Are you a young girl who uses this blog to inform your choice of teen fiction?  If so please let me know, it would be most amusing.  Also don’t read this review it may contain spoilers.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (2/5)

Mocking a book that uses fridge magnets as a recurring metaphor isn’t the most intellectually strenuous of activities, nor is it the right one.  Eclipse, the third installment of the Twilight series, may have its flaws but it’s the best book that Stephenie Meyer has written.

After dropping a big hint that I’ll soon be receiving a whole load of physical intimacy and a car* Stephenie quickly gets to work introducing a plot within the first chapter.  This is impressive for an author who has previously only tacked plots onto the end of her novels as half-hearted afterthoughts.

A pack of vampires are running amok in downtown Seattle and sworn enemies the Cullen vampire clan and the Quileute werewolf pack must join forces to defeat them.  An impressive plot, considering her previous work, but one that is a long time coming.  After introducing the plot on page eight readers then have to wait until page 198 for any further development.  In the mean time we are to forced to explore the relationship between Edward, Bella and Jacob; a love triangle that is only rivalled in tediousness by the relationship between Thomas the Tank Engine, Lady the Tank Engine and the Fat Controller.

Plot, however, is not the only thing that Stephenie has developed; Bella’s character has changed for the better too.  Bella was always meant to be an intellectual but all she did in the previous two books was name check writers and dawdle two steps behind the reader.

Twilight

Bella:  “I wonder if Edward’s a vampire?”
Reader: “Well duh… it tells you on the back of the book.”

New Moon

Bella:  “I wonder if Jacob’s a werewolf?”
Reader: “Well duh… he told you in the previous book.”

This time Bella makes some not so obvious observations and actually reads and references Wuthering Heights on numerous occasions.  In the short break between New Moon and Eclipse Bella has also grown less whiny and improved her co-ordination.  Yes, she’s still insecure but at least this time you can see why.  Yes, she still has accidents but only twice and one of those is an injured hand caused by punching a werewolf.  The other occasion is when she cuts herself in the forest and even then she smears the blood around to leave a false trail for the rival vampires.

Disappointingly however, when it gets to the fight scene Bella is still as needy as ever and the closest she gets to defending herself is self harming.  Another negative is that the larger and more interesting battle is taking place some distance away and as readers we only witness it through what Edward chooses to tell us.

The Twilight series has never really been about plot though, it’s been about the emotional connection between Edward and Bella (read: will they ever get it on?)  Since Stephenie Edward doesn’t believe in premarital sex a certain something has to happen first though and we find out Bella’s answer in this book (the suspense).

All in all, not a bad book, however, the writing style has now become something that can no longer be excused as American English or the grammar of a teenage girl.  There are clear failures in proofing here and as I look at the length of Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, the doorstop of a novel that follows it, I get the sinking feeling that Meyer’s publishers are too busy rolling in money to bother editing her manuscripts anymore.

*”I firmly believe that my fans are the most attractive, intelligent, exciting, and dedicated fans in the whole world.  I wish I could give you each a big hug and a Porsche 911 Turbo.”

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New Moon: A Remarkable Achievement
Breaking Dawn: Just Say No