Book Review - New Moon

New Moon by Stephanie Meyer

New Moon is the second novel in the Twilight series (or saga as it is now more commonly known) written by relatively new author Stephanie Meyer. Chronicling the life of teenager Isabella "Bella" Swan the series is based around the relationship between human and vampire. However, the strong and often suffocating relationship between Bella and Edward Cullen which dominated the debut novel in the series is absent for almost the entire book here and surprisingly it works.

When the Cullen's realise that they must leave town because their lives and Bella's have become much more complicated since she became implicated into their dangerous world, Bella and Edward's relationship comes to an end (or more of a long pause). For a good portion of the novel we are then given page after page of Bella dealing with the break-up and the loss of her true love and this does get repetitive after about a hundred pages or so. But it does get better with the inclusion of Jacob Black, a character who had a small role in Twilight, is now given more to do and actually turns out to be a very likable character and a friend to Bella who often is presented (I'm not sure if it was intentional by Meyer) as using Jacob, never-the-less their friendship is an enjoyable aspect of the novel.

Of course everything isn't as it seems and being a novel there are a few twists, particularly involving Jacob, but I'm sure if you've seen the film version of Twilight or read the book then you'll have figured out his "secret". In fact the supernatural and action sides of the novel, I feel are much better written than the emotional and romantic sides which often feel flat and unconvincing and don't really appeal top readers such as me who aren't angst ridden teenage girls. Perhaps Meyer herself felt unconsciously more comfortable writing the mythological side of the novel over the teen romance side.

Meyer being a relatively new writer and a lot of people would argue, not a very good author does improve immensely as a writer and as a storyteller in this novel in comparison to Twlight. She still is no great or anything, but for what these novels are meant to be she has her craft down. Here we are given less metaphors and adjectives which seemed to make up a good two-thirds of Twilight and more actual story and character development. I haven't read any further in the series beyond New Moon, but I'm hopeful that her streak will continue because it is fair enough reading a book because of the story, but if the writing isn't up to much then you aren't going to enjoy it.

To finish, New Moon is an improvement over Twilight both technically and in terms of storytelling. Fans of Edward's character may be disappointed in the lack of time he has in the novel, but personally I enjoy the relationship Bella has with Jacob - it's obviously a different kind of relationship but I think it works much better on the page. This novel will be perfectly suited to teenage audiences (more specifically teenage girls) but if you are a fan of the vampire and supernatural genres then there might be something in here for you as well - that's why I started this series and so far I've enjoyed them, while not loving them, they make for entertaining reads.