New Moon - Stephanie Meyer - Reviewed by Stephen Yuen

New Moon (2006) by Stephanie Meyer is a compelling sequel to Twilight in the Twilight Saga which is constantly bursting with fantasy, romance and action. It is mainly set in the small town of Forks, Washington in the United States. This is mainly targeted at teenagers and at those who just want a good read about mythological creatures coexisting and surviving in the modern world with a romantic and action based storyline. The main thing this novel does is it puts in perspective how difficult teenage life can be in. It also presents an opportunity to readers to escape reality and to enter a different world – Bella’s world.

Bella Swan is a normal teenage girl with normal teenage issues living in dreary, old Forks, Washington. That’s what she thinks until she meets Edward Cullen, her future love of her life and his family of vampires. Although not like typical vampires, the Cullen family have devoted themselves to avoid human flesh. Now, she has been dating Edward for almost six heavenly months. The only thing she desires the most from Edward is to turn herself into a vampire so that she can be unnaturally gorgeous, lightning fast, infinitely strong and even possess special powers but most importantly, she has the ability to stay young forever so she can be with her love of her life for the rest of time.
However, her life goes from heaven to hell when an accident at Edward’s house causes his family to leave Forks – for good. Suddenly, Bella enters a deep depression, shutting out her whole life, ignoring her friends and family until she can once again be with her “love of her existence”.
Bella later discovers that by committing reckless and careless acts, she triggers hallucinations of Edward. As soon as she finds this out, she then starts to do mindless deeds. She later then befriends Jacob Black, a family friend and her future best friend. Soon, she throws her depressive state aside and tries to resume her life with Jacob helping her the whole way.
One day, to trigger another hallucination, Bella decides to try cliff diving. However, Edward’s sister, Alice Cullen who can see the future, foresees Bella jumping off a cliff. Soon, word gets out to Edward and he thinks that she is committing suicide. Edward then runs off to Italy to a royal vampire family called the “Volturi” who are the only ones that can kill him. He does this because he once promised Bella that he couldn’t live without her. Bella didn’t know that he meant it literally.
Eventually, once Bella hears this, she rushes to Italy and stops Edward from being killed, but the Volturi catch them intent on killing them. However, they soon release them when the Volturi sense that Bella is unique and says that they will come for her in the future.
Later, Bella expresses her argument about the fact that Edward should turn her into a vampire and they both agree that he would do it only after she has graduated.

The most interesting and fascinating aspect of this novel is the way Stephanie Meyer makes Bella’s life seem extremely realistic. For example, she is thoughtful and creative to add small, everyday teenage things such as the occasional over-protectiveness of parents and the stressfulness of basic teenage issues. This makes it easier for readers who are teenagers to relate to this as well as picturing themselves in situations and scenes throughout the novel.

Meyer writes in first person which then gives her opportunities to not only tell the story, but to illustrate to the reader what the character is feeling at the current situation. In a number of times, many things Bella observes and experiences are not told clearly until later in the novel. Sometimes, Meyer leaves clues and hints to the following scenes, but even these are difficult to pick up. Events are only described clearly to the reader until Bella completely understands the situation. Until this, she cannot offer and explanation about the current situation to the reader.
Besides using first person, Meyer uses not only words to describe the surroundings and environment, but she also uses very heartfelt words to really make the reader feel what Bella’s feeling in the current situation from the pain to the joyousness.

Many themes are introduced in this novel. Most of them can be related to the lives of teenage girls and boys mainly because Bella is a teenage girl.
One of them is loyalty which plays a big role within New Moon. When Bella discovers that Jacob (her new best friend after Edward leaves) is a werewolf and also that werewolves are mortal enemies to vampires, she is torn in her heart and finds it difficult to interact with both parties without starting an argument.
Depression is one of the predominate emotions Bella experiences in this novel. When Edward and his family leave, Bella’s world literally collapses in front of her eyes. However, the most interesting aspect of this is the way she deals with it and how she bounces back. The method she uses to cure her depression can be related to many teenagers who have suffered from this. She also illustrates that since Bella had ignored her friends during the whole experience, her friends have a difficult time trying to forgive her.

This novel had a very deep connection to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It also plays a very key role in the novel. This connection is first presented to the reader at the beginning of the novel when Bella and Edward are analysing it for English. However, throughout the entire novel, Meyer uses scenes and storylines that are similar to Romeo and Juliet.
For example, one of the similarities of New Moon and Romeo and Juliet is illustrated when Bella dives off the cliff and Edward misinterprets this action and attempts to kill himself. This is exactly like the suicide-for-love scenario in Shakespeare’s play.

Stephanie Meyer’s New Moon, is definitely another one of her masterpieces. She has given not only teenager’s another novel to put on their “Must Read List”, but also a wonderful opportunity to immerse the minds of many people into a fantastical world. The way she can create relations from the novel to our lives in reality is astounding. The storyline can seem to be impossibly hard to imagine at times, but this is just the thing Meyer wants for us – a chance for us to broaden our minds. Meyer has definitely created another successful novel and many will be anticipating for the next in the Twilight Saga.