sooo....

- edward and bella got married and had s*x (in that order, too - meyer wanted to convey an important message)

- jacob defected from his pack (followed by leah and seth clearwater) because sam wanted to launch an attack against the cullens because the cullens would be breaking their treaty if they decide to make bella a vampire.

- bella gets pregnant and gives birth to a girl they named renesmee, who's half-human and half-vampire. carlisle and edward wanted the pregancy terminated because of the harm it was doing to bella but she refused (again, important message: meyer is pro-life)

- one of the denali sisters (irina) saw bella, renesmee, and jacob hunting, and then went to the volturi, thinking that renesmee is an immortal child.

- the cullens assembled a group of vampires to be witnesses that renesmee is not an immortal child, but half human, half immortal so the volturi would listen and not execute them

- the volturi comes to forks with an ulterior motive: acquisition - edward, alice, etc, etc. at this point, i've lost track of the names of all the vampires.

- but bella has special sheilding powers that not even jane or alec can penetrate

- the good guys win. the volturi didn't even fight.

- oh, yeah..and jacob imprinted on renesmee.

- and charlie knows everything

- the best part: relieved sexual tension between bella and edward. finally. after 3 books of foreplay, meyer took the shot.

i've read the books when they first came out in 05 and i've been looking for someone who's also read it so we can dissect and discuss the books. it was no fun to have read it and not have anyone to talk about it with, so i'm glad everyone's jumped in the bandwagon or i might be the only one who makes fun of bella.

twilight annoyed me because of the overuse of adjectives. like, i get it, i get it...Edward is perfect. Edward sparkles (and literally at that, too). woohoo. Meyer exhausted all words synonymous to beautiful but it doesn't matter. you keep reading anyway. the characters are flat, but meyer did a decent job of giving them (except perfect edward) vague personalities that everyone can relate to. it is your average boy-meets-girl kind of book, but then boy's a vampire who wants girl and her blood so that's where the story starts. it's a good thing that this book wasn't a flop. otherwise, twilight would've been the beginning and the end of Bella and Edward.

new moon was a breath of fresh air in a way, with Bella not writing down every thought she had of Edward's utter perfection. i like the take on werewolves but i missed the vampires. they were in it for less than 1/3 so i had to skim the pages to see if they will be reappearing. this is the story of Bella's heartbreak with Edward leaving and it came across to me as whiny and mopey, but then Bella "redeems" herself in the end and everything's not as bad. she still has such a long way to go before she gets to be a heroine of hermione granger's or ginny weasley's level, but she gets to save Edward for a change, making this book quite hard to put down.

with eclipse, you had to read the 1st and 2nd book because Meyer didn't spend a lot of time expounding on the earlier novels but gets down to the story right away. this is a love story between Bella, Edward and Jacob that borders on soap opera territory. but what the hey, you've read more than 500 pages of the previous books. of course you'll keep reading this one because you want to know what happened, and you're keeping your fingers crossed that bella dies.

it was sad, having finished reading the saga. it wasn't like harry potter all over again, but you get the point. you get to "not hate" the characters and would want to read more about them. with the discovery that her vampire powers are super, would bella's moping go away? how would they go about jacob and renesmee's love story? would child services visit carlisle and esme because, well, it's just plain and creepy how their "kids" are all coupled up?

the last book was anti-climactic for me. a little too escapist fantasy. i mean, the volturi shows up, en masse, and then decides not to fight? it's a bit of a cop-out, the all too happily ever after ending somewhat annoying. but then again, it's nice to see clumsy bella even out a bit to mr. eternal perfect mcdreamyhottiesteamy. a lot of people are ripping this book apart because of the perfect ending, but after everything has fallen into place, how could it be otherwise?