Twilight Series Pt. 3

In the third book of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, ECLIPSE, we see the death of the inner monologue. I am surprised that it was able to hang on this long. To take a break in an important section of dialogue for Bella to say "That must have been...!" in my mind is just tedious. These inner monologues go on for several paragraphs before getting back into the conversation. Sometimes they separate a question and it's answer. This happens far too much and hurts the narrative, which actually is not too bad. Meyer is getting progressively better with each book. The dialogue is well paced, but has a lot of ping-pong going on, and usually absolutely no "he said" "she said" and sometimes it is unclear who the he and she are.

First I will say that this is where we first find out that the vampires don't have fangs.
Sure, in the other books they simply talked about their teeth. Fangs are a kind of tooth, I am sorry if I assumed that vampires had fangs.

Lets talk about character inconsistencies and changes. Isabella's father was a sheriff in the first book, a police chief in the second, and he is once again a sheriff in this one. Jacob Black's personality has changed drastically, so much so he is best represented by the lyric "Now you're messin' with a son of a bitch." Pun intended. So much so that at the end you think that he has run off to Twin Peaks to kill Laura Palmer.

More improper word use arises, chagrin is once again the common victim. Buoyant

Now once again she has many POV and tense changes. The worst part this time was were an entire chapter, only one chapter, used "had said". This goes along with the name inconsistencies, Bella uses multiple names for characters and this has been happening in each book.

Now, while I am on POV, you read me in the past saying that the books are 1st person from Isabella's POV. The Epilogue chapter in ECLIPSE switches to 1st person from Jacob's POV with no real warning, except the words "Jacob Black" above the first paragraph. This POV change is very risky and just doesn't work. It was refreshing to be in another person's head, I still felt it was Jacob from Isabella's POV, not Jacob from Jacob's POV. I probably would have been much nicer to this book if this didn't happen.

If you read this book, skip Chapter 16. It is just a graduation ceremony.

Meyer doesn't seem to know what humidity is. The 2 page vacation is Jacksonville, FL we are told that Isabella doesn't like the humidity. As opposed to Washington, where it is raining all the time--meaning it is always humid and much more humid than FL. Jeeze she is from Washington, Phoenix, and Jacksonville? No wonder she hates sports.

Obviously I don't have as much to say about this book, because I am bringing up mistakes that have been in the other two books. So lets talk about genetics.

That's right, genetics. Being a werewolf is hereditary. There is a werewolf gene. Now let's talk about what is needed for there to be a werewolf gene. It would require a mutation, because there is no werewolf gene--we know this because of the Human Genome Project. My Nucleic Biology is not as good as it should be, but a simple Google search can solve that for sure. Ok, so a new gene. Does that require a new chromosome? Chromosomes usually carry a large amount of genes, each pair varies. You could argue that the new gene would just be dumped into one of the established chromosomes, but I think it more likely that it would require a new chromosome pair, bringing the grand total to 48 chromosomes. I would like any of your opinions on this. Now the extra chromosome pair means that any offspring between the werewolf and a human would suffer abnormalities, much like when a donkey and a horse mate. Sure the book is fiction, and I know you cant bring dinosaurs back to life with blood in petrified mosquitoes, but this isn't a science fiction book--it is fantasy. Therefore it would have been easier to simply say that the old tribe stories are really how it happened, instead of trying to explain it away with pseudoscience. That was a pretty cool story. The origin stories have been some of the best parts of the book, except of course for the ones that are glossed over by saying "Well...you can pretty much figure out what happened then. It gets pretty bad"

I almost went Team Jacob this time. However, he became a real dick at times. He needs to, in the words of my friend Tupac Shakur, "Back the fuck up before he gets smacked the fuck up". It has hard not to sympathize with a guy that says what he thinks. Hell I don't have the best relationships with women, because I say exactly what I am thinking most of the time. I have to say that I am retiring from team Mike, and going for Team Jacob. Lets face it. Edward is one of those guys that likes a girl in high school, has sex with her at one point, then while in college he realizes that he is gay. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it is just really going to break Isabella's heart when it happens. Jacob on the other hand is nearly 7 feet of man meat. There is no argument there. Isabella would be more safe with Jacob. Jacob actually seems genuine when he tells her that he loves her. Edward just wants to tie her down while she is still young.

Final though: If the vampires are so cold, temperature wise, and hard as stone...Dr. Cullen must have a hell of a time giving prostate exams.