What makes a good book?

Several of us in the family have been awaiting the novel Breaking Dawn. Rachael got it in the middle of the night Friday, and had it read by Saturday morning. I had it read by Saturday afternoon. We didn't hate it, but I have to admit to being disappointed. The best books have an intriguing plot, clever writing and living characters. Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings pop readily to my mind. I love Jane Austen's writing, for the clever phrasing and living characters. I was surprised to like Twilight....a novel about vampires?! But it was sort of a Wuthering Heights, with better characters. I've always wanted to like Wuthering Heights, but didn't find any sympathy for the characters. Oh and didn't care for the plot or the writing. S Meyer made use of the compelling obsession that must be WH's redeeming quality, but gave her characters life and light and an interesting story to interact in. So I liked it, a lot.
The problem with Breaking Dawn is that the characters went flat. It is almost entirely plot driven, and the people in the story became paper dolls. It feels like the manuscript should have been worked on a lot more, making sure the characters developed as they faced hardships and gained experience. It doesn't seem like the same person wrote this as wrote Twilight.
Another problem was the messiness of the novel. Loose ends were sloppily tied or left hanging. The worst example I saw of this was Bella and blood. In Twilight, SM established that Bella had a strong aversion to human blood...it smells like rust and salt, and nauseates her. This should be a foreshadowing for Bella's being able to resist human blood as a vampire. It would have been great, except that we got the weird passages where Bella thinks blood tastes good-while she is still human-and drinks it through a bendy straw. (um, and from someone who has been pregnant a few times....aversions to tastes and smells are exacerbated by pregnancy, never alleviated!!) I could have bought this whole thing if Bella had to choke it down for the sake of her baby....but have her like it? NO. There were just some things that didn't work, that jumped the shark, and then some things that worked way too conveniently, deus ex machina. It seems like the book was written too hastily, too many things out of the blue, too much crammed in, and not well edited. I blame the publisher as much as the author for the shortcomings. We had read some 'spoilers' before the book came out, and they seemed so different that we couldn't imagine that they came from the real book. But at least the likeable, misfit protagonists are happily together at last. The book was alright, even though the spoilers were the real thing. So Breaking Dawn.... Not as good as I hoped, but better than I feared.