So you might be thinking "wtf Isabel, you gave the 2008 draft five stars and the full version four? make it make sense!"

So here's how it makes sense. Most of my excitement about the original draft came from how it completely changed the story for me. The idea that Edward knew he had this romantic future with Bella before he came to love her at all was so interesting to me, and seeing him not know what to do about her at the beginning was so different than how I'd imagined him. How do you approach a person you know could be your epic love but don't feel anything towards yet? That's such an interesting take on his perspective, imo.

But the problem with the 2020 version is that the best part of this book is exactly the same as what I loved about the 2008 version. As in, those extra 400 pages didn't really add anything for me. There was more action, I suppose. Seeing the whole James saga from Edward's POV was...more exciting? But what I wanted from this was to have the story turned on its head in the way I felt like it was for the first 200 pages but the rest of it just didn't really live up to that expectation for me.