Breaking Dawn was a huge disappointment. The book started to feel off from the one-chapter-only wedding. I thought the whole huge affair would be at least the first 400 pages. But instead, that space particulary reserved in my mind, for the wedding and the honeymoon, was taken up by a completely unprecedented (at least by me) pregnancy. I was so sure that vampires couldn't have kids. My friend and I were even joking about how Bella would go off and have mutant vampire children. It was funny because we knew male vampires couldn't produce sperm. I was already feeling annoyed towards Edward for being so mopey after bruising Bella, and the pregnancy just killed me. It seemed like a lousy sci-fi plot stolen off some fan-fic website. Bella never fit into my likely-to-be-a-good-mother radar, and her masochisim and extreme dedication during the pregnancy made me feel almost sick.
Then Renesme herself. She was
too perfect, the magic solution to everyone's problems. Plus she got
my imaginary boyfriend. And what about all the pain she caused Bella? Edward ignored it when he heard her thoughts, Bella, in her masochistic way, never cared if Renesme injured her. Jacob, who was the only real character for me until he imprinted, forgot about how much agony Renesme had caused Bella when he fell out of love with Bella and imprinted on Renesme. All because she's a sweet, perfect, lovable baby.
And then Jacob's imprinting. This made me so upset. The pedophilia so grossly implied greatly disturbed me. Jacob...my one true love, was my favorite Bella's
son-in-law? I wanted to scream. And I loved Jacob's book so much. It was a breath of fresh, realistic air. And I was dying for Jacob and Leah to fall in love. They would have made the perfect couple, and it seemed as though SM was stting them up, with their rivalry. Then he falls in love with Renesme.
Also, the "fight" with the Volturi. It was incredibly anti-climatic. The last 400 pages were spent building up to what was anticipated to be a huge fight, with deaths all around. And I was so looking forward to Jane and Aro getting their pretty little butts kicked. Then everyone stood around and talked for 50 pages. J. Jenks became a total page filler. Bella became a magical shield that blocked everything. And about 10 new vampire clans popped up out of nowhere, and they were all tossed together like a bucket of action figures, with the same outfits and talents.
The Bella and Edward relationship was totally ruined, both by Bella becoming a vampire, by B&E being so horny, and Renesme. It was all about sex and parenthood, and totally killed the spark. Emmet's sex jokes were just an attempt by SM to break the monotony of sex and Renesme.
And sacrifice. That was the last aspect of Breaking Dawn that totally ruined it for me. For the first three books, SM made very clear how important sacrfice is. The "splintering of Bella's heart" was so tender and heartfelt I almost cried. Bella went into marriage with Edward knowing, and expecting to give up so much: Jacob, her friends, Charlie, Renee...yet in the end, Bella got everything. Jacob imprinting on Renemse, making him a part of the Cullen family forever. Charlie watching Jacob phase and realizing that his daughter was a part of the supernatural, accepting that fact, and welcoming her and Renesme with open arms. Bella gets money, too. Lots of it. And she doesn't have to do a thing.
These books lost almost everything for me, just from Breaking Dawn.
On a happier note: My one laugh-aloud moment in Breaking Dawn that still gave the book a tiny bit of face was the arm-wrestling match between Emmet and Bella. It was hilarious.
I really needed that.