Eclipse – Stephanie Meyer
I found the first two books in the twilight sage
excruciating slow to begin with and poorly written to the point where on both
books I considered abandoning them. Thankfully, they both got better and
strangely compelling to the point where I can honestly and unashamedly admit
that I actually enjoyed them.
There are some books that just have a wintry/Christmassy
feel to them. The Harry Potter books and the Twilight books fall into this
category. With the temperature outside definitely plummeting I got the urge to
revisit La Push. I was expecting much the same as the previous two
incarnations.
The Blurb:
Bella is transformed from the hopelessly in love girl,
gushing over every movement Edward makes, to a girl with a backbone. Yes, she
still has moments where she pauses to think how adorable Edward is but these
are described in a more mature way and do not detract from the story. She is also not afraid to push back when she
disagrees with something Edward says and does and the relationship feels far
more equal than before. For instance Bella realises that Edward is not just
being protective in his behaviour towards her but overbearing and
possessive. This is well portrayed and
Stephanie Meyer is keen to play on this dynamic by having Jacob feed off this
conflict.
It would be easy for Stephanie Meyer to have Jacob as the
guy waiting in the wings as an alternate if Edward were to slip up, but she
makes sure Jacob has more to him by making him rough around the edges. Jacob is
far from perfect. He is dangerous, arrogant but also playful with it. Jacob and
indeed all the werewolves are given more strength in this novel. They are now
portrayed as equal with the vampires in regards to the threat they pose and
more than a match for them if the two were to break the treaty they share.
Edward develops in this novel too. In the past, I can
honestly say I hated him as a character finding him annoyingly bland and
perfect. In Eclipse I did not mind him so much. Rather than try to control
Bella he slowly learns to trust her judgement and acknowledge that she has
other friends and he has to accept that.
The difference with Eclipse as opposed to the other novels
in the series is that the plot is interesting for the outset. The threat to
Bella is kept to the background to begin with but you are always aware of it.
It keeps the story focussed and moves it away from Bella’s agonising over Edward.
One particular strength of the novel is that the history and
back-story of the characters is explored. We get to discover the origin stories
of Jasper for example, which is well written and actually pretty darn good. The
best part of the novel though belongs to the history of the Werewolves. This is
told by Sam and stands out as a superior bit of writing. I wouldn’t mind seeing
Stephanie Meyer explore this area further in a future book.
Having said all that, the book is not perfect. There is an
inevitability about the direction of the story that took a little too long to
surface for my liking. I found it hard to believe that none of the characters
had considered a certain plot element way before they did when it was so
bleeding obvious.
I also wished Stephanie Meyer had been braver with some of
the choices she made in the story. She did not make any bad decisions but again
there was a certain amount of inevitability over how things turned out.
The climatic battle was excellent however. Stephanie Meyer
uses a fantastic technique of describing part of the battle through someone
recounting events as they see it through the eyes of those actually engaged in
the battle. This is highly effective and really ratchets up the tension.
Overall, I can honestly say that for the first time with
this series I began to see what the fuss is about. Don’t get me wrong, it is
not up there with the top fantasy books in the genre but it is a really good
read.
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