I ended up falling in love with these characters. I don't usually read romance books so maybe I'm a sucker for happy endings. In the beginning I thought Edward and Bella were a bit sappy and that maybe Jakob didn't count at all. Then Edward left, emptying out her life in a way that felt was over the top. Then once Jakob stepped in after a while she started reviving back to life. Perhaps this is where it started (the story sucking me in). I had a hard time believing the extent of her loss but pretty much instantly hated Edward for doing it. Then when she was almost lost and he almost gone because of it.....
I was so sure for a while that Bella was never going to become a vampire. I couldn't see how they could be happy for long without her being able to reciprocate to Edward everything he had or could be for her. In retrospect I think it would have been like what Jakob has for Renesme until she grows up, only in reverse. Without the transformation eventually Bella would fade with age. Edward would be there till the end, imprinted if you will... but still it would end, and then END. For a while I got the impression that none of the other Cullens wanted her to become a vampire and that Alice was lying about it ever happening, just to make her happy. Right before Bella started getting morning sickness it seemed like things might go that way. Bella liking what she felt with Edward as a human. Not wanting to lose that so quickly. Then suddenly she's pregnant and things progressed from there. I must admit that because I was unwilling to be disapointed I cheated. I went online and read a synopsis of the book (twice). Once before she got pregnant thinking the author was going to string the reader along making the tension about will she ever change or not. Honestly I read the books expecting that it would be silly or mushy. By the time I got to the middle of the second or maybe the beginning of the third I was hooked. I did not expect to like this series. I just wanted to understand why it was so important to the female friends I have. By the end, I really really cared. It is so rare that characthers get to live happily for the rest of eternity. This made my heart glad.
I am a guy, I have seen other men do this all the time, and then the women they've done it to dissappear for a while. Even if you do still get to see them (if you know what I mean). The more I read the more I begin to wonder how much women express of themselves emotionally that men simply don't hear. Knowing that they simply can't and yet expressing themselves as they do not because they can but rather from experience and must. I had heard of emotional intellegence before but this gave it form, definition if you will. I could always hear something of what people felt around me. This story written in the first person gave me such a consistant view. I guess what I'm saying is that even though I am old enough to see women for more than just the physical, once again I feel like I don't know what to do with them like I'm 14 again....Awkward. like somehow I'm going to mess things up or hurt them. Something has changed, I know how to listen but don't know how to speak or even where to begin.
In the end this is what I took away from the experience of reading the books. I love a happy ending and was suprised when it happened (even though I thought I knew what the end was. Wiccipedia sucks by the way). I hear the intentions of others now, not on a logical level but on a more empathic one.
I fully expect to get teased for it but honestly... I really couldn't care.