I sort of enjoyed the book. Allow me to elaborate. I enjoyed the beginning, with the wedding and all that, and then the end, when Bella stands off against the Volturi, but there was a whole steaming pile of something in the middle that completely and utterly both (a) jumped the shark and (b) sucked.

I realize that you write what you know, and that Stephenie Meyer knows being a mom, but seriously – a child? Named Renesmee, of all things? On whom Jacob imprints? Oy. She’d have done better just to cut out that whole eventuality completely. I’m tempted to slice the book up with an x-acto and piece together the parts that actually make sense. And she does do the whole Mary Sue thing at the end, wherein Bella is TEH MOST POWERFUL VAMPIRE EVAR, yaddah yaddah, saves the day, etc., but I can stomach that much more than I can the whole Renesmee thing. Ugh. And also, none of the characters behave like themselves, and the vampire Bella bit might as  well have happened in a completely different book, because again, nobody acts the way they should. Bella is not even really herself anymore, as if being a vampire brings you poise and self-confidence along with the rest.

There’s a fanfic writer I’ve been following, and she’s done a much better job of the story. In her version, Jacob imprints on Tanya and then a crazed samurai tells the Volturi about the Cullens and that’s why Aro brings them all to Forks. That version is so much more awesome, and doesn’t involve some crappy daughter thing, nor does it involve other weird vampire-human offspring and a group of werewolves in Europe who can’t go out in daylight.

I will most likely read more fanfiction, just to get the icky aftertaste of the actual novel out of my brain. And then I will continue to write MY novel, because I have control over that.