Meyer, Stephenie: Eclipse

Little, Brown © 2007, 629 pages

In the third installment in Stephenie Meyer's vampire tetralogy, Bella Swann confronts a pair of problems that have been building to a head. (Note: possible spoilers follow for those who haven't read books one and two.) The vampire Vicotria, who's still haunting the Pacific Northwest with vengeance in mind, would like nothing better than to rip Bella's throat out. And the two men in Bella's life--her undead paramour Edward and her best friend, werewolf Jacob Black--feel much the same about one another. The awkward trio spends a lot of time in book three negotiating a working relationship.

Eclipse offers a more interesting plot and a faster read than New Moon, the second book in Meyer's series, which was rather slow going. The only slow segment in Eclipse is yet another foray into Quileute legend: as usual, Meyer provides necessary background information in these reports of old Indian lore, but it's relatively dull stuff. Bella here is more like the confident heroine she was in book one than the depressed and whining victim of book two, though she does do some groveling that could give hormonally-challenged teenaged girls a bad name. She also comes to a decision about one of the men in her life that is too sudden to be quite credible, and that arguably is out of keeping with the thrust of that relationship up to that point.

Throughout, as I've come to expect from the author, Meyer's prose remains eminently readable. I'm looking forward to the final installment in the series.

Comments

[jmfausti]

I read this book when it came out and thought it was the end of a trilogy, and, it very well could have been. Meyer wrapped up her storylines and left a future that could be pondered, but didn't leave readers hanging.

As it turns out, even Breaking Dawn isn't the end. It's just the end of the stories being told from Bella's perspective. Meyer is nearly finished another book in the series told from Edward's point of view.