Published: 6th September 2006 (print)/1st June 2010 (audio) 
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company/Random House
Pages: 563/14 hrs and 51 mins
Narrator: Ilyana Kadushin
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult/Paranormal
★ ★ – 2 Stars
I knew we were both in mortal danger. Still, in that instant, I felt well. Whole. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pulsing hot and fast through my veins again. My lungs filled deep with the sweet scent that came off his skin. It was like there had never been any hole in my chest. I was perfect – not healed, but as if there had never been a wound in the first place.
For Bella Swan, there is one thing more important than life itself: Edward Cullen. But being in love with a vampire is even more dangerous than Bella could ever have imagined. Edward has already rescued Bella from the clutches of one evil vampire, but now, as their daring relationship threatens all that is near and dear to them, they realize their troubles may be just beginning…
First things first, this book could have told the exact same story in 1/3 of the time. Second of all, nothing happens in this book. 14 hours of my life! 563 pages of book for barely no plot whatsoever. The only good parts were when Bella was with Jacob. For the entirety of this novel I was Team Jacob because he was the only normal, sensible person and it is the only normal part of the book that didn’t feel like it was going to implode because of all the angst and self-pity. Honesty I wanted to shake Bella/Meyer to gain some reason why Bella was so ready to jump into being an immortal. This is her first love and OF COURSE she wants to die for him and be with him forever. At least, and I can’t believe I am writing this, but Edward had some sense in this in his refusal and attempt to give Bella a normal life because she jumped right in and even for a guy as old as Edward that would have scared anybody off.
Bella moping around like a sad puppy was infuriating only for the length. I would have welcomed it because it made sense if she was going to fall hard she was going to be heartbroken, but it did not need to take up the first 9 hours of my listening experience on this alone, especially when a lot of it was repeating the same thing over and over again.
In other news, the Cullens in this book felt a bit more eternal than they had previously when they were trying to be the normal family. They behaved a bit more like the ancient eternal beings with the distant care and preoccupation with the human matters. I felt in a few conversations that petty human issues were of no concern to them which was good, it took away their phony pretense of being normal. I know they have adopted Bella as one of the family in their weird way but it felt like a tolerance. She pushed a lot of boundaries and I’m surprised they didn’t seem to mind how pushy and demanding she was.
Again, not a great narrator helping Meyer’s case. Kadushin’s approach this time was to take a pause after she spoke. After. Every. Single. Sentence. A full on pause whether it was the end of a paragraph or not. Every line. It did not matter if I had it running at 1.5x speed. I felt those pauses in my soul and wanted to scream.
Overall I felt nothing happened in this book. It was a few small issues dragged out way longer than it needed to be. I liked we got more of Jacob’s story and his relationship with Bella. I never knew he was meant to only be sixteen but I liked his side of the story and what happens between him and Bella. Meyer misses a few key point in regards to his own story that I had questions about but I was in a forgiving mood because after all the drama and emotion I was happy the story was feeling normal once again, at least for a while.
You can purchase New Moon via the following
QBD | Booktopia | Book Depository
Dymocks | Wordery | Angus and Robinson
Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible
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