Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Even though I'm of the XY persuasion, I really loved Twilight. I loved New Moon and Eclipse less. I disliked Eclipse most of all, because Bella's confusion made no sense at all, and poor Edward had no way out. Any normal man would have given Bella the boot, and let Jacob have her, but Edward didn't have that option. Breaking Dawn restored some of my faith in their romance, which Eclipse had largely killed. Over all, I love the series as much as any fan. So does my wife. But this novella is an insult to our intelligence as fans. This story marks an epic fail. Let's leave out the critical scenes on the post-battle field for a minute and focus on something really simple. Given what this story claims, Victoria and Riley had been at their "build an army" thing for nearly a year, where as Eclipse leaves you with the impression that they were at it for two months at the most. Diego was 11 months old as a newborn. That's an entire year of a growing number of newborns "grazing" in Seattle. The opening of the book has Diego and Bree murdering 5 people. And the impression you get is that, that was business as usual for members of Riley's coven, which had been growing in fits and starts for a year or more. So, take a calculator and start playing with some numbers and you have to wonder just how big the city's "dregs" population was, because you start getting into a body count in the thousands. For instance assume that you have only four newborns the first three months, hunting every other night, and taking say 3 people each, instead of the 4 that Bree took. That's 540 corpses in 90 days. Now extrapolate that through the next 9 months with an increasing population of thirsty monsters. By the time we get to the start of the story, they'll be killing 150 to 200 people a week just to sustain themselves. Seattle ain't Mexico City. They'd finish off the city's population of "dregs" in a month, six weeks at the outside, and be hitting the malls and houses in the suburbs. Even if they hid ALL of the bodies, the number of missing wouldn't have the city in a panic. It would be in a state of war. The military would be called in and martial law would be declared. Then, there's the ferry massacre. No mention of it in Eclipse. Nada. On 9/11 people got cell phone messages out about what was happening, both in the buildings and the planes. No one on the ferry did? No bodies were found with mysterious wounds? Nothing? (snorts) Sloppy and careless writing. Then you get to Bree after the battle, passing her info to a telepathic Edward and you just completely blow large chunks of Breaking Dawn out of the water. Now, if they were the parts that were centered on Jacob and Bella rather that Edward and Bella, I wouldn't mind so much. But with this story Meyer completely destroys canon on what the Cullens knew or didn't know in planning to deal with the Volturi. Carlisle wouldn't have even attempted a peaceful solution and neither Edward, nor Carlisle, nor anyone else indicated that they had any hint of the information that Bree supposedly gave Edward there on the battlefield. Taking Bree's alleged actions at the end of the novella as canon for the books makes most of the discussion that took place in Breaking Dawn while preparing for the Volturi into utter useless nonsense. Meyer just retconned her own canon, while the books are still in the stores, after making tens of millions of dollars off of it. What will be next? Eclipse 2.0 and Breaking Dawn 2.0, the rewritten novels that take the amazing and sweet former plot device Bree Tanner, and the information that she never gave to Edward in the original canon, into account? If she's retconning the Saga, why stop there? Why not go for the gold and have Bella choose Jacob in the new canon? (shakes head) In my book there's no more unforgivable sin in an author than not being able to keep their writing internally consistent with itself. She rarely had that problem in the Saga itself, and The Host really rocked (says the science fiction fan of 40 years). Why did she drop the ball now? And the violations here are so obvious and blatant that we can't even say that she made a mistake. To do something like this you have to not care at all. As my wife would say..."Most authors protect their canon. I don't think she even *likes* Twilight anymore." Diego and Bree would have been a good story to tell, had Meyer kept within the bounds of canon. As it is, I give this thing a complete and total thumbs down. I can think of ten fan fiction stories off hand that are better, and I could probably think of more given time. What? She couldn't just finish Midnight Sun and be done with it? (snorts) She should have left it alone. Rick Added in Edit 06/22/10: I just realized something sort of ridiculous while talking to my wife yesterday. Think about the canon time line in the books. Edward leaves Bella in New Moon. Not quite nine months later the Cullens and the Pack destroy the newborn army on the field of battle. According to Edward, while he was separated from Bella he was tracking Victoria all over hell and back, including to Texas where she presumably got the idea to build an army. My problem is, if the novella is to be believed, Vicky started assembling her army prior to the events of New Moon. How did she begin building an army before she had the inspiration to build an army? Diego was 11 months old. That makes Reilly over a year old. Months before the Cullens ever left, there would have been newborns rampaging around Seattle. No one noticed? Not the cops? Or the newspapers? Not the Cullens? Apparently not, because it isn't mentioned in New Moon, and there isn't even a hint of it in Eclipse until less than 60 days before the battle. Remember that body count? Nobody? Noticed? (shakes head) I do still truly adore the original four books (with reservations about way too much Jacob), but I just can't stomach this novella. Added in Edit 07/03/10: I just got back from my second viewing of the movie...which was pretty good by the way. Meyer implied in interviews that people should read the novella prior to seeing the movie, as if it were a movie companion, or necessary to understanding the movie. I have to tell you, aside from vague generalities, there was almost nothing of the novella in the movie. Certainly nothing that, lacking the novella, couldn't be written off to Melissa Rosenberg getting creative. In short, the novella is a red herring. It doesn't fit in the book canon, and is utterly unnecessary to make sense of, or enjoy, the movie. Steph must be laughing all the way to the bank.