Kleenex anyone?

New Moon by: Stephanie Meyer

Bella Swan has now been in Forks, WA for 9 months. In Twilight, Bella meets and falls in love with Edward Cullen. This in and of itself is not a surprising turn of events, for a 17 year old to fall in love. Except that Edward is not your average high schooler, Edward is a vampire. Throughout Twilight, Bella and Edward’s love grows to the point where neither can live without the other (you remember high school romance, right?). Twilight ends at the prom where Bella is begging Edward to turn her into a vampire so they can be together forever, and he is adamantly against the idea. He asks her if just living a long, happy life with him is enough. She responds that it is enough, for now. The second book in the Twilight series, New Moon, picks up after the summer is over and on Bella’s eighteenth birthday. The first chapter changes everything and soon after that incident, Edward realizes that his presence in Bella’s life will constantly keep her in danger. As Twilight developed Bella and Edward’s story, New Moon develops Bella and Jacob Black’s story. We meet 15 year old Jacob in Twilight, he is the Quileute Native American who is the son of Billy Black, one of Charlie Swans best friends. New Moon changes the Twilight romance story quickly, and you will be asking, why? The last 300 pages are very intense, it becomes a page turner after a certain point. The action at the end will have you on the edge of your seat, absolutely freaking out.

That is a good synopsis of the story, but to discuss my opinion about New Moon I’m going to have to talk about the book in detail, so if you have not read New Moon and plan to, please do not keep reading this blog. There are going to be spoilers from here on out. SPOILER ALERT!!!

New Moon was not my favorite book of the series. I have now read the book 3 times, and I do love it, but being a huge player on “Team Edward,” I was sad throughout the entire book. I knew something horrible was coming whenever Edward was being distant and did not want to be around Bella for any period of time. When he left and said that he didn’t want her anymore, I crumpled to the floor and wept… just kidding, but I did cry. Her pain was so real, the way Stephanie Meyer describes her hurt makes you feel like you can’t breathe along with Bella. Stylistically I enjoyed the blank pages for the months of October, November, & December; it demonstrated the emptiness of those months for Bella without Edward.

When Bella first hears Edward’s voice in her head I was hopeful. Charlie has enough of a zombie for a daughter and threatens to send her to Florida to live with her mom. Bella makes plans and goes to the movies with Jessica in Port Angeles to get him off of her back. That is where she hears Edward’s voice for the first time in her head. Bella says that there are only 2 reasons for the hallucinations, but I didn’t agree. I thought maybe he was still hanging around in the background watching over her, and somehow he had broken through the guard of her mind and was putting thoughts in her head. My idea was not even plausible, but I was desperate for him to be back and therefore I was hopeful that somehow it wasn’t a hallucination, hopeful that it was actually him speaking to her. I knew it was a long shot, and looking back now it was ridiculous, but I just wanted him back so badly. I was so anxious for Edward’s return that I would look ahead like 30 pages and if I saw his name, I would think, oh good he’s finally coming back. I would get to that page and it would just be more hallucinations. I was so sad. I kept reading, expecting Edward to be back any minute, and he wasn’t. Finally, around page 380, Alice comes back, and the action starts.

The next key section for me is when Bella overhears a conversation between Charlie and Alice and he describes what Bella went through during the months that we didn’t get to read, I cried every time I read this part. The pain of her lost love and hearing it described in detail was enough to make a sane person go crazy. Whenever Meyer described Bella’s hole in her chest and how the edges burned, I could actually feel the pain. The times that Bella couldn’t breathe because of the heartache I felt like I was going to loose it. The image of Bella having to wrap her arms around herself to keep from falling apart, how sad is that?

The redeeming quality about New Moon (or at least the chapters 4-20), is that she does find a very good friend in Jacob. He makes her feel almost normal, and she describes Jacob as her personal sun. He warms her with his smile, just by being around. I’m glad that she realizes her heart is incomplete and that she’s like a dilapidated house that only the front room has been remodeled with Jacob in her life. Because Jacob is NO Edward :).

Throughout the entire book I kept thinking, Edward will be right back, he can’t live without Bella, he’s dying without her, he has to come back! But as I turned the pages and there was no Edward and no thought of him coming back I had doubt in my heart. My only comparison is in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry and Ron get into a fight and they don’t talk for 4 chapters. It felt like the longest span of time when reading the book for the first time. I thought, “Harry and Ron have to be friends again.” That’s what I kept expecting from New Moon. I kept looking for Edward to come back in 4 chapters, but the book kept going and going and there was no Edward. I read this book so fast, just to find him.

Just in case you have disobeyed me and you have ruined most of this book for yourself reading the spoilers, I won’t tell you how he comes back. But at the end when he is in Bella’s bedroom describing his love for her over and over again, I thought I was actually going to melt. His love for Bella and the way he describes his feelings, I mean wow! I suggest that if you stopped at Twilight, you have to pick up New Moon. Also, New Moon is the perfect introduction to Eclipse, which is probably the best of the 4 books. In Eclipse, the suspense of the love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob is riveting. If you like the first two books, you will love Eclipse. So grab a box of Kleenex, take a Saturday for yourself, curl up on the couch and read New Moon. Please stay tuned for the Eclipse post, it will be coming soon.

Please let me know what you thought about this blog, or New Moon.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from New Moon, Enjoy:
I didn’t have to look to know who it was; this was a voice I would know anywhere—know, and respond to, whether I was awake or asleep… or even dead, I’d bet. The voice I’d walk through fire for—or, less dramatically, slosh every day through the cold and endless rain for. Edward. (Bella)

College was Plan B. I was still hoping for Plan A, but Edward was just so stubborn about leaving me human… (Bella)

I have to step out for a second. Don’t do anything funny while I’m gone. (Emmett)

Dazed and disoriented, I looked up from the bright red blood pulsing out of my arm — into the fevered eyes of the six suddenly ravenous vampires. (Bella)

You’re overestimating my self-control. (Edward)

Which is tempting you more, my blood or my body? (Bella)

He smiled my favorite crooked smile, but it was wrong. It didn’t reach his eyes. (Bella)

You… don’t… want me? (Bella)

Of course, I’ll always love you… in a way. But what happened the other night made me realize that it’s time for a change. Because I’m… tired of pretending to be something I’m not, Bella. I am not human. (Edward)

I promise that this will be the last time you’ll see me. I won’t come back. I won’t put you through anything like this again. You can go on with your life without any more interference from me. It will be as if I’d never existed. (Edward)

No, I don’t think she’s hurt. She just keeps saying ‘He’s gone.’ (Sam)

The waves of pain that had only lapped at me before now reared high up and washed over my head, pulling me under. I did not resurface. (Bella)

As if he’d never existed? That was insanity. It was a promise that he could never keep, a promise that was broken as soon as he’d made it. (Bella)

Who would want to ride a motorcycle here? It would be like taking a sixty-mile-per-hour bath. (Bella)

Only a teenage boy would agree to this: deceiving both our parents while repairing dangerous vehicles using money meant for my college education. (Bella)

Bears don’t want to eat people. We don’t taste that good. Of course, you might be an exception. I bet you’d taste good. (Jacob)

I was like a lost moon—my planet destroyed in some cataclysmic, disaster-movie scenario of desolation—that continued, nevertheless, to circle in a tight little orbit around the empty space left behind, ignoring the laws of gravity. (Bella)

So are you going to be my Valentine? Since you didn’t get me a fifty-cent box of candy, it’s the least you can do. (Jacob)

How much I wished that Jacob Black had been born my brother, my flesh-and -blood brother, so that I would have some legitimate claim on him that still left me free of any blame now. (Bella)

If you want to blame someone, why don’t you point your finger at those filthy, reeking bloodsuckers that you love so much? (Jacob)

I’d thought Jake had been healing the hole in me—or at least plugging it up, keeping it from hurting me so much. I’d been wrong. He’d just been carving out his own hole, so that I was now riddled through like Swiss cheese. I wondered why I didn’t crumble into pieces. (Bella)

When did you ever promise to kill yourself falling out of Charlie’s tree? (Bella)
Jacob, the only human I’d ever been able to relate to…And he wasn’t even human. I fought the urge to scream again. What did this say about me? (Bella)

Look, do you mind saving the stupid stuff for when I’m around? I won’t be able to concentrate if I think you’re jumping off cliffs behind my back. (Jacob)

Leave it to you, Bella. Anyone else would be better off when the vampires left town. But you have to start hanging out with the first monsters you can find. (Alice)

What did you think you were going to find? I mean, besides me dead? Did you expect to find me skipping around and whistling show tunes? You know me better than that. (Bella)

Why does everyone keep doing that to me? I don’t smell! (Bella)

There’s a very good chance that they will eliminate us all—though in your case it won’t be punishment so much as dinnertime. (Alice)

Try not to trip. We don’t have time for a concussion today. (Alice)

I wasn’t going to make it. I was stupid and slow and human, and we were all going to die because of it. (Bella)

You smell just exactly the same as always. So maybe this is hell. I don’t care. I’ll take it. (Edward)

In summary, she did jump off a cliff, but she wasn’t trying to kill herself. Bella’s all about the extreme sports these days. (Alice)

I love a happy ending. They are so rare. (Aro)

I haven’t seen a prospective talent so promising since we found Jane and Alec. Can you imagine the possibilities when she is one of us? (Aro)

It was heaven—right smack in the middle of hell. (Bella)

After all the thousand times I’ve told you I love you, how could you let one word break your faith in me? (Edward)

I could see it in your eyes, that you honestly believed that I didn’t want you anymore. The most absurd, ridiculous concept—as if there were any way that I could exist without needing you! (Edward)

His mouth was on mine then, and I couldn’t fight him. Not because he was so many thousand times stronger than me, but because my will crumbled into dust the second our lips met. (Bella)

Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars—points of light and reason… And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything. (Edward)

My heart hasn’t beat in almost ninety years, but this was different. It was like my heart was gone—like I was hollow. Like I’d left everything that was inside me here with you. (Edward)

You’re wounding my ego, Bella. I just proposed to you, and you think it’s a joke. (Edward)

The fairy tale was back on. Prince returned, bad spell broken. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do about the leftover, unresolved character. Where was his happily ever after? (Bella)