Yet another Meyer book that leaves me gobsmacked it managed to get published. A friend pointed me to Cleolinda's hilarious recaps of the books. I read the first book, Twilight with a mixture of curiosity about its following and thinking, surely, this can't be so bad? It is. I kept on reading the series, because I'm the kind that can't look away from a train-wreck, and each book gets worse.
**SPOILER ALERT**
In this second novel, after her dear Edward is driven away by a paper-cut, Bella's despair is conveyed by successive pages with nothing but the name of the month (see, her life is empty without her Edward!). She is driven to greater and greater attempts to put her life in danger because she feels she can "hear" Edward calling out to her during these times. This isn't some pseudo telepathy--she really is hallucinating and will do anything to hang on to her dementia. When she jumps off a cliff, Edward, who hears about it, is himself driven to be suicidal, and only Bella rushing to assure her undead beloved she herself is among the un-living averts tragedy.
The message? If you don't want to kill yourself when your Tru wuv is gone, it's not love. Great message, huh? Especially for vulnerable teenagers. And written in Meyer's usual style (i.e., embarrassingly amateurish).
