37 - The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

Little, Brown, 2010

192 pages

Date completed: July 5, 2010

I read this novella, which has been referred to as "the short fifth fail of Stephenie Meyer," solely because it was online for free for a month after its publication. In fact, I waited until the last minute to decide I wanted to read it, and thus finished it about 30 minutes before it was taken off the internet. I know that you're all surprised now, because I was such a Twilight pusher when I first read the series. But after the good sparkly feeling wore off and I did a reread, I realized exactly how abusive a relationship exists between Bella and Edward (...and Bella and Jacob...and Bella and just about every other male character in the series).

But I won't get into that. The purpose of this post is to review the novella, not discuss my beefs with Twilight. So here goes; I'll make it short.

Bree Tanner is, at least, a more interesting character than Bella in that she can think for herself. Although eventually she becomes infatuated with a vampire named Diego (and ultimately dies because she tries to save him from destruction), she starts off as an intelligent being. Her story is mostly interesting, and it opens up a few unknown plotlines from the regular Twilight series. Otherwise, there isn't much to say. Meyer's horrible grasp of the English language prevails, and the novella will probably just fade out of my memory soon, since it had basically no impact on me. The ending was clear throughout the entire novella: Bree dies. Basically, this just follows a short time before her death, and not much happens of significance. The end.