Breaking Dawn –Book Review

Breaking Dawn – Stephenie Meyer

Hardcover: 756 pages
Language: English
Published: (on my b’day ;) ) August 2nd 2008 by Little, Brown and Company

url: http://stepheniemeyer.com/breakingdawn.html

Characters: Edward Cullen, Jacob Black, Bella Swan

Setting: Forks, Washington (United States)

Literary awards: ALA Teens' Top Ten (2009)

Description: When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one?


From the Book Jacket :


Summary:


To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both a fantasy and a nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, she has endured a tumultuous year of temptation, loss and strife to reach the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice, to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or pursue a fully human life, has become the thread from which the fate of two tribes hangs.

Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating and unfathomable consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella’s life – first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse – seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed… forever?

Review:


The anticipated conclusion to TTS, the fourth and final part does justice to the story and the readers. I enjoyed reading it and after reading Eclipse, wanted to see how it ends (though somehow had guessed a few parts), like Bella’s transformation, a wedding etc.


The transformation of Bella from a weak, clumsy girl to a more independent and bold woman was good. She did a good job near the end of the story. Steph gave Bella both Jake and Edward, a baby, fairytale cottage, distinct power after becoming a vampire, and her human family. A story well tied up for Bella, after a great deal of sacrifice for getting the love of her life.



Edward was as loving as ever, this time as a father, as a husband, does all he can to protect his wife and his daughter.


I enjoyed reading Jacob’s perspective the most; it was a good change and was interesting to read. The best part for Jake in this book was, despite all the heart-ache he got, in the end again a happy ending for him too. Although the imprinting was a bit lame, a minus from my side for the book. But Jake still remains my Fav Character in the book.


There was a scope for a lot of drama and action in the end, when Volturi meet the other Vampire Covens, but again wasn’t written very well. The Volturi come, talk and walk back..!! What???!! Needed some good action here..!


One more thing I dint like was the book cover.


All things perfectly tied up into a perfect bow in the end, a happy ending for all, a good story book for teenagers, addictive, not a learning experience, poor adjective usage and bad repetition but again a good story with overly perfect characters.

Twilight-Book Review

Twilight is a vampire-human romance story written by the author Stephenie Meyer.

After Twilight follows New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn and yet unfinished Midnight Sun: The Twilight Saga. I’ve seen the movie and waiting for New Moon to release by 4th Dec.

The story begins with seventeen year old girl, Bella moving from sunny Arizona to Forks, a town with constant mist and rain, also leaving her Mom to stay with her Dad so as to study in Forks, despite the fact that she dislikes the foggy weather without Sun and had to make whole new set of friends and settle into a new school.

Though she quickly makes new friends and finds her gaze fixed on the Cullens family, esp. Edward Cullen, who were all different, inhumanly beautiful, stunningly attractive and used to stay aloof from the rest of the students.

Bella is portrayed as realistic teenage girl, shy and lacking in confidence with her sarcastic inner voice.

Edward and his family are a mystery, which is slowly unraveled through out the book.

Bella finds herself attracted to Edward who seems to be exasperated by her mere presence. Soon, they fall irrevocably in love with each other. Edward has to fight his feelings of his ultimate desire, the smell of her blood and the fragrance of her body. Bella trusts Edwards and knows that he will never cause any harm to her and feels safe with the Vampire. He fights to save her, from himself and from others.

The love-story is intense and captivating that will keep you reading and you won’t want to end.

Twilight is young adult novel and is surely enjoyable. (Let us not compare it with Harry Potter)

The drawbacks I felt were repetitive sentences, overly-perfect characters and shallow romance. Yet, entertaining and worth a read.

Guys: It won’t bite you…eh…you might not find the book very interesting.

Girls: You’d all Love it. No wonder these T-shirts are being so much on Amazon.



Happy Reading.

2 states

Synopsis by C.Bhagat:

Love marriages around the world are simple:
Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy.
They get married.

In India, there are a few more steps:
Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy.
Girl's family has to love boy. Boy's family has to love girl.
Girl's Family has to love Boy's Family. Boy's family has to love girl's family.
Girl and Boy still love each other. They get married.

Welcome to 2 States, a story about Krish and Ananya. They are from two different states of India, deeply in love and want to get married. Of course, their parents don’t agree. To convert their love story into a love marriage, the couple have a tough battle in front of them. For it is easy to fight and rebel, but it is much harder to convince. Will they make it? From the author of blockbusters Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Center and The 3 Mistakes of My Life, comes another witty tale about inter-community marriages in modern India.

My Review:

I have read Chetan Bhagat’s previous 3 books, 5 point someone being my Fav. I read this book in one go. Though I feel Indians who watch Bollywood movies will get a feel of the book by its cover and will not jump off their seats after reading the twists in the book, but the book is good enough to grab your attention and interest.

The book is dedicated by the author to his in-laws* (with a * marked which says which does not mean I am henpecked, under her thumb or not man enough). Men…!! :P Its ok if they express their gratitude to their in-laws for giving their daughter to him, why * and clarify..!

The story is about Krish and Ananya, who met at IIMA. Krish is a Punjabi boy and Ananya is a Tamilian Brahmin girl, who fell in love with each other (a little 5 point some-one like love story in college.)

Krish is fair, intelligent, and good in economics and is madly in love with Ananya. He likes to take care of her Mom but is in no talking terms with his Dad, as in mostly pissed off when at home.

Ananya is independent, modern, educated, practical and logical (like most girls are) and is fair unlike other South-Indian girls (exceptions include Sri devi and Hema malini)

They both try to convince each others family in-turns. Krish got posted himself in Chennai ( Ananya’s hometown), lost his sleep, had to give tuitions to Ananya’s younger brother, and then helped her Dad in his (Bank) office work and her Mom by acknowledging her singing in a huge public. Hard work to get the love of his life. After all nothing in this world comes for free.

Also, asked the complete family to marry him and gave all three of them gold rings. Tons of appreciation and gold gifts….they liked the guy.

Ananya then went to Delhi to meet Krish’s parents, and received a lot of sarcasm for she being a witty and clever Madrasin and having trapped her baby boy. Later, Ananya’s parents gifted Krish’s mom with 3 sarees, krish wid 4 shirts and with dry fuits fromGoa.

Dowry system in Punjabi weddings is written well, and how “boy’s side” can put a life long relationship to hold if they don’t get a free luxurious car from the “girl’s side”.

Our MBA girl showed her smartness and confidence and subsidized the dowry, at the same time getting blessings and admiration from Krish’s family.

The book has well portrayed the differences in North-Indians and South-Indians, weddings, music tastes, food, clothes, cleverness etc etc.

Also, prejudices about caste system still prevalent in the so called modern India is shown well and not only parents smirk about it but also the children tend to think that will this be worth it? Giving unhappiness to everyone in the family for their own sake will not be worth..! Marrying outside the clan is still a huge question, why so narrow minded about it?

2 States brings together people of 2 different states and unite it to one- called India.
I hope people in my country open up and free themselves from the clutches of caste system and think of all as One, all as just human beings.

Overall, the book is a nice read.
Wedding is quite funny.
Though there was a time travel in the book I suppose, as he once said mobiles had not become very popular yet and are its very costly to talk on mobiles on the other hand he made Ananya’s mom sing the song from Kaho na pyar hai… :-/

Rating : 3/5

PS: Author kept the price unchanged since his first book in 2004. It is still Rs.95. The prices of commodities have increased, but Chetan Bhagat's books are still priced what it was five years ago.