Reader Response

  Reader Respose

April 1st, 2011 Heater Brownlee

     I am responding to The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephanie Meyer.  I have read 178 pages out of 178 pages.  This text is fiction.  The main characters include Bree and Diego (the protagonists) and Riley (the antagonist).  The genre of this text is very diverse.  There’s some mystery, fantasy, sci- fi, adventure and even romance. The mystery is due to the antagonist, Riley. This story is all about vampires and it’s obvious that Riley created Bree for a reason but it’s not clear why. The story is one big adventure from the beginning right to the end.  There’s also a spark of romance twisted into the mix between Bree and a character named Diego. The settings are mostly in forests and abandon houses around the border of Seattle.  The conflict is that Bree and many others were turned into vampires for a reason but they don’t know why.  The theme of this text is to be observant, cautious and smart, there is always more to a story than what meets the eye- don’t be scared to go into the depth of it.  The climax of this story is right at the very end when an important character takes their last words.

Retell

   What I want to remember about this text is more about the author, Stephanie Meyer.  Stephanie wrote the Twilight series (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn) which I have read. The Twilight saga is amazing.  The books are written to perfection and my eyes were glued to every page.  I admire how Stephanie Meyer was able to bring the life from the Twilight saga into The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner.   The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is an Eclipse novella, so it is not apart of the Twilight series, it is a side story to the third book in the Twilight series.  Even though it’s not really apart of the Twilight series and has new characters and settings it still has the magic and passion in it that readers love about the Twilight series.  I noticed some important details about one of the main antagonists, Riley.  Riley was the leader of the newborns (recently created vampires) including Bree.  He’s a mysterious character.  Right from the beginning I noticed the lies in his words, his manipulative ways and in the end I was right. I admire Bree, the main protagonist the most. Bree is a very sweet, kind girl so I was surprised to hear about her background.  When Bree was human she ran away from home.  Her mom had left her to live with her father, a man who abused and didn’t care for her. Bree was homeless, starving on the streets when Riley met her and turned her into a vampire. It seems that media tries to tell us what homeless people are like, that their dark, scary people but then I see Bree.  I see a girl who was homeless and is now forced to kill people to live but yet she’s still not mean. Of course being a vampire is scary but being homeless didn’t make her a scary person.  This is just another example of how media feeds us false perspectives.  I think Bree is an amazing person to still be herself, despite everything that has happen to her.

Relate

As compared to other texts by this author, I think this story is much darker.  The other Twilight books were about a different group of vampires, the Cullens.  The Cullens had great lives for vampires, they only hunted animals, could control their thirst and they were a family, they were actually happy.  The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner shows the more realistic, harsher side of life as a vampire in this world.  Most don’t get to live those happy, satisfied lives. Their lives are driven by thirst, by that will to kill because no one has taught them anything else.  The Twilight series is almost fluffy compared to The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner.  In Twilight no one really gets hurt but yet in The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner a lot of the characters you start to like don’t make it to the end.  If I could talk to one of the characters, I would ask Bree why she believed Riley when he told her that Diego (protagonist) was alright, out doing work for him. Diego had gone to talk to Riley and hadn’t returned to Bree.  All along Bree had been so smart.  She knew Riley was a liar and couldn’t be trusted.  I knew he was lying, so why didn’t Bree?

Maybe in her heart she knew, she knew that Diego wasn’t fine but she just couldn’t accept the truth.

Reflect

   The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is a great book, I only disliked that I knew how it would finish before I even started reading it.  In Eclipse (third Twilight book) the fate of Bree Tanner is included.  Even though I knew her fate I was sad when it came.  I had been rooting for Bree all along.  I was hoping that what I knew as the end would have a twist and turn out differently, unfortunately I was disappointed.  However if I was the author I wouldn’t have changed the ending either. Of course I like happy endings but this book wasn’t meant to have one.  Sometimes the knowledge you have of something can turn out to be more surprising then your prediction.  Almost everyone who reads this book will hope or predict a happy ending even though they already know it’s not and when the end comes it’s still surprising because you thought your prediction would win.  This story makes readers realize that your not reading to see what Bree will become, your reading to see what Bree’s purpose was.  Of course I’d love to read another text by Stephanie Meyer. After the Twilight books I got into other series like Percy Jackson and Harry Potter. It’s amazing that after all this time I can read another Stephanie Meyer book and remember why I was in love with Twilight so long ago.  She is a very gifted writer and I hope she writes another story.