Now there’s only love in the dark…

Yes, my friends, just like the song, we’ve reached a new level of cheese. The melodrama of this third installment of the Twilight series is over the top, outrageous, and at times difficult to stomach. But I’m not going to lie – I loved Twilight. New Moon made me sob. And I read Eclipse in a matter of days. Still on a high from Twilight, I was initially only mildly disappointed in Eclipse and overall pretty forgiving. But as time has passed, and particularly as I’ve picked up the book again to re-read it, my opinion is less favorable.

—WARNING SPOILERS—

Generally, I found the premise of the Seattle killings obvious and not all that interesting – a newborn vampire army is just cheeseball to me. I’d much rather read about the Volturi.

In terms of character development, I was disappointed all the way around. I found Edward’s overly-controlling “protectiveness” disrespectful and hugely unattractive. While it may not have been out of character in the sense that he was always controlling, it was disappointing for this to be the side of him expounded upon. Gone was the Edward we loved – cool and sexy – instead, replaced by an icky control freak. Only to then be replaced by martyr-boy who lets his fiance make out with another guy and only complains with “I wish you hadn’t asked him to kiss you.” Hunh? I guess we can chalk this up to him being traumatized by the mess he created in New Moon and dealing with it in a myriad of stupid and dysfunctional ways. But waaaah! I miss the Edward of Twilight – snarky, cocky, arrogant, warm-hearted, vulnerable, loving.

As I re-read this book, I found Bella’s tolerance of his condescension extremely frustrating. If any guy bribed his sister into kidnapping me, physically disabled my car so I couldn’t go anywhere, and made constant snide remarks about my predisposition towards clumsiness and attracting danger, I’d get pissed. Maybe the teasing was cute in the beginning, way back in Twilight, but it goes beyond teasing in Eclipse and at some point any self-respecting girl would get mad.

Bella… well there’s much to be said there. Mainly, what on earth is she doing? I grasp that she’s a teenager and still learning/growing but rather than relating to her like I did in Twilight and somewhat in New Moon, I felt so aggravated with her this time around that I couldn’t fathom what Edward even loved about her anymore. It didn’t bother me in Twilight that her hobbies or outside interests weren’t discussed – I assumed she had some and that we’d find out more about them in later books. Since Twilight was about her falling in love, it made sense to me that it was all about Edward. In New Moon she was devastated and nothing sounds good when you’re that depressed so I was willing to overlook the fact that she was mourning and not interested in anything. But what the heck is her excuse this time? I realize that by making her as non-descript as possible, more readers can inject themselves into the character and vicariously makeout with a couple of hot guys, but is that really the only reason Bella is so bland? The only character points that even stood out in this book were her reluctance to get married, her inability to stand up to Edward (except by passive aggressive means) and her obsession with Jacob.

The marriage issue irritated me to no end. She’s perfectly content to spend eternity with Edward but doesn’t want to get married? I would think that her love for Edward, so sweeping and all-encompassing in Twilight, would supersede something as silly as her fear of appearing irresponsible to others. Since when does Bella care so much about what others think that she’d alienate the person she’s willing to give up her life for? If you’re willing to give up your humanity, family and friends, why balk at marriage? I realize that extending the series requires the creation of new complications, but I just don’t find the reason for her reluctance to marry Edward a believable one.

And the love triangle… I could see a certain amount of sexual tension between Bella and Jacob in New Moon. Edward screwed things up by leaving and left her suffering. Jacob helped her heal and just happened to be good looking on top of it. I never got the impression that on Bella’s end it was anything more than friendship love with a mild physical/emotional attraction. Not anywhere near the same ballpark as the aforementioned sweeping and all-encompassing love with Edward. If she had developed deeper feelings for Jacob, her internal dialog right before he was about to kiss her in New Moon would have been very different.

Yet this is the backdrop for the realization at the end of Eclipse that she’s in love with Jacob too? I just didn’t find enough of a draw between her and Jacob on her end. Jacob is obviously in love with her, but I don’t see where she’s in love with him. Her only reasons for seeking him out were because she missed her friend and hated to see him suffer; not because of romantic feelings. Maybe they would have gotten together if Edward never came back, but he did come back so there’s no question of who she’s going to be with. Therefore, what is she doing kissing Jacob and realizing she’s “in love” with him? Especially after he manipulated her into this epiphany. And if she was willing to let him manipulate her, then how serious could her love and commitment be to Edward? While she was making out with Jacob she knew she loved Edward more, so what the heck was she doing? Exploring other possibilities? How is that justifiable when you’re already in a relationship and engaged????

Then there’s the whole Jacob pushing himself on her. I get that he’s young and a werewolf and his emotions/hormones are out of control, but having him physically force himself on her in the middle of the book and then emotionally manipulate her at the end is just not okay. I want to like Jacob – I want to sympathize with him – but I can’t like or sympathize with a character who sexually assaults another character. (Yet Bella’s own father was totally fine with it? Charlie was an idiot in this book.)

I think if SM really wanted to create a compelling love triangle, it should have been handled differently. We can clearly see who Bella’s going to choose and the fact that Jacob hasn’t imprinted on her is an obvious sign that they’ll never be together. So there’s really no mystery or lure to this triangle. It was just an aggravating side-bar that caused me to lose respect for all three characters – Jacob for forcing himself, Bella for tolerating it (and exploring other options while committed to Edward), and Edward for being such a martyr.

Overall, I found the characters frustrating in this book. I suppose my three-star rating is a result of it being the Twilight series. If this were a stand-alone book that I read without the previous two, I might have given it one or two stars.

I still credit SM with creating a story compelling enough that I’m taking the time to write this long of a review. She obviously did something right. But at this point the series is gliding on the magic wrought by Twilight and I’d love to see more depth and growth in these characters in the next book. I do enjoy her writing style – the flow of action, dialog and descriptions of setting (though I was less impressed with the dialog in this book). I am eagerly awaiting Midnight Sun and will gladly read Breaking Dawn and anything else she writes for this series because, aggravated as I was with this book, I still want to know what’s going to happen.