Book Review
Title: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer (Twilight Book 3.5)
Genre: Paranormal, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
After reading Eclipse I was surprised to see how different Bree was between the movie and book. In the book, she is much more of a newborn vampire struggling to control herself around Bella and much more vocal than her movie counterpart and the Cullens make less of an effort to protect her in the book understanding that the Volturi have a right to intervene so I was intrigued to see what this book was going to do for the character. We learn that Bree is only three months old and has a great amount of control for a newborn as she is befriended by another vampire, Diego who is almost a year old. Both of them seem unaware of other vampires in general, they currently believe that there must be other vampires out there but not many which is incorrect and they also believe that they will burn in the sun which is also incorrect. Due to this they stay hidden during the day and only come out at night but Bree and Diego are both very smart and soon learn that Riley and the mysterious “she” are lying to them but they don’t know why and they are going to figure it out. Since Bree is shown to have great control here ignoring the scent of blood even when it is right in front of her I don’t understand her behaviour in Eclipse where she seems very out of control but hopefully that will be explained later on.
Diego and Bree learn that obviously they aren’t being told the truth about vampires and they have different opinions on why. Bree believes that Riley has been lying to them but Diego doesn’t want to believe this since he is friends with Riley and wants to see the best in him but Bree manages to convince him that they should keep this information to themselves for a little while and Diego agrees. When they track down the rest of their group Diego is targeted and Bree is ready to jump into the oncoming fight when Fred steps in and floors the entire room of newborns with his gift. I honestly would have like more on Fred since he seems to be the only gifted vampire of the group and this pleases Riley greatly since he has access to more information than the rest. When Riley heads off to meet the “her” Diego and Bree follow him, there they overhear the meeting between the pair and Bree recognises the voice from when she is changed and we get to see how bloodthirsty Victoria actually was. The meeting is interrupted however by the Volturi led by Jane and they know what Victoria is doing but since she is targeting the Cullens and Bella specifically, Jane allows it to continue since she isn’t happy that Bella is immune to her gift and the Cullens are the only coven large enough to challenge the Volturi but she only gives Victoria five days before they have to step in. Despite Bree’s protests Diego wants to speak to Riley since he now knows they are soldiers in an army and heads off to meet with Riley with Bree returns to the hideout but Diego has been a long time and she is beginning to worry about him.
The final fifty pages of Bree Tanner were heart-breaking since we see Bree joining the dots together but she doesn’t understand what they mean until it’s too late. By the time the newborns arrive at the battle, Fred decides he isn’t taking part and leaves offering Bree the chance to come with him but she wants to get Diego first and because of the way she thinks and feels about him I believe they were mates. During the battle when Riley leaves to find Victoria, Bree realises that Diego is dead and Riley tortured him until he betrayed Bree. Seeing the newborns losing Bree surrenders but is ultimately killed by Felix when the Volturi arrive, Bree isn’t scared of dying but she is sad that she won’t be able to tell Fred everything she has learned and mentally asks Edward although not directly that if they ever come across Fred to treat him kindly. I hope Fred pops up again later on in the series since he has a very interesting gift and I’d like to learn more about him but unless he is one of the nomads in Breaking Dawn or in the subsequent books I don’t think we will be seeing him again. While Bree wasn’t an important character in Eclipse seeing the events leading up to the battle and the battle itself was nice since we don’t get to see them in Eclipse because Bella isn’t present at the time so it fills in some holes for us. That being said, I didn’t think it was a necessary addition to the series unless some of the these characters are going to pop up again in the future. However, the only ones that could reappear are Fred and possibly Diego since we never actually see him die and Riley never says he is dead, Bree only assumes he is.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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