New Moon
Stephanie Meyer
Little, Brown & Company
Published September 6, 2006
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
The sequel to Twilight, New Moon picks up a few months after its predecessor. It’s Bella’s birthday, and despite her wishes that there be no fuss, the Cullen family make quite an occasion of it. But the party spawns a sequence of events that shatters Bella’s world. She finds herself alone, feeling as if a gaping hole exists through the center of her very being. As she struggles to cope, and to carve out some semblance of life around the edges of her wound, she at last finds a friend. But when battle lines are drawn again, she finds herself torn between mortal enemies, and she must choose between them.
Can I be brutally honest? I never understood Team Jacob. Seriously. He’s pushy and impatient, and maybe you can argue that he knows Bella better because they’ve got this long history, but I don’t get the sense that he values her needs above his own. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being too harsh.
When I read the part of the book in which Bella grieves for a loss, I remember feeling like I’d never read anything that captured that emptiness so well before. I remember thinking about a loss I’d experienced and feeling like, yes, this is how this feels. Which counts as a triumph for any writer, I think, to be able to capture something so vividly.
New Moon has a repeat of the whole rescue-Bella situation, and while in the first book, everything was new, it’s starting now to feel a little redundant. See below for content information.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
There was a little bit more swearing in this novel compared to the first. Light bordering moderate.
Sexual Content
Still very little physical sexual contact at all. Huge amounts of romantic tension between them, though. Bella and Edward’s desire for each other is very obvious.
Spiritual Content
Largely the same as Twilight. The hero and his family are “good” vampires who’ve chosen only to feed on animals, not humans. They are at odds with the “bad” vampires who consider themselves superior to the human race and still kill/bite people. In New Moon, werewolves also emerge. In the story their abilities are used to protect the people of Forks, WA.
Violent Content
A powerful vampire clan brings a victim in to feast on. Another plot appears to be underway to kill Bella.
Drug Content
None.
