Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

At last! I brought this big ol' mama-jamma book with me on our trip to California and had the toughest time putting it down! I was anxious to see how it all ended and found myself as pathetically wrapped up in this series as everyone else I knew who had read it. It truly was a great series and I'm truly amazed how someone can create such a world on paper. Fantasy is typically not my thing, so I really thought this would be a stretch for me, but it was so easy to get wrapped up and now I'm waiting along with so many others with bated breath for the next film based on the series to come out in theatres!

I'm still a bit in awe that I read this 756 page book within a week's time. That sucker took up more than half my carry-on! And I loved how it ended, I thought it was perfect.

As far as recommending this series, there are people I work with who ask me if I would recommend this series to their kids. My response is, if it was me, I would ask my child to wait till they were 16 before reading it, because I feel the nature of the content can be a bit intense and mature for anyone younger than that. And if I were a parent who had a 16 year old interested in this series, I would first want to read the books myself, so that I could sit down with my child and have a conversation about what they thought of it. This series is so popular amongst our youth and I don't feel that by not allowing my kids to read the series is going to protect them any. I would hope that my kids could read a series like this and filter it through the belief systems they've been brought up with so they view these books through a healthy and balanced worldview. There are definite parallels I found myself aware of through this series that I felt related with my Christian walk, and those are the types of conversations that I hope book series like these will someday spark with my own children.

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.

Recommend: 16 and Up!

Rating: *****