“BREAKING DAWN”
By Stephenie Meyer
Published: Aug. 2, 2008

Gooey, over-the-top romance, bad writing, and demonic teenage pregnancy make this one of the worst books I've ever read.

HERE'S A QUESTION: What (besides the Jonas Brothers) makes stereotypical teenage girls scream like they just saw the Jonas Brothers?

All you really need to say is “Edward” before your eardrums burst and you die instantly from the inside-churning sounds of hundreds of thousands of very high-pitched screams.

You will never be able to articulate the complete answer, which is something like “Edward Cullen, the god-like, marble-esque, bronze-haired, unbelievably but not literally hot, immortal, 108-year-old hunk of a vampire from Stephenie Meyer’s ridiculously best-selling book series ‘Twilight,’ ” no matter how hard you try or how softly you say it.

There are those who say that Stephenie Meyer is “the next J.K. Rowling,” and therefore “Twilight” is the new “Harry Potter.” I say that those people couldn't possibly be more wrong.

Before I begin ranting uncontrollably about how Meyer must have stolen the plot of the final book from a really terrible fanfiction site, let me give you a quick overview of the series. “Twilight” (2005) began with Bella, an unpretty (according to Meyer's Web site) but not ugly 17-year-old girl moving from Phoenix, Ariz., to Forks, Wash., for no real reason at all.

Every boy is in love with her, but she only has eyes for the hot, pale one who likes to glare at her. She thinks he hates her, he glares at her some more, blah blah blah, they fall in love.

But then, whoa, he’s a vampire, as are all of his beautiful family members. He drives a Volvo, sparkles in sunshine, has no fangs, runs faster than a cheetah, and only drinks the blood of wild animals (he’s a vegetarian), but for some strange, unknown reason, Bella’s not even kind of afraid of him, and that irritates him to no end.

Edward leaves, he comes back, Bella kind of half falls in love with another guy named Jacob who turns out to be a werewolf/shapeshifter. By the end of the third installment, “Eclipse” (2007), Bella and Edward’s messed-up relationship has gone through quite more rough patches than I can count or remember. She’s still sort of trying to decide if she likes Edward or Jacob more (but it’s really very obvious) after having accepted a marriage proposal from Edward (even though she’s only 18) because only after they are married will he have sex with her and then turn her into a vampire so that they can be together for all of eternity (he’s an old-fashioned guy).

Over the span of the first three books, there’s lots of face-caressing and creepy sleep-watching, and stalking, and more mushy, cheesy, over-the-top romance than I am capable of handling without being completely revolted. The story is told by Bella, who starts out the first book as a headstrong, independent woman, but upon meeting Edward, who is actually mildly abusive, demanding, and overprotective, she turns into a whiny, obnoxious, very dependent little girl who can’t seem to function without him, making her really very annoying and a really sucky role model for anyone who views her as such.

As Aug. 2, the release date for the fourth and final book of the series, “Breaking Dawn,” neared, I was excited, for some reason. Meyer’s writing had gotten progressively better since the first book, and I had oddly high hopes for a really good end to the series that so many people had fallen in love with. What I got was something that can be summed up in one word: Seriously?!

The book begins with preparations for Bella and Edward’s wedding. Jacob has disappeared in wolf form, and is perhaps somewhere in Canada. Everyone in town is mercilessly gossiping about the upcoming nuptials, and Bella can’t really decide if she’s excited about it or not.

By the end of Chapter 4, Bella is a married woman, and she and Edward are on their way to the location of their honeymoon, a private island somewhere in South America, and thus begins the ickiness.

No, I’m not talking about sex. Meyer writes about the inevitable honeymoon sex in a very graceful way that I was not expecting. I had been preparing myself for overboard-romance-novel details, but the beginning of the honeymoon was actually fairly cute.

However, you would think that maybe, just maybe, in all the preparations for the wedding and honeymoon and marriage in general, someone would have thought to figure out whether or not vampires can reproduce. Because apparently, the male ones can.

That’s right, folks. Eighteen-year-old Bella is unexpectedly expecting. And she’s carrying some crazy vampire human demon creature that grows at an alarming rate (nine months condensed to about 40 days) and breaks one or two of its mother’s ribs when it kicks. This is when the book starts to get really, really weird.

Bella, with undying support from Edward’s sister Rosalie, absolutely refuses to terminate the pregnancy, despite the fact that it’s slowly killing her and she’s forced to drink blood to keep the “baby” happy.

Even the fact that Jacob, my favorite character, narrates the story for the duration of the pregnancy doesn’t save it from completely grossing me out and making me go: “Seriously? Is this really it? Is this really the book everyone’s been waiting for for the last year?”

The baby’s “birth” is the pinnacle of grossness, because Edward ends up using his teeth to help the baby maul its way out. Really, that’s all you want to know, and you probably didn’t want to know that.

Now, there’s a creepy, rapidly growing baby in the story, with two technically teenage parents. Is it an immortal vampire baby who will never learn to hunt in secret and will ravage through towns killing everyone and making its destruction necessary? Or is it just a sweet little kid who is going to need a lot of therapy in a few years?

The answer to that question is basically the rest of the book (another 350 pages or so out of 754), which is also filled with a couple very broken headboards, a lot of unnecessary new characters, implications of some eventual pedophiliac, interspecies relations, and possibly the most anticlimactic conclusion ever to have graced the world of fiction. To give Meyer some credit, at least Bella becomes a way more likable, independent character after the pregnancy (and a fairly significant lifestyle change), and the book gets a lot easier to read.

But that doesn’t make up for the huge epic mess (or as some of my friends would say, “failboat”) that is the majority of the plot and writing. I am in agreement with much of the Internet in that the “Twilight” series is actually a trilogy and always will be.

I will just leave you with this small piece of advice: Do not ever, EVER name any real-life child, half-vampire half-human or not, Renesmee Carlie, because as soon as it can talk, it will say, “Renesmee? Seriously?!” and then it will have you institutionalized. Same goes for Albus Severus.

Recently, Meyer released a first draft of “Midnight Sun,” which is “Twilight” from Edward’s point of view, on her Web site. It’s actually quite good. You can read it here.