster of sorts!) I could relate to that feeling of utter desolation. I absolutely loved the empty pages with just the name of the month written on them - such a simple but completely effective idea. However, I soon found myself flicking through the book to see if and when Edward re-appeared and then read the end first before going back and reading the 'Jacob' section.Jacob is an interesting character, but his and Bella's relationship, although necessary I suppose for the narrative, is not my favourite part of the whole Twilight saga. I felt it 'got in the way' of my interest in Edward/Edward and Bella which is either very clever writing and totally the point of the story, or just my impatient nature.Cracking read though, and couldn't put it down!