The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

Stephanie Meyer

Bree is a new-born vampire. She has been created with a purpose. But she doesn’t know what that purpose is. A venture out into the sunlight with Diago means new potentials.

Considering that I pretty much completely loathed Twilight, you might wonder why I bothered to read this tacked on bit of story about a seriously minor character. Well, it was what my library had to offer at the time in the range of talking books.

One of my main problems with the Twilight Saga was that Edward and Bella were such one-dimensional characters. Their love story was set from the beginning, and neither of them could think past “I love you” “I want to protect you” “I love you”.

Meyer seems obsessed with sappy love stories, and vampires feeling connections with each other. Bree falls for Diego, Diego falls for Bree, each dies, everyone is sad. Not.

Bree shows a bit more interest in life outside. You know she is doomed from the beginning, otherwise it wouldn’t be a ‘short’ second life. I didn’t remember her at all from Eclipse though, until I got to the climax of this novel. Then ta-da! I remembered her. I also connected with her.

I wished that the background information included in this novel (such as the sparkling skin and Victoria’s violent ways) had been present in Twilight to provide a bit more substance. Somehow, this novella seems like it’s more interesting.

What I liked was that the abilities of Freaky Fred and the others. I wanted more of that! Less newborn, stupid, revenging vampires, and more smart ones. From the way The Twilight Saga was written, I expected more of the vampires to be smart and skilled. All of the Cullen family are skilled.

What can I say about a short story/novella. I always find it difficult to get into them. At least with this one, I had borrowed it as a talking book from the library. It took little effort from me to listen to it. The reader was ok, great with Bree’s voice, not so good with the male characters. There is no way I would have read it for myself – I have other things to get on with reading!