The Short Second Life Of Bree Tanner

Stephenie Meyer’s The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner was a quick, fun story, like the rest of the Twilight series. Is Bree Tanner fluff? Yes. It’s a piece of young adult fiction that a Twilight fan can read and enjoy. The story will become part of that landscape. It’s easy to enjoy, then put away and move on the next story… or re-read the end of Eclipse to compare the two stories.

I liked that Stephenie Meyer expanded on the world of Twilight without making the story about Bella and Edward. It had a behind-the-scenes sort of feel. Meyer created a likeable character, who may have killed many humans, still had the power within her to learn and change. Too bad she never got the opportunity. In a group of twenty blood-thirsty killers, three were different, Bree being one of them. Being different isn’t what gets Bree killed, it is perhaps, not seeing that she is different sooner. It’s a world she doesn’t understand and that she was forced into.

One thing that I didn’t like had to do with structure. There were no breaks. I know it’s a novella, not a novel, so it doesn’t “require” chapters. However, an asterisk or an extra space between paragraphs would have been helpful. Everything is happening from Bree’s perspective, but a break between her thoughts would give the reader a nice place to take a break themselves.

… I wonder when Fred is going to show up again…

Is The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner a groundbreaking piece of fiction? No. But it is a good story for the fans of Twilight and Vampire Young Adult fiction.