Review- The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: an Eclipse Novella
By: Stephenie Meyer
www.stepheniemeyer.com

Fans of The Twilight Saga will be enthralled by this riveting story of Bree Tanner, a character first introduced in Eclipse, and the darker side of the newborn vampire world she inhabits. In another irresistible combination of danger, mystery, and romance, Stephenie Meyer tells the devastating story of Bree and the newborn army as they prepare to close in on Bella Swan and the Cullens, following their encounter to its unforgettable conclusion.

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**This Review Contains Some Spoilers**

I really liked this book. I think as a TwilightMom it is kind of a requirement. Personally, I love all the excerpts that Meyer has given us on her website, so I really enjoyed getting to see part of the story from a point of view that is totally in contrast to what we are used to. I especially loved seeing exactly what was going on with the newborns as they prepared to attack the Cullens.

Part of what was great about this book was that what Meyer envisioned and what I envisioned were to totally different things. I disliked the newborns because Bella disliked them, I saw Bree as a blood thirsty, crazed, uncontrollable kid because that it how she looked through Bella's eyes. I fully expected the newborns to be throughly evil, bad before being bitten and worse after. For the most part they were. Victoria and Riley picked the dregs to turn into their army, but amid those newborns there were those who retained their common sense and some humanity. I was happy to see that Bree was not all bad. I appreciated seeing all that was going on in Seattle, from their hunting trips to how Riley tried to keep them all in line, to how Bree, along with Freaky Fred and Diego were looking to find the truth and maybe a way out.

Some things that really surprised me were the Volturi's level of awareness as to what was going on- they knew much more then I thought. I also was happy to see that in the end Bree tried to stand up to the Volturi and Victoria in the best way she could, by giving Edward as much information as possible before her inevitable death. I haven't had a chance yet, but I want to go back and re-read that scene in Eclipse and see if I see it all differently now that I have another perspective besides Bella's to work with.

In her introduction Meyer says: "The closer I got to the inevitable end, the more I wished I'd concluded Eclipse just slightly differently." Many people took that to mean that the Cullens would have been given permission by the Volturi to take Bree in. It could be that is what Meyer meant. I can't see anyway that it could have gone that way though, the Volturi were already worried about the size of the Cullen's family, and this is before they added Bella to their ranks. In my opinion, it would have been nice to see Bree survive, striking out to find Fred, who had promised to wait for her in Vancouver. It would have also been nice to see Fred and Bree make an appearance in Breaking Dawn, standing witness with the Cullen family against the Volturi. Of course that's just my take on it. Unless Meyer continues to give us the gift of more Novellas or books, which I for one hope she does, we can be content in loving the books we have, and imagining what might lay ahead for our favorite characters.

Twilight Saga

Twilight Saga
(Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn)
Stephenie Meyer
http://stepheniemeyer.com/index.html

This is a series of books that I've read previously (before this little blog began), but while I was waiting for some new books to arrive from Amazon I picked up again, and just as before I couldn't seem to put them down. I actually got my new books while I was in the middle of New Moon, and I figured that I would set the series down and read my new books, but I ended up reading the whole set, even though I know how it ends already. I actually resisted this series for a very long time, I thought that it was some silly vampire love story. I even admit to thinking the series was a bit beneath me. This of course was a silly thought, I should have known better seeing as I had a similar opinion of the Harry Potter series and that one ended up being one of my favorite sets of books! Now the Twilight Saga has taken it's place next to HP in my ever expanding library.

Anyways- back to the books at hand. Unless you live under a rock, you are probably aware that the series centers around a human girl, Bella, who moves to a small town on the Olympic Peninsula and falls in love with a vampire, Edward. The series is essentially a traditional love story, with passion, loss, depression, friendship, love triangles, danger and action, only this series throws in the supernatural too, adding in Vampire and Werewolves into the mix. I won't go into too much more of the plot, becuase I imagine that once I start I could write a short novel of my own.

I will say that this series is powerful in its simplicity and originality, taking storie lines we all know, like the idea of Romeo & Juliet, and infusing them with enough of the supernatural to make it all seem fresh again. Stephenie Meyer came up with a great story that captivates not only the tween set, but also alot of adults, including myself. They are a fairly easy read, which is great, although it's hard not to get sucked in and spend hours on end in this new world.

So far Twilight has been made into a movie, and I think it suffered from lack of budget, but it still made for a fun b-list type movie, it just didn't really come anywhere close to the books. New Moon comes out in November and so far looks to be a much better movie, this could be from the additional money being funneled its way or from the new director or simply from the familiarity the cast now has with the subject matter. Eclpise is currently being filmed in Vancouver and Breaking Dawn is hopefully on the horizon, although it has a much headier content, so it will be interesting to see how the movie industry handles Vampire/human love scenes and the birth of an half-vampire child.

In short (despite that this entry is not actually short), I would recommend these books. For me they reminded me why I liked books to begin with. They can take you to a new world, and Stephenie's world is a wonderful one to visit. They reignited my love of books, my love of writing and even my love of travel as once upon a time I sat on a beach in La Push and watched the waves crash onto First Beach. Stephenie's books both took me back to my own childhood and introduced me to a great new world where anything was possible.