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** spoiler alert ** Dear lord. "Didn't like it" is a terrible, terrible understatement. I cannot believe I wasted my time with this book. The deeper and deeper I got into the absurdness of it all, I realized what it reminded me of: a bad fan fiction.

Let's start with the *shudder*...pregnancy. GAH! GAH GAH GAH! What was Meyer THINKING, making it possible for Bella to be pregnant? What the hell was she thinking?

Now that I read Meyer's statements more carefully, I realize that she never actually said it was impossible for a male vampire to impregnate a human girl, just that a female vampire couldn't bear children. I guess we (the readers) just jumped to conclusions with that.

But regardless, I have never thought of Bella as particularly maternal. So imagine my surprise when the fried chicken she makes one day nauseates her! My reaction: "...No! It can't be! She can't be! It's impossible, damn it!"

And then when she realizes she's late, here's my reaction: "NOOOOOOOOOOO! NO! NO NO NO NO NO! WHAT THE HELL!"

Yes, it's that bad.

And then shortly after it goes into "Book Two," which is Jacob's point of view.

Now, I hated Jacob. Almost. I guess it was more dislike, since I don't usually hate things. But anyways, I was expecting his view to be boring and disappointing.

But as we got further into it, I started to have a better understanding of him. It was refreshing to get a glimpse into his mind, to see his feelings. I have always been one of Team Edward before now, so imagine my surprise when I realize that Jacob is now one of my favorite characters!

Seth and Leah are great characters too. Leah really developed--all she needed was to be able to push away from Sam. I have always liked Leah, truthfully. But even though I liked her, I could never truthfully say she had a great personality. Breaking Dawn changed that.

And in Jacob's point of view, we see how badly the pregnancy is affecting Bella--this is also a good part of the book. Too often in fan fiction I see pregnant!Bella having a blissful time. But the pain and misery of it in Breaking Dawn is absolutely wonderful. A new take on it, I thought, and my opinion of the book increased as I got to that part.

But then the book just HAS to go to Bella's point of view again. And shortly after she gives birth (also plenty of pain there), she is dying, and Edward has to change her into a vampire quickly. I can't say I like the circumstances for the change, but alright. Fine. But the disappointment comes during the change.

She mentions the pain, the monstrous fire that keeps licking at her skin and causing her pain at every moment. But she fails to describe it well--after a while, she's grown used to it. How exactly do you get used to being in a fire? I just don't get that. And one other fact--she stays still throughout the whole transformation. She should be screaming, thrashing about. How did she suddenly become this "strong, silent type?"

Don't worry...one of the biggest disappointments is yet to come.

She wakes up, and all her senses have been magnified: the entire world looks different. That's not the disappointment, though.

The big disappointment is that there is barely any mention of thirst. Know why? Because she has this super-self-control that allows her to completely skip the typical YEARS of savageness, the newborn stage! Yes, everyone. She is that awesome.

She has become a Mary-Sue. If you don't know what that is, go look it up on Wikipedia now.

Is that not enough to convince you of her Sue-ness? Well, as if that's not enough, a little later she discovers that she can protect people with her mind!

But that's for later. Right now, let's rewind a little bit.

Remember Bella's kid? Turns out it's a girl. What's her name?

Renesmee.

You heard right. Renesmee.

Try pronouncing that. I can think of a lot of mispronunciations: REEN-smee, REH-neh-smee, etc etc. Correct pronunciation: ruh-NEZ-may. Combo of Renee and Esme.

And as if that were not enough, she's nicknamed after the loch ness monster.

And as if THAT, were not enough, Jacob imprints on her.

Ugh. I mean, most of us want him to eventually get over Bella, right? But the way Meyer does it? It's like, POOF! The moment he sees Renesmee, Bella vanishes! She was never there!

It's laughable.

Using such an easy way of getting rid of Jacob. Ugh. Meyer could've at least spent time on the solution.

Meanwhile, a series of events which I don't feel like explaining happen which lead the Volturi to come to try to kill Nessie. Nessie is Renesmee, if you can't figure it out. Concerned, the Cullens gather seventeen other freaking vampires as witnesses. Don't ask me for what, I don't feel like explaining.

And obviously all of these vampires get along, even though most of them prey on humans and a whole neighborhood of them live a few miles away.

And as if that weren't enough, almost all of them have superpowers, completely deflating one of Meyer's earlier claims.

So here they are, all gathered, when suddenly the Volturi get convinced that Nessie is not a threat and they all leave peacefully--though not without killing Irina, who ratted all of them out but did so on a false claim.

And then they lived happily ever after.

Yes, that really happened. The title of the last chapter was even "Happily Ever After."

Personally, I would've liked to see a fight at the end.

But then, even after all this, you still say, "But at least Alice was there to make the story better, right?"

Well, no. She was barely there for anything. Which takes away a lot of the series' appeal.

And while we're on the topic of characters, may I also add that no one was acting in-character?

And while we're on the topic of out-of-character-ness, I would also like to say that Charlie found out about werewolves and that the Cullens weren't human (he doesn't know they're vampires, just that they aren't human), but guess what? He barely cares about it! Who would've thought?

Remember earlier, when I said this was like a bad fan fiction? Let's weigh all the characteristics.

Everything that happened in cliche fan fiction happened here, including:

- Pregnant Bella
- Stupid names
- OOC-ness (Out Of Character, if you can't figure it out)
- The commonness of gifted vampires
- Bella's self-control gift
- Two gifts for Bella
- Jacob imprinting
- Charlie knowing the secret

I'm sure there's more, but I don't want to think a lot.

Please don't read this.

August 30th, 2008 UPDATE:

Okay, so I've gotten over the initial shock of the book. I'm not going to write another review, because I'm still in denial that the book was actually okay. So I'm just going to say that I respect it. I'm never, ever going to like it, of course. But I respect it.

October 4th, 2008 UPDATE:

I changed my mind. I hate this book again with a passion. I no longer respect it or Meyer.