New Moon

On the other end of the readability spectrum from Gravity's Rainbow is the sequel to Twilight, New Moon. Author Stephenie Meyer is admittedly long-winded, but her last two-hundred pages saves the best for last and sets up a lot of interesting scenarios for the next chapter. In short, she manages to make the book overall a better read than the original.While I am enjoying the series and its different take on vampires (and werewolves) and star-crossed love, a couple of things give me pause. I will say that if in fact teenage girls are ridiculously overwrought with petty emotions and prone to bouts of insanity, then Meyer couldn't capture heroine Bella better. Sure she's willful and headstrong... and kind of an idiot. Meyer taps into the notion of the teenage notion of instant beautiful romance and love, but that lead vampire Edward, who is over 100 years old, would declare such love in the same way makes me actually think they are made for each other to be that DENSE. There are some points in the book that I really want to slap them all upside the head... but then this is a 'young adult' book, isn't it? I should expect those moments. Unfortunately, this goes on and on in New Moon for the first 300 of 500 pages, until we finally get some plot going.

In the end: Did I like the book? Yes. Could it have been trimmed by about a 100 pages? Absolutely. Will I get the next one in the series? Yes.