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.

   Reader Response
     Jan.25,2011  Heather Brownlee

     I am responding to a biography of J.K. Rowling.  It is titled The Wizard Behind Harry Potter by Marc Shapiro.  I have read 230 pages out of 260.  This text is non-fiction.  The genre of this text is a biography.  It is a biography because it is the true story of  a person’s life written by someone else.  This biography includes real events and quotes.  It is about how J.K. Rowling came to be a world known author tracking right back to when she was born in 1966.  The setting of the biography is mostly in the United Kingdom but it also travels out to different parts of Europe and North America.  It is from the author’s perspective but it includes thoughts and feelings of J.K. so it seems like it is more from her point of view.  However, since the thoughts and/or feelings did not come from Joanne (J.K. Rowling) directly they may not be entirely true.  Words new for me in italics were names of companies such as New York Times.  The chapter titles are just like those in chapter books- they're a bit of a teaser.

Retell    My favourite part of this text was definitely  when J.K.  overcame her fears and sent the first book, “ Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's  Stone”  to a publisher.   Throughout the biography it explains how Joanne was always very secretive of her writing.  Many people had suggested that she get some of her earlier pieces of writing  published but she did not have the courage to follow through with it.  I like this part because she pushed through her fear and allowed herself to become vulnerable which is very hard for someone to do.  If she hadn’t Harry Potter would still  be  a secret world in Joanne’s head.  I think the setting of the biography is very important to  the setting of all the Harry Potter books.  The setting of the biography is the setting of  J.K.’s life which mostly takes place in The United Kingdom.  Each Harry Potter story is very close to its  British roots.  The setting, characters, clothes, foods and traditions all have to do with being British.  If Joanne had grown up somewhere else the  setting for Harry would also be different (he would have a different culture).  The British aspect of Harry Potter is what makes it so unique and therefor that much better. If Harry was of a different nationality everything would change and I can’t say it would be for the better.

Relate   This text really makes me think about how hard it is to be a single parent.  The biography frequently refers to how J.K. has been a single parent ever since her daughter was only two weeks old.  She was completely on her own and she struggled a lot.  Due to her financial state she was forced to go on welfare.  However the welfare did not cover child care so she could not get a job since their was no one to look after her baby, Jessica.   From the biography I can really feel how hard those times for Joanne were, luckily Joanne had a talent that she used to her advantage.  She barely had enough money to supply food for her daughter let alone herself.  I always knew from TV or other people that it was extremely hard to be a single parent but after reading about Joanne’s personal experience I actually understand now and can relate better.  If I could ask J.K. anything I would ask her how she creates such an amazing world, where she finds the inspiration for all her wild ideas.  I know from reading the biography that things in her own life contribute to her stories but there are so many details,  how does someone piece them all together?  How does she create such complex characters and settings?.

Reflect     I like how the author of this biography, Marc Shapiro made this text seem like it was from the perspective of J.K. Rowling even though it isn’t.  When a text is from  a character or subject’s point of view you as a reader build a deeper connection to them.This text helped me to understand the complex Harry Potter books better. Now that I know more about J.K Rowling I often think about where the author (Joanne)  got her idea from for a certain character’s personality or how two scenes were intertwined so smoothly, while reading her stories.  This helps me to make deeper connections to the stories since I may know where her inspiration for a specific part came from.  Also, when I read some scenes in her books I feel like they had to do with Joanne’s life since I  now know  more about her.  For instance Harry’s last name is “Potter”  and while reading the biography I noticed that  one of Joanne’s child hood friends had the last name Potter, maybe that is where she got the famous name from.  I admire J.K. Rowling because she is so humble.  It doesn't matter to her how famous she is or how much money she makes.  The only reason she started Harry was because she loved to write and for those few precious hours a day she could escape to her own secret world where she didn’t have to worry about poverty or her dying mother.  The biography makes it very clear that Joanne had no intentions  of becoming a world wide known author and an extremely successful one at that.  She is still to this day shocked at how popular her books are.  I like this rare characteristic of Joanne because it is nice to be reminded that there are still very accomplished people today who are humble and don’t have the huge egos that we so often see in celebrities or people we know in everyday life.  It takes a strong person to go through the popularity of J.K. Rowling and still stay very firmly attached to their roots.

taylor is strange:)