Like many other authors, they are readers. I’m no different. While I am an author, I am also an avid reader, and apart from going out and having a blast with close friends and families during the weekend, I usually curl up with a few good books scattered on my bed while the rest of my world are dreaming away.

Please don’t call the nuthouse just yet if you found me yakking away about books this coming week, cuz I’ve just finished reading 7 books in total in just one day, and I think each and every one of it deserves a good review.

Some of those books are borrowed from my elder sister, who is also a bookworm, while some others are mine… obtained them from a an access book store in the vicinity of Klang valley. And of course, being a cheapskate, there’s also downloaded books.

I’m gonna review the downloaded one first, cuz I have a pdf copy of it, and therefore, I can share a copy of the ebook with you if you want it.

This is the first book I want to talk about:

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephanie Meyer- recently published on 5th June 2010.

While I hate the movie adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, I find the novels rather addictive. I’ve read Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and last but not least, Breaking Dawn, and even reviewed them. I’ve also read the unreleased/unpublished Midnight Sun draft, and I thought, Twilight Saga has ended for good with Breaking Dawn.

When I’ve heard about The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner a couple of months ago, I got rather excited, and anticipate the novel release.

All right, without further ado, let us proceed with the review.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is set in the ‘Eclipse’ time-line. In ‘Eclipse’, Bella applies for colleges, considers a marriage proposal and worries about a rash of Seattle murders.

She balances her star-crossed love for Edward against her moonstruck love for Jacob; she negotiates peace between the warring werewolves and vampires; and she witnesses a standoff between the ruling-class Volturi and an army of newly transformed vampires who have been violating vampire law.

Bree Tanner is one of these newborns, created solely to destroy her and the Cullens. Her role in ‘Eclipse’ is limited to five pages: Bree becames the Volturi’s prisoner, she begs for mercy, she is denied mercilessly by the Volturis.

But Meyer took a shine to the 15-year-old runaway-turned-vampire and began exploring her brief life as an independent writing exercise. That experiment eventually grew to book length, and Meyer decided to publish it and donating one dollar from every book’s sale to the American Red Cross and also giving fans free access to the text online on www.breetanner.com

Bree begins three months after the title character’s vampire transformation. She is living with other newborns in a Seattle flophouse, quenching her thirst for human blood while trying to figure out just what the enigmatic Riley, a sort of vampire RA isn’t telling the rest of them.

Hint: He’s working for Victoria, the evil ‘Twilight’ vampire who wants to kill Bella and destroy Edward Cullen and family for destroying her bonded partner, James.

Bree remembers little of her human life, other than that it wasn’t great, and her vampire life isn’t shaping up to be much better. Newborn vampires are a nasty bunch of creatues and regularly resort to tearing one another up as entertainment. Her only ally is the humane Diego, who also is conveniently handsome.

The plot yields a few tasty morsels. Fans will discover a few more good reason to detest and loathe Jane, the Volturi’s china-doll torturer, and Fred, a vampire whose superpower is to make people vomit, a nice addition to the world of Twilight.

As far as character development goes, ‘Bree’ bests the rest of ‘Twilight’. Bree and love interest Diego talk and act like real undead teens exploring a crush, as opposed to Edward and Bella’s pathological obsessive-love that defines the other novels.

Meyer’s dialogue in Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is more believable here than almost anywhere else in Twilight-world, but then again, the fans does not read Twilight for reality. People read twilight for the fantasy of it and those unbearably sweet passion.

Frankly speaking, this novel is rather disappointing but I guess it’s somehow expected. What else could you expect from the story of a young teenage girl? Passion and some rock and roll on the bed? I don’t quite think that would be appropriate.

‘Bree’ feels its fullest and most compelling in the last 30 pages, when the Cullens finally show up as Bree’s would-be saviors. Bree fails to notice, even once, how chiseled and godlike Edward is, which feels truly bizarre to fans who have known only Bella’s point of view.

I was left wondering and thinking about Edward and Bella at the end of Bree. Bree, is a good read, but not exactly something I’m used to, considering that I’ve read Twilight Saga that’s enormously told from Bella’s point of view.

Anybody wants a pdf version of The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner? Please email me at [email protected] for it, and I will try to send it to you asap.

Cleffairy: There’s always a different story from other perspectives. Life is just about that, isn’t it? Different perspectives.