Thirst for More

Fans of Stephanie Meyer’s vampire series will love this one too. The formula is spot on.

Your reviewer, ever wary of vampires and novels about vampires, was largely and deliberately ignorant about Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, when a slim novella, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, written by Stephanie Meyer, the author of the aforementioned whopping bestsellers, was given unto him. Having been driven to read it due to the nature of his profession, he regrets that he will still not be chancing the sequels or the prequels. 

Bree Tanner is a minor teenage character in Eclipse who dies and dies again, once as human and then as vampire. In the introduction, Meyer explains she was compelled to bring Bree once again back to life because in Eclipse, Bree’s life and death was told through another character’s eyes. She wanted to explore how Bree herself looked at the bloody world she had died into. Your reviewer thinks that in a franchise so ragingly successful, it is a lucrative exploration to do and we have not heard the last of Meyer’s minor characters popping out to make little novels. 

Bree is part of a vampire army created to kill the heroine of the series, Bella, a human whose love for Edward, a vampire, forms the basis for all these books.  The army is raised by Riley on behalf of Victoria, who wishes to settle a grudge by killing Bella. The book begins with Bree being part of a feeding expedition, and befriending and falling in love with a fellow vampire, then discovering that they are probably being set up by their creators, and then, after a couple of days and pages, dying. 

Your reviewer felt none of the sympathy which Meyer felt for Bree. Being an ardent admirer of the very malevolent and manly Count Dracula, he, in fact, found it disconcerting that vampires should talk like punks and romance like teenagers. Meyer’s audience, he is virtually certain, is made up entirely of young women in whom deeper emotions are at play when they see two teenage vampires butterflying on tree tops or flirting in a sea cave; or when teen vampire lives with their immense possibilities are sordidly squashed by corrupt vampire police. But, since your reviewer understands that tastes, no matter how peculiar, vary, he emphasises that those who enjoyed the other books in this series will not be disappointed with this one. The context is slightly changed, but the formula’s spot on.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open chief of bureau, Mumbai  

•