The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is a novella that is part of the Twilight series and takes place concurrently with certain events in Eclipse. It’s kind of a paradox of a book in that, if you read it before reading Eclipse, you’ll get some significant spoilers for that book, but if you read it after Eclipse (which I highly recommend), you’ll already know how this story ends. Unfortunately that ending is not a positive and uplifting one, which is why I haven’t categorized the book as romance, even though it does have a touch of romance in it. All that said, I did enjoy it, because it gave me new insights into certain parts of the Twilight story that we couldn’t see since the entire series is written from Bella’s show more first-person POV.

Bree Tanner is a character who inhabited the pages of Eclipse for only a short while, but she left a big impression on me. So much so that I couldn’t help wondering “what if… ?” When I heard that Stephenie Meyer had written her story, I was excited to learn more about this young girl turned newborn vampire, and I wasn’t disappointed. Bree comes from a throwaway background as do many of the newborn vamps in this scenario. This makes her a sympathetic character right from the start, even though she’s pretty consumed by the blood lust that is common in new vampires. However, she does have a better grasp on it than most of the others in her coven, with the exception of Diego and Fred, the other two stand-out characters in this story. These three at least seem to have their higher brain functions still intact, whereas the rest are little more than an unruly mob. Bree tries to keep to herself and remain “invisible” by hiding behind Fred, who has some special talents. Then she meets up with Diego one night while out hunting and the two become friends. As they talk and begin to realize that some of the things they’ve been told by their leader about being a vampire aren’t true, they forge a bond that turns a bit romantic.

Although I’m on my second reading of the Twilight series, this is my first time reading The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. The main reason for this is that this novella came out two years after Breaking Dawn, and I felt like I was too far away from having read the rest of the series to remember it well enough. So it’s been languishing on my bookshelf while waiting for me to do a re-read. I’m so glad I finally got a chance to read it. It was nice to get some behind the scenes insights into the building of the newborn army and a slightly unexpected twist involving the Volturi. I also enjoyed seeing the Cullens through an outsider’s eyes. I really liked Bree, as well as Diego and Fred. Even though I kept telling myself not to get attached, because I knew what was ahead, I couldn’t help myself, which made the ending all the more bittersweet. Much like Ms. Meyer said in her introduction, I almost regret her decisions regarding these characters and wish the outcome had been different. But even still, I enjoyed reading about them. My only slight complaint is that the early parts of the story seemed a tad slow-paced, but otherwise, it was a great read that I highly recommend to fans of the series. show less

Handling & Tema : 4/5
Karaktärerna: 3/5
Miljöbeskrivning: 3/5
Språk och berättarkonst 3/5

Denna bok skiljer sig från de övriga böckerna ur serien eftersom den är skriven ur de vampyrerna som livnär sig på människornas blod. Vem minns Bree som var en bi karaktär i bok 4. Hon var med i filmen i 5 minuter och hon var så oviktig att man hade kunnat klippa bort henne. Istället skriver Stephenie Meyer en novell som är i klass med de övriga böckerna om inte bättre.
Det är synd att författaren valde ge Bree ett sådant slut i bok 4,det går inte att ta tillbaka. Däremot om hon väljer att fortsätta på serien så hoppas jag att istället att böckerna ska åter handla om Bella så skriver hon om de rödögda . Kanske de show more äldsta, det hade nog blivit en succé. show less

We went traveling through the upper end of North Queensland once as a family. We came to one of those strange, small-town, out-of-the-way places for a quick bird study tour with my scientist uncle. The place's claim to fame was that it also housed a giant mango. Yes. You heard me right. A giant, massive replica of a mango. Within the giant mango was an ice cream shop.Nobody could explain to us why there was a giant mango or why the giant mango has somehow spawned an icecream parlor from its bowels like it was grotesquely pregnant and in the process of some sick, monstrous fruit/shop labor. Reading Bree Tanner was a little like that.It was something that didn't make sense, from a series that was much bigger than it should have been and show more in the end, nobody could properly explain its existence to me.I asked my Twilight friends why it had been published and their nonchalant, disinterested shrug was almost identical to those crazy North Queenslanders with their giant mango. Glad I didn't pay money for it. Couldn't be bothered finishing it and at least the freakishly large mango gave me ice cream. This just gave me a headache. show less

This book seems to be the forgotten stepsister of the rest of the Twilight saga. It seems to have been read only by die-hard Twilight fans (and me, obviously) and has not seemed to have ranked as well with these fans as the main books themselves. In my opinion, if all the Twilight books had been written like this one, they would have been so much better. Instead of approximately 100 pages scattered about with details of Meyer's version of vampire lore and another 400 pages of Bella talking about how beautiful, flawless, and perfect Edward is (using, by the way, only those three adjectives over and over again), this short book is slightly less than 200 pages of just vampire lore. Bree is a far less annoying narrator than Bella, and Meyer show more manages to complete this book without ever once using the words beautiful, flawless, and perfect and only using the words glared and glowered a handful of times toward the end (a personal pet peeve of mine with the other books was that "glared" and "glowered" show up on nearly every page). Even though you know what will happen in the end, this book is oddly compelling, and I enjoyed seeing everything through Bree's eyes as she tries to figure out what the reader already knows from the other books. The book is written without any chapters or other breaks in the text, which makes it a little hard to decide where to stop for the day (although it's short enough to be read in one sitting if you had the time or inclination) but this is an effective way of using the form to fit the story - since Bree is a newborn vampire who can just push on and on without rest, it makes sense that she wouldn't have to stop for breaks like Bella does when narrating. Like with Eclipse itself, Meyer spends a lot of time building up to the big battle between the Cullens and the newborn vampires, but she doesn’t give the reader more than a glimpse of the actual battle. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to avoid reading about carnage, but I find it interesting that she builds up so much for just the fizzle that the narrator reports back to the reader. However, overall, this was a fast-paced, interesting read that, while by no means a literary masterpiece, far exceeds its more known sister books. show less

'Sparkle Family Reunion Tour 2020' Reread

Yeaaaahh. My feelings about this series, twinkies, loving the Cullens, the writing playlist, and side-eying a whole lot of SM have pretty much not changed in the past decade.

SO! Apparently, I never wrote a review for Bree in 2010 when it happened and its a decade later. I have a lot more sympathy for Bree's story now than I did a decade ago, and I'm still pretty much of the opinion if we could change the battle outcome where Bree dies to the one where Bree doesn't die, she gets brought home, and she remains the new vampire in the house (and Ness never happens), is pretty much how I will myself to remember this story actually happened and ended.

--------------------
(2008 Reviews / Continued show more Across all four books / all read in less than 53 hours
Just going to copy these over from the lolarious mass-review I did in 2018)

Let me start this out with saying, I'm sure if I tried I could take these books seriously and in doing so I would abhor Stephenie Meyers with the utter damnation burning hate in ground into me by five years of being an English major, but honestly, I'm not sure how anyone could go into these books expecting (or wanting to expect) more than fanfic-esque fourteen-year-old-wish-fulfillment. Which is what I did and likely why I was willing to roll with it, because lets just start with the bare minimum that I knew before I started reading.

We have a protagonist girl, who comes from a broken home, who's paler than anyone else who's human and blushes as often as the wind blows, who's never been interested in a boy seriously before, with extremely low self esteem, who is the worlds biggest cultz, who attracts danger like she's got a beacon on her head saying come and get it, who is all helplessly weak and who can not be touched, read, or effected by any type of mental magic.

She is paralleled by the boy protagonist, who just happens to be a one hundred and eight year old vampire with the most well adjusted family of Brandy-style vampires, who doesn't drink human blood, with the one-way power to listen to other people's thoughts, who looks like a runway model or God, has never considered any other woman seriously before in his life and unlife, and has to be broody/moody/strong enough to resist killing her every moment he's near her because she's the one thing in the world he'd best love to do that to out of no fault of their own but fate.
I mean, c'mon, Anita Blake wasn't even that flagrantly Mary Sue-Fan Fic-ish until she became the Whore of Babylon. Thus I went into it expecting fourteen-year-old-wish fulfillment and lo and behold I was not surprised or disappointed when I found it there.

I think Cleolinda said it best:

A lot of people are really passionate about these books. Some of them love and defend them passionately; others... well. I'm not going to defend them anymore than I'm going to defend Twinkies--you go and get yourself a Twinkie when you have a very specific kind of craving. If you want a gourmet pastry or even a homemade cake, you know where to get that. If you're eating a Twinkie, you clearly know what you want and why you're eating it, and you know that it's not good to eat very many of them, but... you know... sometimes you just want one.

show less

Honestly, way better than I thought it'd be.

If Bree had been the main character of the Twilight saga, and if the series had followed this plot, only longer so things weren't so rushed, Twilight could have been legitimately good. There are deeper thoughts here, and darker themes, that made things feel more real and gritty. I enjoyed Bree's character immensely, and genuinely liked Diego. Riley was interesting too, and I appreciated his dynamic with all the other characters. It felt very much like a slightly better version of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black. My only problem with this was how rushed it was, being a novella. Diego and Bree didn't have ample time to form a believable and realistic romantic bond, but their show more friendship felt real. Really shows how Stephenie Meyer can be pretty good when she tries. show less

Honestly, way better than I thought it'd be.

If Bree had been the main character of the Twilight saga, and if the series had followed this plot, only longer so things weren't so rushed, Twilight could have been legitimately good. There are deeper thoughts here, and darker themes, that made things feel more real and gritty. I enjoyed Bree's character immensely, and genuinely liked Diego. Riley was interesting too, and I appreciated his dynamic with all the other characters. It felt very much like a slightly better version of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black. My only problem with this was how rushed it was, being a novella. Diego and Bree didn't have ample time to form a believable and realistic romantic bond, but their show more friendship felt real. Really shows how Stephenie Meyer can be pretty good when she tries. show less