Reviewed: “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner” by Stephenie Meyer

I like/love/whatever the Twilight saga. Make of that what you will.

But I didn’t own The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner so I bought it. I’d read it before when it was available online for a month, or something, and I liked it but I never thought it was worth the money since it is so short. But I had a movie marathon last week so I bought it.

It is good. Surprisingly good.

After four books of mostly sappy romance interspersed with a few pages of drama, it was nice to see the Stephenie Meyer can indeed write… VAMPIRES.

Bree is a newborn vampire, you see. She’s what Bella would have been if Bella weren’t so gosh-darn perfect. But Bree’s got a head on her shoulders and she’s not at all buying the load of crap Riley and the never named Victoria are trying to feed her. Neither is her friend, Diego. Poor Diego.

I was surprised how much I liked Bree because I absolutely hate her in the movie version of Eclipse. No offense to Jodelle Ferland, of course. But I was rooting for Bree and I really found myself getting into her perspective, maybe even more than I get into Bella’s.

The most surprising thing about this short book?

That some of the Cullens (Jasper, Carlisle, and Esme at least) have so much more personality from Bree’s perspective than they ever do from Bella’s.

It’s true.

We get to see Jasper controlling a normal(ish) newborn, and how much he cares about his family – a family that Bella never really sees him as a part of. We get to see the true lengths of Carlisle’s compassion. And we get to see Esme as the mother hen who will take in anyone, even at a risk to herself.

That was missing from the four Twilight books.

It’s so odd that it was here.