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December 2, 2009Book Review: Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
(Little, Brown Young Readers)
For Bella Swan, romance is dead. Literally. When the 17-year-old heroine of Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling young adult series falls for her classmate, a hottie named Edward, she has no idea he’s keeping a secret: He’s a vampire and, well, dead.
Throughout the first three novels, Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse, Bella navigates love and a rollercoaster ride of conflicts and adventures stemming from the clash of her human frailty with Edward’s virtually indestructible immortality. Note: Edward is a member of a “civilized family” of vampires who drink only animal blood. Spoiler alert: In Breaking Dawn, Meyer wraps up the romance, and the series, while stirring up a bit of controversy in the process. Beginning just days before Bella and Edward’s wedding, Dawn takes a darker turn that includes “off-camera” honeymoon rough sex (evidently Edward doesn’t know his own strength and Bella bruises easily), a life-threatening pregnancy that causes Bella to drink—and vomit—blood, and her eventual death and transformation to vampire. Though Meyer gives us a happily-ever-after ending, the journey is at times disturbingly bumpy and graphic.
Talk about it: Dawn fast-paced and endowed with the kind of sappy romance guaranteed to warm the hearts of hoards of teenaged girls—and more than a few moms. But this secular novel also raises some issues Christian moms and daughters can discuss.
Both Bella and Edward love sacrificially, placing each other’s happiness and welfare above their own, even when the result is intensely painful. And perhaps because Meyer is Mormon, the romance remains refreshingly chaste. In a surprising twist, it’s Edward who insists the couple wait until marriage before doing anything more than kissing.
Bella’s intense desire to become a vampire so she can remain with Edward forever generates interesting debates with him over the nature of good and evil, whether vampires hold a place in God’s creation, and if they possess souls.
And Edward’s steadfast determination to resist the temptation that seems hardwired into his nature, parallels a struggle to which all Christians can relate.
Of course, Dawn should also bear a warning label. Though Meyer’s books don’t criticize faith or God, the use of vampires and other fantastical creatures carries a mythology regarding life, death, and God that can be at odds with biblical truth.
And Edward and Bella’s romance, while sweet on paper, is viewed through rose-colored, love-conquers-all glasses that ignore some harsh realities. Their desperation to constantly be together sometimes feels more like obsession than love.
Like its predecessors, Dawn has sold millions of copies. Whether you find its story disturbing or thought-provoking, one thing is certain: your daughter, her friend (or perhaps even your friend!) is likely to have read it.
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Comments
From the first I asked our daughters not to read this series because the premise bothered me -- that there could be "good" undead, that there could be anything sweet or warm about love between someone who is alive and someone who is dead -- darkness and light can have nothing to do with each other -- and the troubling implications of even just reading about a hot romance between life and death.
There is far too much wrong, right now, in the Christian dating scene -- idenitified by the fact that we have so many books that warn and caution about it -- to add to it this notion that true love can exist between one who has life and one who does not.
I'm thankful you're reading and reviewing these books, it's something we need, people who are willing to wade in and let everyone know what's inside. Grace and peace to you
Posted By: joanne | December 4, 2009 4:01 PM
What I love about this 4th book is that Bella and Edward make a final commitment to each other in marriage, start a family, and Bella becomes a vampire not because of her choice but because it is the only way to save her life. Also, she discovers her own strength in this book and saves everyone in her family; this discovery, along with discovering her new life as a vampire and a wife and a mother, brings her relationship with Edward full circle past romantic obsession into something more meaningful. What a great lesson in Christian marriage. And yes, it's just fiction and should be taken as such.
Posted By: Laura | December 20, 2009 9:01 PM
All I can say about these books is Vampires are from the devil and we all have to remember that. God would never have his children live like that. These books are fiction and are not anywhere in the Bible. If I had a daughter or son young enough to read these books I would have to know that they know God first. This would be very important to me. I raise my Son as a single Mother and made sure he learned about God. He is 40 years old and goes to church and knows who Jesus Christ is. His life is his own and no one can tell him what is right and wrong. He has learned from his failures and is a good Man. I like fantasy and I think "Lord of the Rings" was well done. Learn about the author first and then judge for yourself.
Posted By: Rose, Dunnellon, Fl | March 23, 2010 7:52 AM