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| Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4) | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Category: Book
List Price: $22.99
Buy New: $11.22
You Save: $11.77 (51%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $10.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  (2814 reviews)
Sales Rank: 3
Languages: English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 768
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 2.3
ISBN: 031606792X
EAN: 9780316067928
ASIN: 031606792X
Publication Date: August 2, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Release Date: August 2, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product 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? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?
To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and 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, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates 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?
The astonishing, breathlessly anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2809 more reviews...
 *SPOILERS* August 29, 2008
*SPOILERS*
She could have written much better then what was written. The way she made Bella not want to give up her "nub" just to put Edward in pain isn't like how Bella would really react. Seeing Edward in Pain was difficult. Also It was Odd when Jacob Imprinted on Her Baby what kinda bulls*it is that.
 nice and easy entertaining read August 29, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
s. meyer has done a good job of ending the saga just as any fan would like but wouldn't have expected. i'm looking forward to the release of the official guide in dec. i don't get the 1 stars. some people should really take it easy, sit back and relax and just enjoy this good book. alright, so it's not jane austen material but geez, after a long day who needs stuff like that. i'd much rather read something like this and unwind. the author has a very good imagination and gives you a break from reality. i like how she plots her story, writes her characters' lines and injects humour and whatever is the right atmosphere for her scenarios. great job and i hope we see more of her work in the coming years. :-)
I give this a A- August 29, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I have never written a review for Amazon and felt compelled to do so after reading some of the ridiculous reviews here. Frankly I am surprised at the negative reviews which seem a bit snooty. I liked reading this book and I do not take it seriously because IT IS ABOUT VAMPIRES. And here is my response to the negativity.
****spoiler alert****
Firstly, I am tired hearing about the "powerful but wrong message" sent by this book. I am 39 and have 4 kids all born in wedlock and all after the age of 30. I spent ALOT of time reading everything from trashy novels to 18th century British Lit in my youth. In high school I read loads of books that would give the "wrong message" to young women (does anyone remenber FOREVER by Judy Blume???), and yet here I am, morally unscathed. If young girls are getting "messages" from fantasy novels, it isn't the novel that is wrong. SOMETHING ELSE IS WRONG. Were we all influenced by Grease, the movie, to forget about being the good girl just to get the cool guy?? Stop blaming novels for the bad decisions of young people.
Secondly, let's not forget that this is a FANTASY and therefore, implausible things are bound to happen, like hey the existence of vampires. I don't hear anyone criticising Shakespeare for his tidy endings (some violent, but mostly not realistic). This is not a novel about realism. And as for the reviewer who spoke of illogical outcomes, well, life is illogical and our reations and relationships to others are not always rational. And a baby can change you completely. Bella was having sex, so she got pregnant. I have met plenty of people who did not want kids and when they got pregnant or even suspected an unplanned pregnancy, were actually happy and excited. Bella's reactions are not illogical, not in someone who is truly compassionate. Besides, she is married and supported. NOTICE BELLA DID NOT HAVE AN ILLEGITIMATE CHILD. so stop with the moralizing. She is only 18, but there have been many girls that young who have had to mature overnight due to their circomstances. Bella has always been described as an old soul. My grandmother was 19 when she married. My grandparents were married over 50 years when she died. It has to do with the maturity and commitment and values of the couple. Some people who marry at 40 are still immature. I mean this is not unheard of.
I think the "message" I would have gotten as a young girl would be, what a nice committed vampire family who learned tolerance of those they once despised. How great would it be to meet a nice vampire, if they really existed. How nice to be in a truly committed relationship, where everyone takes care of each other.
Sure there are plot problems, but who cares?? She did not write this as a deep literary novel destined to be taught at the college level. Relax, and enjoy the story.
a great read August 29, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I absolutely loved Breaking Dawn it was just as amazing as Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. I'm just bummed out that this will be the last one...who knows? Maybe Stephanie Meyer will change her mind...I'll have my fingers crossed.
 Not the worst book ever written, but one of the biggest disappointments August 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I devoured the first three books of the series. Each in a day in a half. The whole series is an escapist fantasy and I understand that it must be treated as such, with heavy self-administrations of suspended disbelief along the entire way.
Meyer doesn't disappoint in delivering the escapist fantasy, nor does she disappoint in delivering a fast-moving, action-packed storyline. What she DOES disappoint in is delivering a meaningful story that will resound with the reader - one that can touch us and inspire us and leave us as better people in the end.
**SPOILERS**
From the beginning of the series, Bella is made out to be the underdog and everybody roots for the underdog. Everybody to some extent identifies with the underdog. But the best underdogs are the ones that claw their way out of the gutter and FIGHT, tooth and nail, to the top to where they can finally revel in the reward that they have achieved. This struggle is essential. It is echoed in every great story that has ever touched anyone's heart - the great comic heroes, the Disney movie protagonists, etc.
Bella lacks this struggle. Sure, there are obstacles along the way, but there is no real struggle. There is anticipation, worry, fear, sure. But the most Bella has to ever do is close her eyes and poke her fingers in her ears and sing LALALA, blocking out reality, until fate decides to take it easy on her and fix everything before she opens her eyes. Her most admirable trait is her sheer stubbornness. Meyer likes to think that she created a martyr in Bella. She thinks that because Bella stayed quiet during her transformation so that she wouldn't hurt Edward and Carlisle, or that she told Jacob to run away with Renesmee while she stayed to fight, that she is a real hero. But she is NOT a hero, she is just steadfastly selfish. She sees Edward, and wants Edward, and will do anything to be happy with Edward - even if it requires breaking her best friend's heart, or her parents' hearts, or anything else. Later on Renesmee is incorporated into this, too. But her tunnel-vision prevents her from growing and becoming the heroine that everyone who is watching her (us, as the readers) desperately wants her to be.
Romeo and Juliet would not have been the timeless classic that it is today if the story had been effortless- if the warring families had put down their arms for the sake of their beloved son and daughter and had the miraculous happy ending that Breaking Dawn has.
Superman would not be an iconic superhero if he had no obstacles to make him stumble - if his well-being and the serious well-being of those he deeply cared the most about were not truly threatened.
As it were, no one that Bella loves is ever in danger. Nothing seriously threatens to take away what she cares about. We never truly fear for Renesmee because we know that the book will not end on the Volturi killing her. We do not fear for Bella's health when she is pregnant with Renesmee because we know that there is no way for her to fall - vampirization will save her no matter what. We know that she will not lose Jacob, because he imprints (how conveniently, at that. Out of nowhere. What a contrivance) on Renesmee. We know her parents are never in danger, and what's more, they are never even really estranged from Bella so she never has to worry about that potential loss.
Despite what authors of 5 and 4 star ratings might think, I am not ranting against the "happy ending" or being bitter and disillusioned. I love the fact that Bella was able to be happy in the end. But the real pain is that I held Bella too high in my expectations. I believed that she could earn happiness - that she had the potential to FLY, not just wait for everything to fall in her lap while she grumbled about life.
In The Shawshank Redemption, Andy finally escapes and it is a happy ending. It is a REAL happy ending because he used his intelligence and strength of will to work at something better than the hand life dealt him. And when he escapes, our souls exult for him. If, like Bella, Andy had achieved a happy ending by moping in his cell until someone offered to grant him super powers and he then just busted a hole in the wall and walked out, it might still be a happy ending, but to a much lesser degree.
Yes, Breaking Dawn is sort of like a dream or fairy tale. It does not have to listen to the strict laws of reality. But in order to be the best story that it can be, it DOES need to be something we can relate to, even if remotely. Meyer had a great premise with the Twilight Saga. She created a cast of characters that I (for the most part) adored, and so of course I wanted to see the story fulfill its potential.
The biggest disappointment is that no one did- in a bizarre case of deus ex machina, Meyer swoops into the story time and time again with contrivance after contrivance. So I did not hate the book but as things stand, but honest-to-God, it broke my heart to see it fall so short.
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