"Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer

‘Breaking Dawn’ is pop phenomenon but it is fun to read the teen series
Angie Barker and Amanda Lester, Bookends
Published Monday, January 26, 2009
albertleatribune.com

Mandy: How did we end up with a book review column?
Angie: Probably cause we asked for one.
Mandy: Accurate. And we’re bookies, not like bookies who take bets. Like a Trekkie.
Angie: They don’t like to be called Trekkies. They prefer Trekkers.
Mandy: Bookers then?
Angie: No. That sounds like something that came out of a hooker’s nose.
Mandy: That’s classy. We’ll just call ourselves avid readers.
Angie: I’m in. On with the reviewing of the books.
Mandy: Since we’ve been obsessing about the “Twilight” saga like…
Angie: Twelve-year-old girls obsessing about the “Twilight” saga?
Mandy: Precisely.
Angie: We both recently finished the final book in the series “Breaking Dawn,” so let’s start there. The first thing you notice is the cover and title. I like that I’ve already made up a fact.
Mandy: I think when you have a column everything you say is a fact.
Angie: It’s terrible to admit but we really do judge books by their covers. What does that make us?
Mandy: Novelists. Definition: the combination of an elitist and a novice.
Angie: I think you’re only a novelist if you’ve gotten money for your work. Or is it not? Now it’s turning into one of those philosophical debates. Cause then anyone could be anything. Like I could be a bartender?
Mandy: You are. You got me this soda.
Angie: The books all have the same color theme with a black background and red and white objects. Very stark and lots of contrast.
Mandy: I think they are mysterious and alluring. “Breaking Dawn” has a chess board with a white queen piece in the front and a red pawn lurking in the shadows. I think the queen represents Bella Swan and the pawn is the Volturi, the global governing body of vampires.
Angie: I think the pawn is Edward Cullen because it’s the piece that is used for protection. For most of the series that is his role; Bella’s protector. I like that both of our theories about the cover could be correct but are not. The chess pieces are representative of Bella’s transformation from pawn, the weakest character, to Queen, the most powerful.
Mandy: Thank goodness for Wikipedia. We almost looked like fools.
Angie: “Breaking Dawn” starts with the main characters, Edward and Bella, getting married. Edward is a vampire who lives with six other vampire “family” members in Forks, Wash. Bella desires to become immortal to stay with Edward forever. He wants her to hold onto her humanity and resists the temptation.
Mandy: They compromise. Edward agrees to bite her if she will marry him.
Angie: He’s a bit of a traditionalist that way. No shenanigans before the wedding day. Abstinence is a major theme in the “Twilight” saga. At one point Edward says that he wants to wait until they are married to have sex to preserve a soul he isn’t sure he has.
Mandy: Bella agrees to the postpone her vampiric life because the end goal is an eternity with Edward. Compromising is another big theme in this book.
Angie: I agree with you completely.
Mandy: This is going to be a boring column if we continue to agree.
Angie: Let’s agree to disagree.
Mandy: That’s just us agreeing again.
Angie: I forgot what we were agreeing or disagreeing about.
Mandy: You know what else is easy to forget? That this series was written for teens. There are a lot of worldly themes in this saga. We’ve already mentioned abstinence and compromise. We haven’t even mentioned commitment, family, love, good vs. evil, abortion, abandonment, or life after death.
Angie: Meyer does a fantastic job of weaving these themes into an engaging story without preaching traditional family values at the reader, which is what the series is ultimately advocating.
Mandy: We’re 29-year-old women.
Angie: Twenty-four.
Mandy: Twenty-three and a half actually.
Angie: Thirty-one.
Mandy: You’re a terrible negotiator. Let me handle this. We’re mature women, and we missed some of the conventional messages until we discussed them out loud with other “Breaking Dawn” lovers. Even though the themes may be viewed as controversial Meyer presents both sides of the issues and lets the reader draw their own conclusions.
Angie: She brings all these issues to teen readers and then writes a version of the consequences. None of the characters is perfect. They are all flawed and make mistakes that they have to live with. What the reader takes from that experience is up to them. It never seems like she is telling us how to feel.
Mandy: Well, I feel this book and series lets me be a part of a pop culture phenomenon. I feel the same way about Edward Cullen as I did about New Kids on the Block.
Angie: Plus Edward is seriously hot.
Mandy: I agree.
Angie: Checkmate.

Mandy and Angie both reside in Albert Lea. Mandy teaches in Austin and Angie works at Albert Lea High School. They are ranking members of the Women Educators Literature League book club. Send e-mail to them at bookendscolumn@gmail.com.