New Moon

Author: Stephanie Meyer
Publishing Info: Little, Brown and Company, 2006
Suggested Reading Level: grades 9 and up

Synopsis:
New Moon is the sequel to Twilight. At the begining of New Moon, Bella, the heroine, and her vampire boyfriend, Edward, are extremely happy and in love, but things take a downward turn after a mishap at a birthday party thrown for her by the Cullens (Edward’s vampire family). Always prone to clumsiness, Bella gives herself a paper cut while opening one of her birthday cards and Jasper tries to attack her out of reflex. (Although the vampire family has sworn off human blood, not everyone has mastered their ability to resist it when it’s fresh.) Edward saves Bella from his “brother” by throwing himself on her, but in the process manages to wound her even worse, as she falls on a glass bowl that shatters. Edward, being the gentleman that he is, sees this incident as proof that he is dangerous to Bella by virtue of being a vampire. He decides she will never be safe if she is in love with him because she will want to be around him. So he tries to get her to stop loving him by pushing her away and then leaving. He even convinces the rest of his family to go along with this plan and they relocate as well.

Bella, however, takes this turn of events as badly as possible. After he leaves, she is basically a walking zombie, not allowing herself to feel the pain or anything else. Finally after about three months, she faces her feelings and decides that she needs to get back at Edward for hurting her. Since one of Edwards biggest fears is that she will get hurt, she believes the only way she can get back at him is to endanger her own life. On a whim, she picks up two dilapidated motorcycles and asks her Quileute friend, Jacob Black, to help her fix them up. Jacob, who has always had a thing for Bella, happily agrees. As they spend time together fixing the bikes and hanging out with other friends from his tribe, the two of them become really good friends. Bella still feels really hurt by Edward’s betrayal, but when she is around Jacob, she can be happy, and the pain is lessened.

Without notice, Jacob, one day, months down the road, starts acting strangely and won’t tell her why. When he starts ignoring her completely, her depression almost overwhelms her again, but she finds the willpower to find out what is going on.
After a big argument and a strange nighttime visit by Jacob, Bella realizes that he has become a werewolf – at will, he can morph into a giant wolf that exists solely to hunt and destroy vampires: a power handed down from his Quileute ancestors. Once Bella knows his secret, she and Jacob are able to be friends again, to her relief. He was avoiding her because the existence of the werewolves (there is an entire pack of them) is supposed to be kept secret to protect them. Jacob tells her that his pack has been trying to protect her from a vampire who is hunting her. (This vampire, Victoria, is the lover of the vampire that Edward kills at the end of the first book.) They are able to keep her at bay for the rest of the book, but they aren’t able to catch her and kill her. Now that Bella and Jacob are friends again, she feels happy and safe, and since she believes Edward is not coming back, she considers allowing herself to be in a romantic relationship with Jacob, which he has made plain that he wants.

Before she can act on the idea, Edward’s sister, Alice shows up on her doorstep. Alice explains that there has been a misunderstanding and Edward thinks that Bella is dead. He plans to kill himself out of remorse for not having been there to protect her, so she and Alice drop everything to fly to Italy to save him. Alice, with her gift of seeing the future, knows that he plans to reveal himself as a vampire to the world which will bring down the wrath of the Volturi’s upon him. The Volturi are the ruling body of vampires that enforce their laws. They manage to barely stop him, but the Volturi are alerted anyway and the three of them must face the oldest and most powerful vampires in existence on the charge that a human knows about them. They are released, but only because Alice tells them that she has seen Bella as a vampire in the future.

Edward, Bella, Alice, and the rest of the Cullens return to Forks and Bella feels at peace with the world. Jacob, however, is angry and frustrated and hurt that Bella would take Edward back after all that she had been through, because of Edward, and with him (Jacob). The end of the book leaves Jacob running off vowing never to speak to her again if she is with a vampire, and Edward and Bella talking about fulfilling her wish to become a vampire--later.

Analysis:
I have a love-hate relationship with the Twilight series. I love them because I can’t put them down and because Edward is an amazing (and enticingly romantic) character. I hate them because of this fight between Edward and Jacob over Bella. The fight drives a lot of the plot this book and Eclipse (the third book in the series) and it's still there in Breaking Dawn (book 4) and I think it’s terrible for many reasons—the one I can mention now being that Bella is not a girl boys would fight over. She is whiny and clumsy and stubborn and generally useless. I don’t dislike Bella, I just don’t think real boys would think she’s worth all this fuss.

Anyway…my other thoughts are that the plot of this book isn’t as tightly written as Twilight, but it was still an enjoyable read. Those who liked the first book will not be unhappy with this one. Again I feel that it leans toward female readers more than male, but the vampire/werewolf theme is something that could draw the boys in, too. Although it is almost 600 pages, it is not difficult reading and could be suggested to anyone who might have an interest in the book’s themes.