New Moon is a 2006 romantic fantasy novel written by Stephenie Meyer. It is the second book in the Twilight series and continues the story of Bella Swan and her relationship with vampire Edward Cullen as she begins her senior year of high school. Bella’s life changes when Edward’s brother, Jasper, nearly attacks her on her eighteenth birthday. This causes Edward and his family to leave to keep Bella safe. After Edward leaves, Bella feels very sad for months. She begins to feel better when she becomes closer to her friend, Jacob Black. Her life changes again when Jacob’s true nature is revealed, leading to a visit from Edward’s sister, Alice, and a sudden, dangerous trip to Italy as Bella and Edward face a difficult decision.

The book was first published in hardcover on September 6, 2006, with an initial print run of 100,000 copies. In the United States, New Moon became very popular quickly, reaching the top of bestseller lists. It reached number one on the New York Times Best Seller list and USA Today’s Top 150 Bestsellers. It was the best-selling children’s paperback of 2008, with over 5.3 million copies sold. Additionally, New Moon was the best-selling book of 2009 and has been translated into 38 languages. A movie version of the book was released on November 20, 2009.

Reception for New Moon was better than that for the first book in the series. Some readers said the middle part of the story moved too slowly. However, most critics believed the book had a more grown-up tone, praising the development of characters and the way it showed human emotions.

Plot

On Bella Swan’s eighteenth birthday, Edward Cullen, the vampire she loves, and his family host a party at their home. While opening a gift, Bella gets a paper cut. Edward’s adopted brother, Jasper, is taken over by the smell of her blood and tries to attack her. To protect Bella, Edward and the Cullens leave Forks. However, Edward tells Bella he no longer loves her to encourage her to move on. After Edward leaves, Bella experiences serious memory loss and sadness for several months.

In the following months, Bella finds that activities like riding motorcycles and cliff-diving help her hear Edward’s voice in her mind through her subconscious. She also finds comfort in her growing friendship with Jacob Black, a cheerful friend who helps her deal with losing Edward. Later, Bella begins to enjoy Jacob’s company. However, after spending time with Bella, Jacob starts having sudden changes in his mood, body, and behavior. Jacob disappears as he undergoes a long, painful transformation. Bella and her father, Charlie, become worried when Jacob stops answering her calls. When Bella and Jacob reconnect weeks later, she notices he is no longer as happy or friendly as before. She becomes uneasy with his new behavior, as he has become more distant and secretive. Soon after, Bella learns that Jacob has become a werewolf without his choice, and other members of the Quileute tribe can also transform into werewolves. Jacob and his pack protect Bella from Laurent, a vampire who was part of James’ group, and from Victoria, who seeks revenge for her dead mate, James, whom the Cullens killed earlier. Jacob develops feelings for Bella, but she still loves Edward and does not return his feelings. This makes Jacob dislike Edward even more. Later, Jacob saves Bella from drowning after she jumps off a cliff into the ocean and almost kisses her afterward.

Meanwhile, misunderstandings lead Edward to believe Bella committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. Heartbroken, Edward goes to Volterra, Italy, to challenge the Volturi, powerful vampire rulers who can kill him, though they refuse, saying his mind-reading ability is too valuable. In contrast, Alice Cullen visits Bella unexpectedly, surprising her. Bella asks many questions, and Alice explains she saw Bella trying to kill herself in her visions. Bella insists she was not trying to commit suicide but was seeking an exciting experience. Alice becomes confused but realizes the werewolves create blind spots in her visions, which is why she did not see Jacob save Bella. As Alice’s visions about Edward change quickly, she and Bella struggle to understand if Edward is safe. They travel to Italy to stop Edward from revealing himself to humans, arriving just in time. Before leaving Italy, the Volturi tell Edward that Bella, a human who knows about vampires, must be killed or turned into a vampire to keep the secret. When they return to Forks, Edward tells Bella he has always loved her and left Forks to protect her. Bella forgives him, and the Cullens agree to turn her into a vampire, despite Rosalie and Edward’s hesitation. However, Jacob reminds Edward of a rule in their treaty: if the Cullens bite a human, the treaty ends, and the wolves will attack. Bella tells Jacob it is not his concern, as becoming a vampire is what she wants. Jacob insists it is important because she does not understand the risks. Before he can continue, Charlie calls Bella inside the house. Jacob apologizes to Bella once more before leaving. The story ends with Charlie grounding Bella for running to Italy.

Differences between film and novel

• In the book, Bella works at a local sporting goods store owned by Mike Newton's family. After Edward leaves town, Bella continues attending school and working to avoid suspicion, hoping Charlie will not send her to live with her mother. In the movie, Bella does not have a job and is shown sitting at her bedroom window for months while grieving Edward’s disappearance.
• In the book, Bella does not confront Sam in his werewolf form; instead, she confronts him in his human form, and his fiancée, Emily, later explains everything to her. In the film, Bella confronts Sam in his wolf form.
• In the book, Jacob confronts Bella and Edward outside Bella’s house. In the film, the confrontation takes place in the woods.
• In the novel, Charlie grounds Bella after seeing her with Edward at their house in the story’s conclusion. In the film, Charlie grounds Bella after she runs off to Italy.
• In the novel’s ending, Edward does not propose to Bella. Instead, he walks her inside the house to explain what happened to Charlie. This scene is not included in the film.
• In the novel, Edward does not try to stop Jane when she attempts to use her pain-inducing powers on Bella. In the film, Edward tries to intervene and is mentally hurt by the experience.
• In the novel, Bella realizes that when she puts herself in danger, she unintentionally hears Edward’s voice in her mind. In the film, she hears his voice and also sees his ghostly figure.
• In the book, readers meet members of the wolf pack and other Quileute tribal members. The novel explains that Harry Clearwater has a heart attack caused by his daughter, Leah’s, first transformation into a wolf. In the film, Harry dies after Victoria attacks him in the woods.

Development

After Meyer finished writing Twilight, she began writing many long epilogues. She said, "I quickly realized I wasn't ready to stop writing about Bella and Edward." She started writing a sequel called Forever Dawn, which skipped over Bella's final year of high school. While writing Forever Dawn, Meyer learned that Twilight would be published as a young-adult novel. To match this audience, she decided to write a new sequel, New Moon, which took place during Bella's senior year of high school. Meyer began planning the book and thinking about what her characters would do. She said, "I swiftly regretted asking them for the story." At first, she did not want Edward to leave, so she tried to think of other plot ideas. However, in the end, she accepted that Edward had to leave.

Meyer says New Moon is about losing true love. The title refers to the darkest phase of the moon, showing that the book is about the hardest time in Bella Swan's life. Meyer wrote New Moon before Twilight was published. She found writing the book difficult because she worried about how readers would react to Bella's pain, which could be described as grief and feeling lost.

Meyer wrote New Moon in five months. She said the editing process was "much longer and more difficult than with Twilight." Unlike Twilight, which she did not plan to publish at first, she knew New Moon would be published and felt nervous while writing, like having "a horrible feeling much like stage fright." However, Meyer says Jacob is her favorite character from the book. She liked him and wanted to give him a bigger role.

The confrontation with the Volturi in the clock tower at the end of the book was the first scene Meyer wrote. She did not use a real city for the Volturi's home, as she did with Forks. Instead, she created a city called "Volturin" and chose a location in Tuscany, Italy, because it matched her vision of the city being "very old and relatively remote." When she checked a map, she found a real city called Volterra in that area. She decided to use Volterra and called it "a pretty creepy coincidence."

The first draft of New Moon was very different from the published version. In the first draft, Bella never learned that Jacob was a werewolf, so the seventy pages after this discovery were missing. The epilogue also had a different title and content. Meyer found it hard to write about Bella's pain after Edward left and often cried while writing those parts. She said she had never experienced a heartbreak like Bella's, so she imagined how she would feel if she lost a child. She insisted the pain came from Bella, who is "much more open—to both pain and joy." She said Bella's way of coping with the loss was unexpected.

Meyer says the story was inspired by Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.

Cover and title

The cover art for New Moon was created by Gail Doobinin and photographed by John Grant. Meyer has said many times that she did not choose the cover and does not like it. She called it "a very lovely ruffled tulip that means nothing at all." The red color might stand for blood, but the soft look keeps the innocence of the title. Meyer first thought of using a clock because she believed "time" was a key theme. However, the design team picked a tulip losing a petal to show Bella losing a drop of blood.

After finishing the book, Meyer wanted a title related to a time of day, like Twilight. She named the book New Moon, which means "the darkest kind of night with no moon." This reflects the hardest time in Bella's life, similar to how the moon changes phases.

Publication and reception

New Moon was published by Little, Brown in the United States on September 6, 2006, with an initial print run of 100,000 copies. Because many people wanted to read the book, advance copies were sold on eBay for as much as $380. In its second week on the New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Chapter Books, New Moon reached the top spot, moving popular authors like Christopher Paolini and Markus Zusak off the list. It stayed at the top for 11 weeks and appeared on the list for a total of 47 weeks. The book also stayed on the USA Today Best Seller list for over 150 weeks after being added two weeks after its release. It reached the number one position on USA Today's list and was ranked at #29 on its 2007 top-selling books list.

By 2008, New Moon had sold 1.5 million copies in the United States. In October 2008, it was ranked #37 on USA Today's "Bestselling Books of Last 15 Years" list. USA Today also reported that New Moon was the second best-selling book of 2008, behind its prequel Twilight, and the best-selling book of 2009. This made the Twilight series occupy the top four spots on the list for two years in a row. The book was also ranked at #27 on USA Today's list of the biggest-selling books of 2010.

Most reviews of New Moon were positive, though some critics said the middle part of the story moved slowly. Hillias J. Martin of School Library Journal praised the book, saying it was "just as exciting" as Twilight and would satisfy fans. Kirkus Reviews called it "an exciting page turner" that "entices" readers. Cindy Dobrez of Booklist noted that Bella's feelings of being ordinary would "strike a chord" with readers, even those who do not want to be immortal. Norah Piehl of Teenreads.com said the middle of the story "sometimes drags," but believed fans would still be eager for the next book. Anna Limber of About.com agreed that the middle was "a little slow" and some parts were "predictable," but she gave the book 3.5 out of 5 stars and said it captured the "angst" of its teenage characters well.

Readers had mixed reactions to New Moon, similar to how they felt about the first book in the series. Some discussed the book's pacing and character development. There has also been debate about how Native American characters are portrayed in the series, which includes them prominently in the sequel. Some members of the Quileute tribe appreciate the inclusion of their culture in the books and films, while others criticize the Twilight franchise for using their culture and origin stories without giving them financial benefits. To date, the Quileute tribe has not received any compensation for the use of their history and culture in the series.

New Moon won the Senior Young Reader's Choice Award in 2009.

Adaptations

A film version of New Moon was released on November 20, 2009. It follows the 2008 movie Twilight, which is based on a novel written by Stephenie Meyer. The film features Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner, who play Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, and Jacob Black again. In late November 2008, Summit Entertainment approved the sequel. The movie was directed by Chris Weitz, and Melissa Rosenberg returned as the screenwriter. Most of the film was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia. In addition to the movie, there were plans for a graphic novel series, including a book based on New Moon released in 2010. A television series based on the Twilight story, including the New Moon novel, is also being developed.