New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2) Review

All it takes is a few chapters and you realize that Bella is a very accident-prone person.  At the beginning of New Moon everyone is celebrating Bella's 18th birthday.  Something tragic happens which is a matter of life or death for her and it forces Edward to leave her to save her.  Because Edward's love for her is so strong he vows he must permanently remove himself from her life.

"What is a Volturi?" I demanded.

"The Volturi are a family," he explained, his eyes still remote.  "A very old, very powerful family of our kind.  They are the closest thing our world has to a royal family, I suppose." 

Bella misses the Cullens so badly that she slips into a major depression.  Her father doesn't know what to do so he threatens to send her back to her mother in Jacksonville but she begs him not to.  She comes up with a plan.  If she can make Edward see how much she needs him then maybe he will return.  So, what is her plan?  She decides to live her life dangerously because every time she was in danger he came in to rescue her.

While trying to come out of this state of depression Bella becomes really good friends with Jacob Black, a younger teenager from La Push, an Indian reservation.  Jacob's family has established a treaty with the Cullens family that neither will cross the imaginary line of good and bad.  Jacob and Bella become inseparable--is she falling for him or is it just a really close friendship?  Can she actually let go of Edward to love another guy?  Can Jacob understand why she cannot commit to him and is their friendship going to be strong enough to endure the curveballs that will be thrown their way?

Bella is young and in love so much of what she is going through is a natural reaction for a teenager.  But is it natural for her to hear voices in her head?  Why does she continually have nightmares that wake her up screaming and why is she having such a difficult time moving on?

You will have to read New Moon to see what all Bella does to keep Edward in her life.  The more dangerous she is the more she can hear his voice telling her what she needs to do to get out of a bad situation.  But will she ever be reunited with him?

Surely, as a rule, some little bit of moonlight would filter down through the clouds, through the chinks in the canopy of the trees, and find the ground.

Not tonight.  Tonight the sky was utterly black.  Perhaps there was no moon tonight-a lunar eclipse, a new moon.  A new moon.

Bella notices that Jacob is growing and changing at an alarming rate.  She's not the only one, her father also notices this and they just chalk it up to adolescence.  But what is Jacob's secret and how does Bella react once they begin sharing secrets with each other?

At the end of Twilight James is killed.  Bella believes she is safe until she finds out that Victoria has come back for her.  So, the plans are set in motion for everyone to guard Bella and Charlie so that the evil one cannot get her. 

Throughout Twilight and New Moon Bella is longing to be transformed into a vampire.  Read New Moon to find out the following:

• What is the deep aching in her chest?  What is the hole she is referring to?
• Why does Bella have to go to Italy?
• Charlie loses someone very dear to him, who is it?
• Do Bella and Jacob stay together?
• What is the significance of the story Romeo and Juliet?
• What are Bella's plans for the future?

 In New Moon you are introduced to a pack of werewolves and the book kept my attention as I tried to figure out what happens when two worlds collide.  Can humans, werewolves, and vampires peacefully exist? 

I read New Moon in two days.  It wasn't as enrapturing as Twilight but I kept reading with the hopes of finding Edward.  With every turn of the page I was hoping this was when he or the Cullens family would return.  But the more you read the more your heart sinks in despair with Bella's.  You keep wondering where are the "main" characters?  You have an entire book devoted to the Cullens family and then all of a sudden they are gone.  In New Moon you must deal with a new set of characters.  You will see the relationship between Bella and her father grow a little more.  Jacob and his friends are discussed more and Bella's friends are rarely talked about.   

I won't say I was disappointed with New Moon but it didn't do for me what Twilight did.  I will read the rest of the series to find out what everyone is wanting to know.  If/when does Bella's wish come true?

Additional Book Information:

• ISBN-10: 0-316-02496-1
• ISBN-13: 978-0-316-02496-9
• Publication Date: 2006
• Publisher: Little Brown & Company
• Format: 563 pages, large paperback
• Cover Price: $10.99
• My Price: $5.32 plus $3.99 s/h @ amazon.com