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The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (Twilight, #3.5)
by Stephenie Meyer
by Stephenie Meyer
Kat Kennedy's review
bookshelves: just-plain-bad, kat-s-book-reviews
Jun 23, 10
bookshelves: just-plain-bad, kat-s-book-reviews
Read from June 11 to 24, 2010
We went traveling through the upper end of North Queensland once as a family. We came to one of those strange, small-town, out-of-the-way places for a quick bird study tour with my scientist uncle. The place's claim to fame was that it also housed a giant mango. Yes. You heard me right. A giant, massive replica of a mango. Within the giant mango was an ice cream shop.
Nobody could explain to us why there was a giant mango or why the giant mango has somehow spawned an icecream parlor from its bowels like it was grotesquely pregnant and in the process of some sick, monstrous fruit/shop labor.
Reading Bree Tanner was a little like that.
It was something that didn't make sense, from a series that was much bigger than it should have been and in the end, nobody could properly explain its existence to me.
I asked my Twilight friends why it had been published and their nonchalant, disinterested shrug was almost identical to those crazy North Queenslanders with their giant mango.
Glad I didn't pay money for it. Couldn't be bothered finishing it and at least the freakishly large mango gave me ice cream. This just gave me a headache.
Nobody could explain to us why there was a giant mango or why the giant mango has somehow spawned an icecream parlor from its bowels like it was grotesquely pregnant and in the process of some sick, monstrous fruit/shop labor.
Reading Bree Tanner was a little like that.
It was something that didn't make sense, from a series that was much bigger than it should have been and in the end, nobody could properly explain its existence to me.
I asked my Twilight friends why it had been published and their nonchalant, disinterested shrug was almost identical to those crazy North Queenslanders with their giant mango.
Glad I didn't pay money for it. Couldn't be bothered finishing it and at least the freakishly large mango gave me ice cream. This just gave me a headache.
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Reading Progress
| 06/11/2010 | page 1 |
|
1.0% | "Okay, I've caved and decided to read this shit while it's free." 4 comments |
| 06/14/2010 | page 30 |
|
17.0% | "Boring the shit out of me..." 10 comments |
Comments (showing 1-13 of 13) (13 new)
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Laura
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Jun 11, 2010 07:39pm
I'm actually really curious to hear how this novella is... The thing is, I've only read Eclipse once and cannot for the life of me remember a character named Bree!
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It shouldn't take me too long to finish it, hopefully. I'll post a review then. Bree is the vampire that the Volturi tear apart. Meh.
Kat wrote: "It shouldn't take me too long to finish it, hopefully. I'll post a review then. Bree is the vampire that the Volturi tear apart. Meh."Yeah... Still not ringing any bells :oP Oh well. Looking forward to reading your review though!
Heh. I always enjoy your reviews, Kat, because you have such a wonderful way of having everything make sense in your reviews even when you throw a mango ice cream store into the mix. Anyway -- as a Twilight fan myself, I think there are three reasons this novella was written and then published: (1) I think Meyer felt some guilt after killing Bree and wanted this novella to be the retribution for Bree as a character because, let's face it, Meyer doesn't LIKE violence and almost all her other characters -- besides the villains like James and Victoria -- somehow survived even despite the big vampire showdown that was SUPPOSED to happen in Breaking Dawn (also, in Eclipse, I felt slightly robbed that one of the werewolves didn't die; weren't newborns supposed to be REALLY STRONG? Honestly, Stephenie, your story is wonderful at some points, but you contradict yourself when it comes to the battle sequences! Which is it?); (2) there is ALWAYS a money factor (especially with books like these that sell like hotcakes); and (3) it ties in with the release of the third movie out at the end of the month (again, more of the money factor). That's just my opinion, though, and other fans and non-fans likely feel differently.I enjoyed the novella myself -- but did it need to be written? Well, I'm not so sure about that, even now.
Jillian, you're right. These are all probably reasons why it was written - it just didn't seem like a compelling story idea to me.Like I said earlier, had it been a story about Marcus' wife, then I feel that would have held a great deal more importance than what this story did.
I'm glad you enjoyed it though, it just wasn't something I could get into.
OK, so what do a mango and Bree Tanner and Twilight have to do with each other? Love your review! Hated the novella! At least while you're eating your mango ice cream you get a break. Did you notice that there wasn't a single chapter break in 180 pages? I suspect that this book was written because the role of Bree in the movie will be longer than 1 line and 1 shrill scream. For this, we needed a novella.
If it had been a story about Jane, Leah, any of the Volturis, or better yet Midnight Sun, it might have had the chance to be good.
I haven't reviewed any of the traditional ones because I read them pre GR and I felt that everything had already been said. This one came out after I joined GR so I figured I'd do a brief review.I've thought about it several times but if I DO review Twilight then I'd truly only be doing it for my own freakish enjoyment AND to garner the votes. Which would make me a true vote whore of epic proportions!
