New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2) Review

I heard about Twilight by Stephenie Meyer about 3 weeks ago when I got an email from Borders with an article about the "Bella Luna" series being the next Harry Potter.  I'm a huge Harry Potter fan and looking for more books that can hold my attention like that series so I decided to give this series a try.  I read Twilight in just a few days and loved it.  About an hour after finishing it I went back to the bookstore to buy New Moon which is the second book of the series.  It also only took a few days to read and, although it was not quite as good as Twilight I liked it a lot. 

Twilight is the story of Bella Swan, a Phoenix teenager who leaves home to live with her father in a small town in Washington state.  Bella is intrigued by Edward Cullen who is a boy in one of her classes who turns out to be a vampire.  She feels safe with him and they fall in love.  He and his family prefer to feed off of animals rather than people, but the underlying blood lust is always there just under the surface. 

New Moon picks up where Twilight left off.  Bella is in the hospital recovering from a vampire attack.  She is celebrating her birthday with the Cullen family but accidentally cuts herself on some wrapping paper and the sight and smell of her blood are too tempting for the Cullens and they flee the house to remove the temptation.  After Edward sees her safely home the Cullens decide that her blood is too tempting and they leave the area abruptly.  This sudden loss throws Bella in a deep depression that lasts for months until she gets closer to an old friend, Jacob.  Jake is a bit younger and is very interested in Bella romantically but her memories of and feelings for Edward prevent her from feeling the same for Jake.  Oh yeah, and Jake is a werewolf; the arch enemy of the vampire.  They are almost romantically involved until Edward and his family come back into the story in the latter third of the book where the story ends and things get really sticky.

New Moon is a young adult book that is fairly clean.  There were a few minor swear words but nothing horrible and no sex at all.  Just a little kissing and attractions to the opposite sex.  This book kept my attention just like the first one but it was not quite as good.  It didn't have enough Edward and I wasn't crazy about Jake as he seemed very immature and annoying.  Other than that it was very good and I read very fast and turned the pages quickly as the story kept moving and I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. 

Twilight's end left me in suspense and I was so glad that I got New Moon right away so I could continue reading the story, however New Moon just sort of ended without leaving me wanting to immediately dig my teeth into the next book.