"The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner" by Stephenie Meyer - a rambling post of thoughts.
Let me start off by stating that I am not the biggest fan of Twilight. Not even close. In fact, I’ll be one of the first people to tell you that the Twilight books are quite poorly written. I’ll also admit that the story is quite addicting. I read the first three books in two days and the fourth in one. Then, I read them again and realized I was no longer impressed by the story of Bella and Edward and Jacob.
These facts did not keep me from reading The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. I wanted to find out just exactly what the story was behind the vampire newborn that Bella actually met for a few minutes. The book wasn’t long, but it was intriguing. I found myself wishing Bree would have been given the chance to live, but knowing that she was going to die at the end of the book made me look at her life more closely.
Consider the fact that this novella was written to give the actors in Eclipse an idea of how to portray the newborn vampires. The story is more of a behind-the-scenes look. And it fits that description well. You get an inside look at the happenings in Seattle during the recruitment of Victoria’s army. How Riley was able to keep such a large group of newborns alive. The superstitions that were passed on to said newborns. How the Bree and a few other specified newborns reacted to their new lives and surroundings.
I can’t say that I necessarily enjoyed The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, but reading it did give me a new appreciation for the confusion that Victoria was able to create and a new found dislike for the Volturi’s underhanded methods of dealing with “problems”. The one part that I have to admit caught me off guard was the way Ms. Meyer ended the book. It was actually kinda classy. You’ll see.
If you love Twilight, this is a great additional story to read for more details of the happenings surrounding the newborn army of Eclipse. If you don’t love Twilight, but you still enjoy the story as a guilty pleasure, reading this books is a pleasant pastime if you can stomach reading about a girl that you know will die in the end. If you hate Twilight, don’t even bother with it. You won’t be missing anything.
