Review Detail

Bella Swan and Edward Cullen have finally made it to their big day, their wedding day.  They enjoy their wedding and go on their honeymoon to a private island where Bella becomes pregnant.

Immediately, Edward rushes to get her home to try to convince her to abort the baby, but it is too late.  Bella has discovered a love for the child inside her that she has never felt for another person and wants to keep her baby even though it is eating her from the inside, cracking her ribs, and growing at an alarming rate.

Meyer takes a major risk by switching narrators in the middle of the finale of her series and allows Jacob Black to tell the story.  Although it is interesting to hear the wolves' points-of-view and to feel Jacob's heartbreak as he watches the vampire child come close to taking Bella's life, I really wish I would have known what Bella was thinking or even Edward.  This being said, Meyer is a genius, and it worked out quite well to hear the story from a more objective point of view because we also got to see more in-depth details about Bella that we did not get to see when Bella was the narrator.

During the process of child-birth, Bella almost dies and is resurrected by Edward finally turning her into a vampire.  Their half-vampire, half-mortal child and Bella's transformation into a newborn vampire take center stage for the rest of the novel as Bella deals with the changes of becoming a vampire and a mother all at once, not to mention training to battle the vampire law-enforcing Volturi.

Overall, this was a very nice finale to the Twilight series.  I say nice because it did not have the shock factor that I wanted.  They prepared to battle with the Volturi, but a fight never happened.  Throughout the series, there is emphasis on the vampire's abilities to fight with their strength, speed, and individual special gifts.  It would have been more exciting to get to see Bella use her new vampire powers to kick some Volturi butt along with her vampire and werewolf friends.  It is understandable, however, that Meyer wanted to end the series on a high note with all main characters intact and Bella and Edward living happily ever after.  That is, after all, what we have wanted from the beginning.