Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As soon as I finished reading "New Moon" I wanted nothing more than to be able to contact Stephenie Meyers (a face-to-face interview would be preferable!) and ask what the hell she was thinking when she decided to make Bella Swan such a co-dependent, pathetic excuse for a character. I mean come on, its only so obvious that many young, impressionable girls are reading the "twilight" series and (god forbid) thinking that they need a man in their life or else there's nothing left to live for. And by the way, I know some of you are probably wondering why I've read not only "New Moon" but "Eclipse" as well, after writing a less than wonderful review for "Twilight" but ill get to that later. First, lets go over the basic plot of "New Moon" and ill tell you why I especially despise Bella in this book. At the beginning of "New Moon" Bella and Edward are happily in love (atleast as far as I can remember) until an unfortunate event happens during Bellas birthday party at the Cullens house, in which Edward realizes that his being near his dearly beloved puts her life in danger. So then.....*dramatic pause* Edward decides to leave, for Bellas own good (gasp!) and doesn't plan on ever coming back (oh no!) and worst of all, before leaving he acts as if he hates Bella and informs her that he no longer loves her (is it really so?!) for months afterwards, Bella turns into a catatonic headcase, barely able to function without her beautiful Edward around. She can't eat, can't listen to music, and can't even watch TV because something on it might remind her of Edward. (Rolls eyes) she makes pretty much no effort whatsoever to help herself and let her friends cheer her up, and she might have never recovered if not for....Jacob Black. Jacob Black, aka the werewolf (by the way, werewolves are enemies with the vampires which I just had to mention because I love how Bellas future best friend happens to be an enemy of the love of her life) Bella starts hanging out with Jacob more, and slowly starts to complain a little less about the "massive hole in her chest"....etc etc (skip ahead to the best parts) but of course Bella can't get Edward out of her head, especially when she realizes that she hears his voice when she is in danger, so then what does she do? Starts purposefully putting herself in ridiculously unecessary dangerous situation, even practically committing suicide just so she can hear his voice. Of course, the vampires find out and Alice Cullen informs Bella that Edward thinks that she is dead and so he decides that he no longer has a reason to live and decides to pay a little visit to Italy, in hopes that the volturi will play a role in ending his life as a vampire. So of course Bella immediately hops on a plane to Italy, and of course gets there just in time to save Edward. And then of course he ends up going back with Bella, realizing that he can't bear to live without her....blah, blah, blah! (Oh and I do love Edward, atleast until I read Eclipse, so I'm not trying to diss him I just couldn't help but roll my eyes at his dramatics in this book) Ok, so now that I've finished with my summary of the book, here are some more things I'd like to add. Feel free to stop reading at anytime, really as I'm aware that I've written quite a lot already and I'm sure much of what I've said has probably angered many of you twilighters. first, let me start off by saying that I did understand Bellas depression in this book (I just can't believe the extremes that she took it to) after all, I'm 19 and I've had my heartbroken before. But come, practically going into a catatonic state for not just weeks, but months and months, because your boyfriend left you? (And yes I understand that its definitely not easy to get over someone, especially someone that you love. I know this takes quite a bit of time) and not even being able to watch TV? And not being able to function in general, until another guy comes along? (Yep another great message there, girls: remember that having a man in your life is the only thing that will make you happy!) and seriously... are we really supposed to believe that Edward no longer loves Bella? And better yet, are we really supposed to believe that Bella really believes that Edward no longer loves her? Please. And worst of all is the fact that Bella was intentionally hurting herself in order to simply hear Edwards voice. Yet ANOTHER great message for young girls (missing your man? go jump off a cliff and commit suicide and hopefully that'll get his attention! Life without him isn't worth living anyway!) and then there's the extreme and completely unecessary drama of Edward deciding to end his life over Bella, and Bella getting there just in time (but of course) to save his life! Now, I know I may be making a huge deal out of nothing, seeing as how this is just a book, but there are many books out there in which the characters go through so much worse (I.E. Losing a loved one to death or something of the nature) and none of them act half as bad and self-pitying as Bella Swan. Someone needs to give her a swift slap to the face and tell her to wake up and smell the sunshine and inform her that having a man isn't the most important thing in the world. Perhaps somebody should inform Mrs. Meyers about this as well. A bit harsh? Maybe, but reading these books just made me realize how much I hate reading about female characters with no backbone whatsoever. And really, I have nothing against Stephenie Meyers so don't get me wrong. I think she could be a very talented writer if she wanted to be (after all, I haven't met one person who has never heard of her book series) but I just don't agree with the way she portrays Bella (as you can tell) and I don't like the kind of message young girls will get because of that. And as I said, yes its true that I didn't like "twilight" and had no intention of finishing it, but my sister (who is a huge fan by the way) didn't understand how I couldn't like these books, and persuaded me to atleast finish the first one. So I did, and I came to the conclusion that the second half of the book was only slightly more interesting than the first. And was I the only one rooting for that vampire to kill Bella? And yes, even despite my dislike for "twilight" I still decided to read "new moon" because you know what I realized? These books are like a bad soap opera, something you don't necessarily like, but can't help but get caught up in it all, if only to laugh and say to yourself "seriously, why does everyone love this so much?" And just one more thing I'd like to add. I don't necessarily dislike "twilight" overall. Atleast not the idea of it. After all I like the cullen family, and the volturi are actually pretty interesting. I just think that Stephenie needs to make some HUGE changes with Bella (if only!) and add some events of actual interest to the pages of "twilight" (instead of just Bella describing how beautiful Edward is every other paragraph) and then maybe ill have some nicer things to say about it all.