The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

Amazon summary:

Fans of The Twilight Saga will be enthralled by the riveting story of Bree Tanner, a character introduced in Eclipse, and the darker side of the newborn vampire world she inhabits. In another irresistible combination of danger, mystery and romance, Stephenie Meyer tells the devastating story of Bree and the newborn army as they prepare to close in on Bella Swan and the Cullens, following their encounter to its unforgettable conclusion.

Personal Thoughts:

I finally decided to pick up Stephanie Meyer’s The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner an Eclipse Novella. It’s an easy read book which can be finished in a couple of hours though nothing much really in it. Since we already know from Eclipse what will be Bree’s ending, this book is just a little sidenote of being a newborn vampire from Bree’s perspective. It’s nice to read part of the Twilight Saga world other than Bella’s point of view, and I especially want to hear the story from a vampire’s perspective. More likely the mind reader point of view. But since Midnight Sun is still hanging I have to settle first with Bree, a newborn vampire who doesn’t last long enough to give us more details of the vampire world. But for Bree’s credit, she is more straightforward compare to Bella, she doesn’t have angst, she’s pretty-logical and more objective. Her story give more justice to newborn vampires, they are not just soulless bloodsucking vampire after all.

Bree’s description of Edward as “redheaded one” confused me that I have to check again eclipse to see who is she’s referring to as redheaded one. But then realizing that Bree is a newborn vampire, she can’t give much details with the other vampire’s around her because she is so much consumed with the thought of Bella’s sweet blood at that time. Compare to Bella who is in love with Edward, naturally Bella is more detailed on Edward appearance.

Other than the life of being a newborn vampire, this book also offers two interesting revelations. First. Jane and her entourage actually visit Victoria and give her five days to enact her battle plan before the Volturi would destroy the newborn army. Second, Bree manages to figure out that Edward reads minds and conveys to him that the Volturi weren’t entirely on the Cullens’ side. I just wish to know what Edward was thinking while Bree is dishing to him the dirty work of the Volturi. After reading the novella, I had this feeling that I’ve just finished reading a fan fiction, like what I usually read online for some of my favorite mangga stories.

If you haven’t already read Eclipse this novella won’t make sense. This book is for Twilight fans and not for someone who hasn’t read the saga.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Film)

I’m a bit excited to see The Twilight Saga: Eclipse after seeing the last part of New Moon last year. I am exited to see how the new director visualize the story, hoping that it might be better from the first two movies. But I also tried to lessen my expectation knowing that the script is written by the same writer. And as expected the script is not so impressive. There are too much diagloues, mushiness and pick-up lines that doesn’t work well. But it was for the most part faithful to the story, out of all the films from the saga this one was closest to the book. I’m impressed at the amount of quotes taken from the book and added into the film though there are more better lines that was left out. Lines like “For the first time in almost a century, I felt hope” and what about Jacob line that tells about the movie title – “The clouds I can handle but I can’t fight an eclipse”. Anyway, my favorite line in the movie was not actually taken from the book, the graduations speech of Jessica Stanley played by Anna Kendrick. For me it was perfect.

The supporting characters are more interesting than the leads. Anna Kendrick as Bella’s classmate can make a few seconds of exposure so great, while Kristen Stewart as Bella was quite boring. She is such a blank slate. She has only one look – confused. Taylor Lautner as Jacob is good but there are some lines that didn’t work for him. Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen is great, his acting improves this time. He also smiles a lot which add more charisma on his character. Bryce Dallas Howard as Victoria did a good job but not better than Rachelle Lefevre. She didn’t have enough evil look or attitude about her. Jackson Rathbone as Jasper Hale who did not speak much in the first two movie is a wonderful surprise. The casting of Xavier Samuel as Riley was great.

As for the love story, things did get more physically intimate for the three main characters, more than the previous one, but the “romantic” lines do get more corny. Jacob’s little one-liners didn’t work much. The meadow scenes were a bit lame. And the ring, it’s not how I imagine how an old-fashioned elegant ring look like. I also don’t get why all the boy werewolves walk around without shirts on after their transformation but the girl werewolf has. That is inconsistent. Should they just put all their shirts on? It’s pretty good that they don’t forget to add the Cullen’s backgrounds. Rosalie (Nikki Reed) & Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) history add spice to the story. It was interesting to learn more about their past. It gives a little more understanding on their characters. The story of “The Third Wife” is also there.

The action was quite good. The fight scenes were actually quite well shot with good special effects. They were suspenseful & thrilling. The opening sequence showing Riley being turned was actually pretty tense. There was bit of that creativity in violence, but somehow the camera pulled away just before the image got too graphic. The overall design look of detached vampire flesh was nice & neat. The wolves looked better than they did with New Moon.

The film is way better than the first two movies in terms of visual effects, makeup, acting & story telling. There’s more story behind it. It’s not one of the best movie but it’s good to see that the saga is improving.

Graduation Speech:

“When we were five, people ask us “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
we tell them things like astronaut, fireman or in my case…

Princess.

When we were 10 they asked again and we answered, rockstar, cowboy or in my case…

gold medalist.

Now that we have grown up they want serious answers. Well how about this: “who the hell knows?”

This isn’t the time to make hard and fast decisions. This is the time to make mistakes. Take the wrong train and get stuck somewhere. Fall in love… a lot. Major in Philosophy because there is no way to make a career out of that. Change your mind, then change it again because nothing is permanent. So make as many mistakes as you can so that way when they ask us what we want to be, we wont have to guess, we’ll know.”

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

“The clouds I can handle. But I can’t fight with an eclipse.”

After a little disappointment with New Moon, I still continue reading Eclipse and Breaking dawn out of curiosity. Before I decided to read Eclipse, I did hope that this book will be better than New Moon. And I’m thankful it was quite good but I can’t say it is the best. Meyer makes monsters romantic again in this third installment of the Twilight series. I enjoy some of the characters development especially the vampires – Edward, Rosalie and Jasper. It discuss how Rosalie & Jasper became vampires. Their human life and other interesting detail that uncovered their own traits. It also discuss more about werewolve’s folklore. How they became werewolves and the legends they pass down.

Bella remains little more than a pawn in this book, trying to please everyone but herself. I expected Bella to get stronger and more independent. To find herself, I suppose. But she seemed to get more co-dependent and more self-serving. I didn’t like also the Edward-Bella-Jacob love triangle. It adds few inconsistency with the story. During the first part of the book Bella was so sure of herself that she didn’t love Jacob she even punched him when Jacob kissed her then suddenly at the end she realized that she loves him too. From the very beginning of Twilight, the author has made it exceedingly clear that Bella and Edward are soul-mates. What’s the point of love triangle? I don’t have anything against Jacob. I would have liked him to remain friends with Bella. But not Bella realizing she was “in love” with him.

Eclipse is fast-paced, full of action and romance which makes it a bit exciting. It is also pretty humorous with some cute moments that made me smile. But it has a lot of angst & drama as if it is a soap opera. Nonetheless, it is still a good book, far greater than New Moon but not the best.

SYNOPSIS OF ECLIPSE

Edward and Bella are back together. She’s going to become a vampire after her high school graduation and she wants Edward to be the one to do the job. His only condition for this is that she marries him. Will she say yes and risk disappointing her family?

In the meantime, Seattle is being ravaged by a “serial killer” that is really an army of newborn vampires that are unable to control their bloodthirsty urges. These newborns are being created by Victoria, who wanted to kill Bella in revenge of James death. It is up to vampire Edward and werewolf Jacob to unite the good vampires and werewolves in order to save Bella’s life.

In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?