My Review/Rant

Breaking Dawn

Stephenie Meyer's "Breaking Dawn", the last of the Twilight series, is something of a disaster of a book. Although none of her novels have been worthy of the praise they have gotten, they are not one hundred percent terrible- except for Breaking Dawn.

Most of the Twilight series is composed of Bella's constant fawning over Edward and how absolutely wonderful he is. Breaking Dawn is no different, except for the warped nonsensical "plot" stuffed into it.

Firstly, Bella gets impregnated with a child from Edward after their honeymoon. How is that possible? Vampires are not alive in the ways that humans live. According to Stephenie Meyer's storyline, their bodies are frozen in time, they only drink blood for sustenance but have no other bodily functions. Edward is pretty much dead. He does not have to breathe, his heart does not beat, his skin is cold like a corpse. Also, vampires do not have blood flow through their body (blood is only their food, not an actual part of their bodiy's circulatory system.) How does he perform the bodily functions needed to conceive a child? Or right, he shouldn't be able to.

Next, Jacob Black imprints (meaning that he looks at and creates an unbreakable connection) on the child that Bella decides to keep EVEN THOUGH it's slowly killing her by breaking her ribs with it's superhuman-vampire strength. No sane person would keep an unborn child that would kill them, that their husband keeps telling them to get an abortion because he thinks that it is an evil creation that will murder his wife. Stephenie Meyer changed Bella's character to suit the story's need, because Bella would have listened to Edward if she was actually being herself. Back to Jacob imprinting on the child. Stephenie Meyer describes imprinting as an unbreakable connection with the imprinted and the werewolf, something that is whatever kind of relationship it has to be at the time, either romantic or not. But of course when the child is older it would become romantic. She is basically trying her best to make it look as if Jacob is not a pedophile who has fallen in love with a freaky mutant baby girl. It didn't work that well. The character that had been working throughout the entire beginning of the Twilight series to win Bella's heart was turned into a pedophile with no feelings for Bella whatsoever.

Actually almost all the characters' personalities changed dramatically in Breaking Dawn. For example Alice (one of Edward's family members) used to be witty and fun, but became Bella's personal fashion consultant. And way too many characters were introduced in the last book, and all felt rushed with little to no personality.

The entire book was made to build up to the grand finale with the battle between Bella and the Cullens, their other vampire friends, and the werewolves against the Volturi (something of an organization of vampires to keep their existence hidden). But in the end, there was no battle. Bella was turned into a vampire by Edward after giving birth to her child, as he had no other choice because she would have died from bloodloss otherwise. One of Bella's powers as a vampire is to inhibit the affects of vampires abilities that affect the mind not only for herself but for the others around her. So she is able to stop pretty much any of the Volturi members from harming her friends, which was very convenient. Nobody was hurt or killed at the end of the book, there was no finale and no sacrifices were made. I feel like this is a major flaw in Stephenie Meyer's ability as a writer, for she made no morale to the story. Everything turned out perfect and rosy.
Lastly the grammar was atrocious. There were switches between blonde and blond for hair color and in one scene it is said that Bella makes Charlie pancakes, but then he is looking down at his cereal bowl. It is obvious that either the editors did a very poor job at editing or they didn't even look at the book at all and Stephenie was forced to do it herself.
So that is why, in my strong opinion, that Breaking Dawn was not a very good book at all.

P.S. Sorry to any Twilight fans, but we live in a free country where we can expfress our opinions! ;)

Top Three

I have chosen to give my opinion on what I think the top three Harry Potter books are out of the series.

The criteria is:

1. Character Developement

2. Overall Plot

3. Unexpected Twists

4. Book Covers (British, childrens)

Number 3:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone:

The start of it all! The Philosopher's Stone set up the foundation of one of the most well-known children's series of all time.

The development of the characters was not full-blown but something of an introduction to everyone. One recieved the fundamental personality traits of the main characters like Hermione being bossy, Ron being slightly bewildered most of the time, or grumpy, and Malfoy being an all around git. One also gets described to them the character's appearances. There is also the feelings of Harry described, his wonder at the hidden wizarding world around him, his love for Hogwarts and the first real friends he had ever had. There is a deep sense of humility to his character, and I could not help but like him for that.

The plot was simple for younger children but had morale lessons woven into it, the most forward one being the power of love and how it can overcome the evilest of evils. It also really felt like it was a child writing the story. I don't mean vocabulary- or grammar-wise, but the way that Harry thinks is so young and innocent, like J.K. Rowling was able to remember what it felt like to be a child again and write it down on paper.

There were a few unexpected twists in The Philosopher's Stone, like timid stuttering Quirrel doing the bidding for a weakened but alive Voldemort. But I am not counting how many each book has, rather how it blends with the story. Since this is the first in the series, it was innocent and childlike like the trio Harry, Ron, and Hermione themselves had been. This whole book had magic flowing through it, the magic of youth and goodness and discovering the world around you. Of course there was some evil, but Harry Potter is only eleven and so were many of the readers, or younger, so more terrifying evils were left later on 'till they could be handled by the audience.

This book sets the stage for a tale to grow up along with the characters. I think it is a very good way to learn about evils in the world and morales, especially for younger children.

The cover is colorful and fun, like the book. It really suits this book's atmosphere!

Number 2:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

***WARNING: If you have not read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and are planning to, this contains some spoilers***

Of course the final book would be on my list! This book was a treat to read, but it was not perfect. Firstly, it ended. And Harry Potter ending was so depressing! (This is just me being a HP nerd, this isn't a real reason...) Acutally some parts of this book were slow, such as them camping for a quarter of the book. I personally didn't mind because it really showed the trios personality on living outside the comforts of home. Ron did not go through it well. He was used to having three large meals a day cooked by Mrs. Weasley, and large meals at the Hogwarts castle. Harry did not mind, as he had lived with the Dursley's full-time for ten years, and they were not generous with food. Hermione just overall was tough and did not complain at all, and I really admired her for that. This book had less character developement than others, obviously as it was the last book and was set up to end the story not continue it. But one character who really stood out to me with how much he had evolved over the whole series was Neville Longbottom. He had started out as a clumsly, socially-awkward boy who had grown into a hero. In the final book he rebelled against the Death Eaters controlling the school, and even sliced off the head of Nagini the snake. He had grown into a man of such honor and goodness and maturity; I was really impressed. I thought the plot and character developement of the finale to this epic tale was wonderful and full of action and excitement. It drew many emotions from me, I who had been a major fan of the books for almost half my life. There is so many more points to discuss about The Deahtly Hallows' plot, I could write a book. But alas, I don't have time.

The unexpected twists were phenomenal. They got to the very core of the questions people had been asking for years about the book; was Snape good or evil? Why did Dumbledore have the gleam of triumph in his eye after the Triwizard Tournament? Would Voldemort be defeated? Who would live and who would die? These are just some of them, and all of them were answered, but I won't type them down as that would take a long while.

This book cover would have to be my second favorite. It seems very adventurous and before the book was released it raised a lot of questions about what was going on in the scene. I especially like the goblin's hand holding the sword of Gryffindor behind Harry.

Number 1:

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

This is definetly my personal favorite out of the whole series. The character developement of the three main characters, Harry, Ron and Hermione compared to the two books before was much more advanced. You understood more of Harry's desire to have a parental figure in his life (when Sirius Black suggests to have Harry live with him after he is cleared of his crime, Harry's heart soared). He also ended up developing an extremely strong bond with his godfather. Hermione was more relaxed about the rules around her and was a very good rolemodel for young girls. She also developed a bit of a wild side with walking out of her Divination class and punching Draco Malfoy in the face. Ron's character was also developed in showing how much he loved his pets (and others, and how he wasn't very good at expressing himself). At the time that he thought Scabbers, his pet rat, was killed by Hermione's pet cat Crookshanks, his friendship was almost broken between him and Hermione. This also shows how Ron could be very unfair towards the people around him at times. When he found out that Scabbers was actually the man who commited the crimes Sirius Black was blamed for, he was absolutely horrified.

The overall plot of The Prisoner of Azkaban was more advanced and intricate than any of the others. There was many subplots that all ended up connecting at the climax of the book. Sirius trying to kill Harry (although that wasn't the actual case, but it seemed so), Harry's struggle with trying to ward off Dementors with a Patronus Charm, Hermione and Ron's fighting about Scabbers and Crookshanks, Hermione's Time-Turner Secret, Remus Lupin's werewolf secret, etc. Then end result was very satisfying as all these seemingly chaotic sub-plots came together to create a big bang.

Basically the whole book was full of unexpected twists (the subplots' outcomes being revealed), the biggest one being that Sirius was not trying to kill Harry afterall, but trying to kill Scabbers a.k.a Peter Pettigrew a.k.a Wormatil. Of course all of the Harry Potter books had unexpected twists at the end, but I found this book's ones the most enjoyable.

Although the cover is not my favorite, this one is high on the list. This probably is my third favorite. I think it gives the impression of a darkening wizarding world instead of happy-go-lucky Harry Potter, which was what the first two books were more like.

Superpowers

Batman vs. Superman

If there was a battle between Batman and Superman, Superman would defintely come out victorious. Firstly, Batman does not truely have any superpowers. He is only a wealthy man that has a strong morals and a helpful butler. But Superman has multiple superpowers like flying and super strength. Batman has been succesful in his own alternate superhero universe mainly because there is no other heroes/villans with actual superpowers to defeat him. Although he has powerful gadgets and strong armor, this would not protect him from superhuman strength, as his armor has been designed only for human weapons or "regular" strength. Superman's only weakness is kryptonite, which does not exist in the world of Batman, so there would be no way for him to be defeated. If it ever came down to an actual battle, Batman would have no chance. Superman is obviously the superior superhero between the two.