The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: Part I
So. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. It’s about time I start that up, right? Yes.
For those of you who may have forgotten who Bree Tanner is, she is the vampire at the end of Eclipse, the only survivor of Victoria’s newborn army, who was kept alive mostly to verify the Cullens’ story and then get thrown to the Volturi for a clean execution. She was also kept alive so Bella could actually see what a newborn is like so Meyer could try to hammer into our heads that Bella so DOES understand what she’s going to be giving up and what she’s going to be getting into, because she saw a newborn so there. In other words, Bree was a nobody. She meant absolutely nothing to the plot except to be used to Bella’s advantage, and as a way to make the Cullens look noble.
Except that failed. A lot. Bella never became anything like Bree was in Eclipse, and the Cullens proved to be more sadistic and cruel than the Volturi, deliberately setting what is supposed to be the most delicious human on the planet right next to an insane, starved newborn, threatening her with death if she so much as made a move towards her, promising that if she could just control herself, they’d keep her alive and teach her how to calm down-and then threw her to the Volturi, who they knew would kill her.
So I honestly have no clue why she would want to write a novella about that. Bree meant nothing to anything. But, hey-inspiration has struck weirder places, so I’m not going to complain too much at the moment. But believe me-there will be complaining. Without further delay, let’s just rush right into things.
I thought it would be prudent to start with the summary-sporked, of course! Here we go.
Bree Tanner can barely remember life before she had uncannily powerful senses, superhuman reflexes, and unstoppable physical strength. Life before she had a relentless thirst for blood… life before she became a vampire.
And already I’ve got a problem with this. Isn’t she supposed to be a newborn? Less than a year old? Don’t know how old she is at this point, but still-why can she not remember any of her humanity already? The way they wrote that, you’d think she was centuries old, not, you know, months old.
All Bree knows is that living with her fellow newborns has few certainties and even fewer rules:
Ah, so she’s living with the Volturi.
watch your back, don't draw attention to yourself, and above all, make it home by sunrise or die.
I sure hope you’re going to explain that. Otherwise, I’m just gonna laugh at you.
What she doesn't know: her time as an immortal is quickly running out.
Yes-the Cullens are going to kill her. Isn’t that lovely. I adore how often Meyer forgets that point.
Then Bree finds an unexpected friend in Diego,
BAM. There you go-who called it? Romantic interest. Meyer is INCAPABLE of writing a story that doesn’t feature a man upon which the main character can lean. THIS IS RIDICULOUS!
a newborn just as curious as Bree about their mysterious creator, whom they only know as
-Zuul?
her.
Close enough.
As they come to realize that the newborns are pawns in a game larger than anything they could have imagined,
Um…Victoria’s plot wasn’t all that complicated. You act like this is some huge plan to take over an area, or something. She just wanted the Cullens distracted so she could get to Bella. And it worked-she just didn’t count on werewolves.
Bree and Diego must choose sides and decide whom to trust.
You act like we don’t know that they march right into the battle. I smell dead fish!
But when everything you know about vampires is based on a lie, how do you find the truth?
You could leave. There’s always that. Unless I find that these vampires are being threatened or lied to about whether or not they can leave Victoria, I’m already going to call bullshit on that.
In another irresistible combination of danger, mystery, and romance,
THERE’S NO MYSTERY. WE KNOW THE STORY. SHE DIES.
Stephenie Meyer tells the devastating story of the newborn army as they prepare to close in on Bella Swan and the Cullens,
You didn’t truly think you’d go without mentioning those people, did you? It may be Bree’s POV, but ultimately, it’s the Cullens’ story.
following their encounter to its unforgettable conclusion.
I have no idea why they put two unnecessary letters in front of the word “forgettable”. Must be a typo.
So! We already know that the book summary has lied to us. I mean, all of the others have. So, why don’t we just head into it?
The online copy has it split into ten-page increments, seeing as there don’t appear to be chapters. I hope she has some kind of breakers-otherwise, this is going to be very painful. Well-more painful than I already know it’s going to be.
There’s a dedication, as usual, and it’s normal-I have no idea who those people are, but, hey-dedications can work that way. And I see we have an introduction-from the author! How nice! Do you guys understand why I am about to go large font and capslock? You don’t? Well, here. Lemme spell it out for you.
FOR ONCE IN HER LIFE, SHE ACTUALLY WROTE A GENUINE PREFACE, BUT CALLED IT AN INTRODUCTION INSTEAD OF A PREFACE.
Now I’m sure you’re all laughing at me for getting my panties in a knot over something so trivial, so let’s move on-I’ll spork the intro. It deserves it.
No two writers go about things in exactly the same way.
While all Suethors go about things in exactly the same way. Step One: Wank. Step Two: ??? Step Three: Profit. It served you well.
We all are inspired and motivated in different ways; we have our own reasons why some characters stay with us while others disappear into a backlog of neglected files.
And you thought that that statement was original and earth-shattering enough to be put into your INTRODUCTION why, exactly? Hundreds of writers have said that exact same thing.
Personally, I've never figured out why some of my characters take on strong lives of their own,
*cough*
but I'm always happy when they do. Those characters are the most effortless to write, and so their stories are usually the ones that get finished.
“Effortless.” Let’s just stick with that word, Meyer, I think it describes your style well.
Bree is one of those characters, and she's the chief reason why this story is now in your hands, rather than lost in the maze of forgotten folders inside my computer.
…considering the title of the story, Q.E.DUH, MEYER.
(The two other reasons are named Diego and Fred.)
Yes. Slap a love interest on her and suddenly she becomes a valid character!
*stares at what she just wrote* I hate everything right now.
I started thinking about Bree while I was editing Eclipse.
Yes, thinking up more synonyms for the word “perfect”, figuring out the best way to make Jacob as date-rapist as possible, thinking how to make the Quil/Claire relationship as squicky as you possibly could, really beating down on Leah for being an unlikeable bitch because she can’t have babies and doesn’t have a man…editing is hard work!
Editing, not writing - when I was writing the first draft of Eclipse, I had first-person-perspective blinders on; anything that Bella couldn't see or hear or feel or taste or touch was irrelevant. That story was her experience only.
Okay. That makes no sense and is a terrible way to write something. Allow me to explain in simple terms that even Meyer could understand. You know what else Bella couldn’t see, hear, feel, taste, or touch?
The newborn army. And yet that was supposed to be your plot.
Now for literary terms that will probably sail right over Meyer’s head. How the hell do you write a story without knowing what is going on all around your main character? Just because Bella can’t see what’s going on in Italy or Seattle, you as the author should know what’s going on and write things accordingly! She does interact with other characters, does she not? She does have LATER interactions with the main characters, does she not? Her actions and interactions now are important for later books, ARE THEY NOT? Geez-no wonder all of the side characters just keep coming back for more and obsessing over Bella and falling in love with her even after she reveals herself to be a horrible and selfish bitch-Meyer didn’t bother getting into their heads and considering how they might feel about how she’s treating them! Not just that, but things just popping up in the story like cows from the sky-Bella pays no attention to her surroundings, so we never ever see them. GEEZ.
The next step in the editing process was to step away from Bella and see how the story flowed.
Yeah, down your leg.
My editor, Rebecca Davis, was a huge part of that process,
An editor, a huge part of the editing process? How shocking.
and she had a lot of questions for me about the things Bella didn't know and how we could make the right parts of the story clearer.
I thought for sure Ms. Davis would understand that if it doesn’t affect Bella, neither Meyer nor Bella cared. I mean, right up there, didn’t she call anything Bella couldn’t see directly “irrelevant”?
Because Bree is the only newborn Bella sees, Bree's was the perspective that I first gravitated toward as I considered what was going on behind the scenes.
*wryly* As opposed to maybe the more important one-you know, VICTORIA’S. I’d even take Riley’s at this point, as Victoria has him by the balls. But no, you chose the useless newborn that exists for five minutes and existed only to praise Bella and then show how EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL the Volturi are.
I started thinking about living in the basement with the newborns and hunting traditional vampire-style.
And probably getting off on it, the sick bitch.
I imagined the world as Bree understood it.
WASN’T SHE JUST HUMAN A FEW MONTHS AGO?
And it was easy to do that.
It was? You can’t hardly write anything that isn’t all flowers and bunnies-I find that very hard to believe.
From the start Bree was very clear as a character, and some of her friends also sprang into life effortlessly.
Stop putting on airs, you supercilious bitch. I thought you were supposed to be talking about the story, not talking about how EASY it is for you to write this bullshit.
This is the way it usually works for me:
I stand corrected, I guess.
I try to write a short synopsis of what is happening in some other part of the story, and I end up jotting down some dialogue.
And most of it consists of, “I’LL TELL YOU WHAT I WANT, WHAT I REALLY REALLY WANT, SO TELL ME WHAT I WANT WHAT I REALLY REALLY WANT-”
In this case, instead of a synopsis, I found myself writing a day in Bree's life.
And I’m placing a bet now, that the majority of the day revolves around Diego.
Writing Bree was the first time I'd stepped into the shoes of a narrator who was a "real" vampire - a hunter, a monster.
No, you did that with Midnight Sun, sweets.
I got to look through her red eyes at us humans;
Oh? Things like the confusion of being thrust into newborn life, being told that you’re now basically a slave and you have to do what they tell you to do, suddenly being forced to murder countless human beings just to keep yourself alive, and maybe the conflict that will come with that, and show a warring of instinct versus morality-
suddenly we were pathetic and weak, easy prey, of no importance whatsoever except as a tasty snack.
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
I felt what it was like to be alone while surrounded by enemies, always on guard, never sure of anything except that her life was always in danger.
Kind of like how Bella didn’t when she found out there were seven vampires who wanted her dead.
I got to submerge myself in a totally different breed of vampires: newborns.
Considering you skipped it with Bella, I’d assumed you just didn’t wanna write that nonsense.
The newborn life was something I hadn't ever gotten to explore - even when Bella finally became a vampire. Bella was never a newborn like Bree was a newborn.
Yes, she was the head Sue-she always gets the best stuff.
It was exciting and dark and, ultimately, tragic.
Oh, I agree with that word.
The closer I got to the inevitable end, the more I wished I'd concluded Eclipse just slightly differently.
Oh, JESUS. WHY DOES THIS WOMAN IMMEDIATELY REFUSE TO KILL OFF ANY CHARACTERS SHE FINDS SHE LIKES?!
I wonder how you will feel about Bree.
I feel sorry for her-she’s horribly tortured by the Cullens.
She's such a small, seemingly trivial character in Eclipse.
She IS a trivial character, you knob.
She lives for only five minutes of Bella's perspective.
See? Bella sure thinks she’s trivial. She never thinks of her again after she watches her get murdered by the Cullens by way of the Volturi.
And yet her story is so important to an understanding of the novel.
No. It isn’t.
When you read the Eclipse scene in which Bella stares at Bree, assessing her as a possible future,
Meyer just flat-out admits that Bella was only thinking about Bree in relation to HERSELF, never considering BREE at all, and still doesn’t get it.
did you ever think about what has brought Bree to that point in time?
Uh-Victoria?
As Bree glares back, did you wonder what Bella and the Cullens look like to her?
Sadists.
Probably not.
*scowls* Don’t act like you know what I think, bitch. Stop being so pompous.
But even if you did, I'll bet you never guessed her secrets.
Because she was an empty effing character!
I hope you end up caring about Bree as much as I do, though that's kind of a cruel wish.
Kind of like the Cullens.
You know this: it doesn't end well for her.
Tortured by the Cullens, tossed to the Volturi so the Cullens don’t get their hands dirty-that is terrible.
But at least you will know the whole story.
WE DO ALREADY, YOU IDIOT.
And that no perspective is ever really trivial.
O RLY? So let’s hear CONNER’S story now, then!
Enjoy,
Stephenie
*sharpening her spork* Oh, I’ll enjoy it, all right, Stephy.
We are not off to a good start, are we? Just from that preface, we know her opinions and attitudes towards vampires and her characters have not changed in the slightest. And she still doesn’t know what a preface is. Oh boy.
I’m going to make some predictions right now. Let’s see if any of them come true.
1) Diego will die at either the hands of the Cullens or the other newborns. When it happens, Bree will suffer from a Goddamn Hole™ immediately.
2) The characters will spend very little time trying to discover who is behind their creation and more time talking about feelings.
3) Meyer will never paint the Cullens in a bad light-and if she does, it will be in total Scary Sue fashion, and deliberately bad and nasty so we will disagree.
4) We will never really be able to discern what the actual plot arc of this story is supposed to be.
5) Bree will spend an inordinate amount of time describing either Bella, Edward, or both-and even if she goes Scary Sue and talks about how bad they are, she will be sure to talk about how pretty they are.
6) Meyer will never portray the newborns murdering a whole bunch of people as bad-and will, in fact, expect us to never look down on them for it.
7) Humanity will never be explored-only derided (thought that might be cheating-I mean, she already did that in the preface).
8) None of the vampires will be conflicted with what they have become or question what has happened to them or what they are doing.
That’s eight. Place some bets on them now-or add your own! I’ll tally them all at the end and see who got stuff right. NO CHEATING. If you’re reading it already, you just keep things to yourself. This is an as-it-happens, folks. I have only read a few pages of the sample that went up on Friday, and predicted nothing based on what I’d read there. So don’t spoil me. I mean it.
And we’re off!!!
Part I
We open up with Bree-I think it’s Bree-looking down at a newspaper vending machine and seeing a new headline about how the death toll in Seattle spiked again, and she bitches about it, saying that Riley will have a fit and he’s gonna start tearing arms off when he sees it. Meaning if you were hoping to see her life as a human, and see her change, truly witness a newborn waking up with an unquenchable thirst and see the conflict of waking up not knowing what you are when you had zero preparation for it? You aren’t gonna get it. Nope-Bree’s already a vampire, and already has a full grasp of her situation if she knows to avoid Riley when he’s mad because he tends to dismember people.
If that weren’t bad enough, here’s her comment when she sees the newspaper: “I hadn't seen this one yet. Some paperboy must have restocked the machine. Lucky for him, he was nowhere around.” So far, looks like two of my predictions are well on their way to being confirmed-no respect for human life after only a couple of months of being a vampire, and that is supposed to be our protagonist.
Bree is sitting around, apparently waiting “for someone to make a decision”. She spends a great deal of time whining about it, too, talking about how they need to hurry up, dammit.
We’re gonna pause now, and let’s examine how Meyer has opened up each point of view thus far.
Bella
Twilight: Whining about having to move to Forks.
New Moon: Whining about being old.
Eclipse: Whining about how she can’t see Jacob.
Breaking Dawn: First whining about how everyone is staring at her with her shiny new car and black credit card, then whining about how she’s in pain from the venom.
Jacob
Eclipse: Whining because Bella didn’t choose to have sex with him and because Leah’s a total bitch, man.
Breaking Dawn: Whining because Bella didn’t choose to have sex with him and because Leah’s a total bitch, man.
Edward
Midnight Sun: Whining because everyone around him is sooooo pathetic and boring and humans suck.
And Bree’s story opens up with her whining that people are too conspicuous with their murders and people aren’t doing stuff fast enough to suit her.
I do believe Meyer is incapable of opening a story without having the character who is doing the telling do a whole lot of whining. Which I cannot say surprises me, seeing as the characters have no individual voices and are instead the exact same person every time-that person being Stephenie Meyer (which, as usual, does not speak well for her).
We then get our setting established-we’re in a bad part of town, full of abandoned buildings, and Bree is apparently part of a hunting party and “wished somebody would decide something”. Uh, so do I-I wish I knew what something was, though. Bree then elaborates, and says that she “just wanted to find some unlucky people who wouldn't even have enough time to think wrong place, wrong time”.
*slow clap* Our heroine, ladies and gentlemen.
Bree continues whining, saying that Riley has sent out Bree with two meathead newborns who are part of “Raoul's gang”. Don’t you go insulting him, he’ll sick Morticia on you. Bree keeps droning on, saying that the two guys she’s with are stupid and dangerous, “mostly stupid”, because instead of hunting, like they should have been, “they were in the middle of an argument over whose favorite superhero would be a better hunter”.
*raises hand*
1) These are newborns, right? And they are apparently careless, stupid newborns, right? So why did Riley send them out, unattended and unsupervised, to go get something to eat? Why did he send out multiple stupid, unattended, unsupervised newborns? Are they trying to get caught?
2) I thought newborns were supposed to be mad with thirst. Bree is just whining that she’s really hungry and those two don’t show any problems at all, if they are preferring to talk about superheroes instead of go kill something.
Pfft. Meyer then does what we all knew she would do-Bree then sees the final member of this hunting party, Diego, who we all know is going to be Bree’s love interest. Yeah, can’t waste any time, gotta get him in on page three. Otherwise, Bree is a nonentity without the man to validate her existence. *spits* Bree takes a moment to tell us all about how important Diego is, and that he’s older than the others and Riley favors him. She notices Diego looking at her, then spazzes out because, she says, “Keep your head down and your mouth shut - that was the way to stay alive in Riley's crowd.”
We then get out first line of dialogue! Kevin just shouts out, “Spider-Man is such a whiny loser.” And Meyer thus demonstrates how very much she hurts her writing by the limitations she places on herself.
There is very little I know about this story, but one of the things I knew was that Victoria was picking out people who would not be missed and are from the slums of Seattle. These people are from bad neighborhoods and are probably familiar with gangs. And yet he says “whiny loser” to describe something. If he was truly from a bad part of town, he would not say that. He’d be more likely to say, “Spider-Man is such a pussy,” or even, “Spider-Man is such a fag.”
This is not to say that I have problems with people who don’t like to write lots of language and violence and sex in their novels. More power to you if you don’t. Except sometimes, it’s necessary for characterization. I hate to use myself as an example, but here you go-imagine if I wrote a fanfic with Sands in it and he never said a single curse word or made a single innuendo or a single threat while dealing with an informant. It’d look OOC-that’s not his character. Sands loves to drop the word “fuck”. Even worse, “whiny loser” is so obviously substituted in place of cursing. It brought to mind the monkey-fighting snakes on the monkey-fighting plane.
In conclusion, Meyer? If you want to write slum kids, learn how to write four-letter words.
So, Kevin says he’s gonna show off. He jumps into the street and a car comes around the corner and he poses in the headlights. The car does not slow down, because apparently, when somebody deliberately jumps in front of your car and stares you down, don’t ever slow down because they will definitely move. He doesn’t, of course, and then zips over and, with a might cry about the Hulk smashing, “grabbed its front bumper, and flipped it over his head so that it struck the pavement upside down with a squeal of bending metal and shattering glass.”
*raised eyebrow*
I wanna show you guys something.
Specifically, I want to show you 1:57. Even more specifically, the shot of Hellboy smashing the front bumper of a car, causing it to flip over his head so that it strikes the pavement upside down behind him.
I would not normally be pointing that out. Except when you A) combine all of the talk of superheroes that Kevin and his friend were previously discussing and B) how much that blow-by-blow description sounds like when Meyer was describing the prom dresses in Twilight…I think it is safe to say that Meyer just totally ripped off Hellboy and hoped nobody would notice. I know lots of people are Hellboy fans, so go right ahead and scream-I’ll wait.
So, there’s a screaming woman in the car, she’s probably badly injured, they just made a whole lot of noise and a big scene right out in public-so naturally, this is a good time for Bree to tell us all about what Diego looks like in an infodump, as well as talk about how gorgeous they all are. “He was pretty, with dark, dense, curly hair, big, wide eyes, and really full lips, but then, who wasn't pretty? Even Kevin and the rest of Raoul's morons were pretty.”
That is never a good way to narrate something, Meyer. “He just smashed a car with a person in it and has every intention of murdering her. We’re all so pretty!”
Of course, now I am going to be on point. I am quite convinced that Diego is a black man. Meyer has zero qualms with stereotyping people’s looks, and the dense curly hair and full lips are a dead giveaway, and the wide-eyes just sling-shotted him damn near into minstrel territory. But, as we all know, it doesn’t matter what color you were before you were turned-once you’re a vampire, you’re bleached.
And if I get one hint that Diego was a black man before and is now a bleached white person, you can rest assured that there will be large font. I don’t know if it will be laughter or not, but there WILL be large font.
Back to our story. Diego calls to the morons who just did that, and they just make fun of him for being Riley’s bitch, telling him to “get a spine”. It’s “grow a spine”, Meyer. Also, again-these are people from a slum. Try “grow some balls”.
Now, this is the point where we get a complete contradiction of what Meyer just said in her preface.
Kevin starts tearing the car apart to get to the chick inside, and his buddy jumps down and they start arguing over who gets to eat. And Bree tells us that she’s oh-so-hungry…but then, right as they tear the chick in half (described in very delicate and non-descriptive ways, of course), Bree holds her breath and runs away.
Which is exactly what Bella did with the people she ran across in the woods on her first day out.
Really, it’s more impressive for this one. A woman just got torn in half. There’s blood everywhere, spurting out all over things, and Bree just scampers away with only one mention of how thirsty she is, complete with “ugh” by page five to really make me feel all tingly.
So much for writing about the newborn perspective that she never got to write with Bella.
Diego and Bree go hopping away, and Bree yet again gives us an aside that, because she’s younger than Diego, she’s stronger than he is and keeps dropping more very obvious hints about how brutal Riley is to everyone. If he’s so nasty and mean to all of them and since they have zero respect for him, why haven’t they teamed together and torn HIM apart instead? Just curious. Hope you plan on explaining that, Meyer. Meyer also is totally heavy-handed with how Bree keeps Diego in front of her instead of behind her, because clearly, he’d attack and kill her if he was.
So they run away for a while, and then Diego starts bitching about how dumb the other two are, and I’m still left wondering, if what Diego was saying was true, that Riley would not issue instructions without good reason, WHY IS HE JUST SENDING THEM OUT ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT SUPERVISION? Bree even said that he didn’t give a shit about who went out with who!
Bree says she wants to hunt now, and Diego is all friendly while Bree is very wary of him. And we then get ANOTHER aside about how Diego “wasn't like the others”. Of course not. Can’t have the protagonists be anything but special. GODDAMMIT. More emphasis on eye color, how Diego’s are a darker red, and considering all of this, I think I might revise my prediction-Diego does not die in battle, he gets axed because he’s too old and no use now. After all-if the Cullens killed the one man Bree comes to love, she won’t kiss their asses, and we can’t have that (maybe the werewolves will kill him, then, since they’re poor and not-white and it’s okay to hate on them).
So, they sit around and listen for a bit, and Diego strikes up a conversation, confirming her name and calling her “one of the newbies”. Oh dear God. Meyer just used netspeak. Bree bitches about that, and then gives us a firm “whatever”. Just one word. So, she’s used netspeak and just had a character say whatevah. I know it’s too early to want to kill myself, but hang that. I WANNA KILL MYSELF.
Bree finally says her vampire age-she’s three months old. Diego praises her with how wonderful it was that she bugged out away from those people, because surely no vampire newborn could do that. You know-like when Wardo talked about how amazing it was that Bella didn’t eat the hikers. *facepalm* Bree says she mostly wanted to avoid a fight with the other two, and Diego says, “Amen, sister. Their kind ain't nothing but bad news.”
He’s black. That is really all there is to it. But is he white-washed? Now that’s the real question.
Well, Meyer then starts beating us with that horrible, hand-holding style that I hate so much, complete with a dead herring.
Weird. Diego was weird. How he sounded like a person having a regular old conversation. No hostility, no suspicion. Like he wasn't thinking about how easy or hard it might be to kill me right now. He was just talking to me.
*wryly* Gee, folks. Do you think Diego might just be talking to her like he isn’t thinking about how easy or hard it might be to kill Bree right now?
I’ve got a question, though-why do the newborns do nothing but think about how they want to kill each other? If it was over food, I’d be fine with that, except as we just saw up there, food is not an issue. So what’s the deal? Why do they want to murder each other? Is Riley telling them that only so many of them are going to make it to the end, so they’d better prove their worth? I mean, what? If you’re going to tell me these things, I NEED A REASON FOR IT.
Diego then says that he’s eleven months old, and Bree talks about how amazing that is.
Wait…he’s eleven months old?
The only possible way that could work would be if Victoria started making her vampire army directly after James was killed. Eclipse starts up in May. We hear nothing of murders UNTIL May. And back when she would’ve been turning Diego? SHE WAS RUNNING AROUND FORKS BEING CHASED BY WEREWOLVES.
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT A TIMELINE IS, MEYER? OR EVEN HOW TO STICK TO ONE?!
*growling at this point* I’m on page seven right now. And already, you see I have a very long list of grievances, but that one is just RIDICULOUS.
Moving on. Bree talks about how that’s “older than Raoul”. Who is Raoul and why should we care about him? Diego says that Raoul is gonna ruin everything (probably because he’s ethnic; just my guess), which begs the question of why Riley would not just change but also KEEP someone like that. We get a sledgehammer hint of romance when Bree wonders what Diego thinks of her, but then she covers herself by saying that she doesn’t care what anybody thinks of her, because: “I was a god now. Stronger, faster, better. Nobody else counted.”
Wow. I must say-remember how Bree’s chapter title in Eclipse was “Mirror”? Apparently, that was a lot deeper than we originally thought it was in relation to Bella.
Diego then reminds us that hey-weren’t they supposed to be hunting? Isn’t she supposed to be all wild with thirst and in pain from her newborn hunger? Because she forgot, too. Diego points out a pimp and two hos engaging in some stereotype as Mr. Big smacks his bitch up. Bree emphasizes that this is the kind of hunting they are supposed to be doing, but so many newborns just neglect to do.
*raises hand*
If they live in such a harsh environment and it’s so horrible and Riley is so in charge, why is he doing such a suck job that he can’t keep hardly any of them in line and they just go off and kill whatever they want whenever they want?
Bree continues to be unlikeable, talking about how Riley picked both “meals and gods” from the dregs of society, once again emphasizing how bad Meyer hurts her characterization by refusing to have her dregs TALK like dregs. She says that she mostly does what Riley says because it makes sense, seeing as vampires have hidden this long without exposure, so hunting smart must be the way to go. I have already discussed everywhere else how I have no idea how Meyer’s VERY OBVIOUS VAMPIRES have managed to keep themselves hidden, so I won’t belabor that again. Bree also says that they all make lots of mistakes, which usually makes Riley all pissy and he breaks “Raoul's favorite video-game system”.
*slaps her forehead* OH, BRILLIANT. YOU’VE GOT A WHOLE BUNCH OF NEWBORN VAMPIRES, THEY’RE ALL IDIOTS AND HAVE NO SELF-CONTROL, BUT INSTEAD OF HIDING IN, YOU KNOW, THE DOZENS OF EMPTY FORESTS THAT ARE ALL OVER WASHINGTON AND CANADA, YOU SET UP IN A HOUSE AMONGST PEOPLE SO YOU CAN PLAY YOUR VIDEO GAMES.
Christ, these people are stupid. MEYER MOST OF ALL.
It gets better-apparently, breaking Raoul’s Playstation is just too much to bear, which results in him “[taking] somebody else apart” and torching them. *points at the quote* Why not just say “disassemble”? It’s much more sterile, which is what you apparently are going for. Meyer drops her first curse word, saying that Riley gets “pissed off” when Raoul does that. Not pissed off to actually do anything about it, other than take his matches and lighters (which are very easily obtained). Why not take Raoul apart? That seems like a good solution to this problem.
But no. They just let Raoul tear people apart for no reason, and then Riley goes out and gets “another handful of vampirized dregs kids to replace the ones he'd lost”.
First off-nice typo.
Second off-kids? He’s changing kids? He thinks kids are going to be the most responsible and the ones least likely to be missed? He thinks kids will be the most stable and most expendable?
Let’s not kid (tee-hee) ourselves. This is just Meyer talking-once again, not a single character is allowed to be over eighteen, because she is determined to recapture her teen years. Except in this case, it’s just STUPID.
And then abruptly, Diego’s hunting. Meyer does something I hate, and Bree “[turns] off her brain”. I hate it because it is once again Meyer saying that becoming a vampire instantly gives you instinct and you never have to learn how to hunt, and I hate it because it doesn’t sound like she’s turning off her brain-it sounds like she’s turning off her conscience. Bree also confirms that you can just sit there and pick and choose who you want to eat so long as you don’t breathe. Great. I really wanted to see more fail with regards to Meyer’s insistence that the vampire bloodlust is insane and drives them crazy versus what we are shown.
Diego jumps down normally, but because Bree is currently Meyer’s self-insert, she does a backflip off of the roof and spins down like she’s doing some kind of high dive in the Olympics. Clearly, you are driven insane with bloodlust. She lands on her feet, naturally, and-oh, man.
Folks, Meyer is still a bitter, bitter brunette who didn’t make the cheerleading squad. The chick Bree eats?
A blonde. A blonde prostitute on drugs.
*twirls her blonde hair and looks at her cheerleading pictures* Up yours, Meyer.
So Bree eats the person, and considering this is written in first person, it’s very detached. Nothing like this, and that was in third person. She mentions she’s moaning (a hint of how much they enjoy feeding glossed over and ignored because Meyer thinks vampire stuff is icky) and that the blonde chick is gurgling, but a couple of paragraphs later, she’s done. “The problem with humans was that they just never had enough blood in them.” My apologies, Bree. Why don’t you go for Bella? If Breaking Dawn is anything to go by, she’s got about fifty gallons in her. On a more serious note: Why do these vampires forget so quickly that THEY WERE ONCE HUMAN? Or should I be asking Meyer that?
Bree has a tantrum when she’s done, throwing the body away, and considers stealing the other chick before Diego is finished with the pimp. Unfortunately, Diego’s finished, and looking at her. “He looked at me with an expression that I could only describe as… sympathetic. But I could have been dead wrong. I couldn't remember anyone ever giving me sympathetic before, so I wasn't positive what it looked like.”
Would you like some cheese to go with that whine, Bree?
Diego then is a gentleman and tells her to eat up-he doesn’t need the other woman. Aww, this is just like that scene behind the Italian restaurant in Lady and the Tramp where Tramp gives Lady the meatball. Bree is all overly-suspicious but then hops on and eats up. Considering all of the sexual connotations feeding usually has, let’s just all laugh at how Meyer essentially wrote Bree date-raping an unconscious prostitute and didn’t even know she did it. Bree talks about how this one is better than the other, because the other one tasted all nasty and like drugs. See how insane with bloodlust newborns are, that they can complain about taste and can tell the difference between one human and another? That thing that Meyer claimed only experts like Edward can do after a century of experience?
Bree finishes, and turns to the audience as usual and tells us all about how strange it was that Diego would give up something so tasty, complete with the wondrous and lone sentence of, “Why had he done it?” This is really, really stupid.
Bree thanks him for it when she finishes, and Diego says that it gets better as they get older and then says they should ditch the bodies in the nearby sound. Diego grabs two of them while Bree gets one, and I am supposed to think about how nice it is that Diego is grabbing more than she is, except there are a number of problems with that.
1) These vampires can pick up cars that can weigh tons, so why the hell is he being all gentlemanly by picking up two bodies?
2) Wasn’t Bree just talking about how she was so much stronger than he was?
3) It doesn’t sound so much as like he’s being gentlemanly as much as it’s more of that crap Meyer likes to do where the women do less than the men when it comes to physical work.
4) YOU ARE USING BODY DISPOSAL AS A WAY TO SHOW HOW NICE AND CONSIDERATE DIEGO IS.
They start making their way over to the sound, and Bree makes the following observation when they pass over a freeway: “I thought how stupid people were, how oblivious, and I was glad I wasn't one of the clueless.”
Sometimes, all you can really say is just a resounding “fuck you”. So-FUCK YOU, MEYER.
They reach the sound and dive in, and Bree talks about how sexy Diego is as he swims through the water. Bree tells us that they are a hundred feet down, and that to a pitiful pathetic human, “it would have seemed pitch-black”. No. It wouldn’t have. You have to go a bit deeper to have total lack of light. Of course, that also begs the question of just how these vampires are able to see in pitch-black. They are science-based, yes? And if you base it on science, the only way they can see is if there is the tiniest bit of light there for their eyes to amplify. Oh, wait-Meyer’s a dumbass.
Diego picks up a boulder with one hand and they pop all three bodies under it, and he puts the boulder back on. And I gotta say-the body disposal took a lot longer to describe than the actual eating. Diego then offers Bree a high five. Yeah, Bree, wooooo, you two murdered three people and have now smashed their bodies under some boulders! Let’s all celebrate!
Meyer, do not make me pull out my fist-pounding chart again.
Bree is all freaked out and can’t figure out that he’s offering her a high-five. THIS IS SO STUPID. Bree just pokes his hand and runs away, and Diego goes up to the surface to have a good laugh, and Bree bitches at him because she thought he was going to tear her arm off.
WHY? WHY WOULD HE DO THIS? WHY WOULD ANY OF THEM DO THAT? ARE YOU JUST THAT BIG OF A BITCH? Honestly! This makes no sense! Are these people just naturally this psycho when they turn?! Maybe I should give Wardo a break now, seeing as all of the newborns are nuts who just tear people apart for NO REASON, and this is only after they’ve been vampires for a couple of months! Meyer, this is a bad dead herring, even for you-all of this emphasis on how he’s CLEARLY GOING TO TRY AND KILL HER, SINCE EVERYONE ELSE DOES, when that makes so very LITTLE sense in ANY scenario-even if I bought that when you turn into a vampire, you apparently turn into a complete bastard who wants to dismember everyone you look at. HOW ON EARTH DOES THAT WORK STRATEGY-WISE FOR A NEWBORN ARMY? I’m not talking about just your troops tearing themselves apart-I’m talking about your troops tearing YOU apart. They are newborns-YOU AREN’T. I ask again-WHY HAVEN’T THESE CRAZY PEOPLE TORN RILEY TO SHREDS YET?!
Hmph. Diego then asks her out for some more hunting. Aww, how sweet-they’re on a date! They find two homeless guys, suck them dry, and bury them in the sound too. This is so sweet. Can’t you feel the romance? They have a mutual interest of killing only disposable people.
Diego talks about how he won’t need to eat for “a few weeks”, while Bree only has a couple of days before she is hungry. Or rather, “burning”. It’s just that she’s hungry, Meyer, stop calling it burning. I’m just getting the vibe that she’s doing her best to avoid the idea of her precious characters eating people. Bree complains some more about how she’ll have to hunt with Raoul’s folks, because Riley will make her. If he doesn’t care who goes out hunting, why would he deliberately send you with Raoul’s bunch? Diego offers to go with her, since he has his run of the place.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Bree turns to the audience AGAIN. Jesus, we’re only on page fifteen, how many times has she done that so far?! This time, she’s hitting us with the romance sledgehammer again. “I thought about the offer, suspicious for a second. But Diego really didn't seem like any of the others. I felt different with him. Like I didn't need to watch my back so much.” Thanks for telling us. Any time you are interested in simply SHOWING us, I’m sure we’d be glad to watch. She tells Diego she’d like it if he went with her, but then quickly emphasizes how totally hardcore she is and how she doesn’t need him and saying she likes something is totally foreign to her because she’s from the slums, dood, and as that’s the end of page fifteen, I’m gonna cut it off here.
So. Fifteen pages. Six people have been killed, and nobody is likeable. I have found out that Bree is a bitch and thinks she is better than everyone else. After fifteen pages, I do not feel for these people. Well, that isn’t true-already I don’t like them, because they’re psychotic murderers who don’t feel bad about killing and eating people, and in fact are telling us as humans that killing us is great because we just suck. And Meyer has done nothing in the text to indicate that this is a bad opinion to have. I would have no problem with this if she were deliberately writing them as monsters or completely alien with no sense of right or wrong, but these are normal people. These people were human. But not anymore! Because they are now physically different than me, they think I suck and that it’s awesome to kill me. So tell me, Meyer-is it white-washing or simply a white sheet?
I’ll be back with another section tomorrow. BEWARE.
Table of Contents | Part II
For those of you who may have forgotten who Bree Tanner is, she is the vampire at the end of Eclipse, the only survivor of Victoria’s newborn army, who was kept alive mostly to verify the Cullens’ story and then get thrown to the Volturi for a clean execution. She was also kept alive so Bella could actually see what a newborn is like so Meyer could try to hammer into our heads that Bella so DOES understand what she’s going to be giving up and what she’s going to be getting into, because she saw a newborn so there. In other words, Bree was a nobody. She meant absolutely nothing to the plot except to be used to Bella’s advantage, and as a way to make the Cullens look noble.
Except that failed. A lot. Bella never became anything like Bree was in Eclipse, and the Cullens proved to be more sadistic and cruel than the Volturi, deliberately setting what is supposed to be the most delicious human on the planet right next to an insane, starved newborn, threatening her with death if she so much as made a move towards her, promising that if she could just control herself, they’d keep her alive and teach her how to calm down-and then threw her to the Volturi, who they knew would kill her.
So I honestly have no clue why she would want to write a novella about that. Bree meant nothing to anything. But, hey-inspiration has struck weirder places, so I’m not going to complain too much at the moment. But believe me-there will be complaining. Without further delay, let’s just rush right into things.
I thought it would be prudent to start with the summary-sporked, of course! Here we go.
Bree Tanner can barely remember life before she had uncannily powerful senses, superhuman reflexes, and unstoppable physical strength. Life before she had a relentless thirst for blood… life before she became a vampire.
And already I’ve got a problem with this. Isn’t she supposed to be a newborn? Less than a year old? Don’t know how old she is at this point, but still-why can she not remember any of her humanity already? The way they wrote that, you’d think she was centuries old, not, you know, months old.
All Bree knows is that living with her fellow newborns has few certainties and even fewer rules:
Ah, so she’s living with the Volturi.
watch your back, don't draw attention to yourself, and above all, make it home by sunrise or die.
I sure hope you’re going to explain that. Otherwise, I’m just gonna laugh at you.
What she doesn't know: her time as an immortal is quickly running out.
Yes-the Cullens are going to kill her. Isn’t that lovely. I adore how often Meyer forgets that point.
Then Bree finds an unexpected friend in Diego,
BAM. There you go-who called it? Romantic interest. Meyer is INCAPABLE of writing a story that doesn’t feature a man upon which the main character can lean. THIS IS RIDICULOUS!
a newborn just as curious as Bree about their mysterious creator, whom they only know as
-Zuul?
her.
Close enough.
As they come to realize that the newborns are pawns in a game larger than anything they could have imagined,
Um…Victoria’s plot wasn’t all that complicated. You act like this is some huge plan to take over an area, or something. She just wanted the Cullens distracted so she could get to Bella. And it worked-she just didn’t count on werewolves.
Bree and Diego must choose sides and decide whom to trust.
You act like we don’t know that they march right into the battle. I smell dead fish!
But when everything you know about vampires is based on a lie, how do you find the truth?
You could leave. There’s always that. Unless I find that these vampires are being threatened or lied to about whether or not they can leave Victoria, I’m already going to call bullshit on that.
In another irresistible combination of danger, mystery, and romance,
THERE’S NO MYSTERY. WE KNOW THE STORY. SHE DIES.
Stephenie Meyer tells the devastating story of the newborn army as they prepare to close in on Bella Swan and the Cullens,
You didn’t truly think you’d go without mentioning those people, did you? It may be Bree’s POV, but ultimately, it’s the Cullens’ story.
following their encounter to its unforgettable conclusion.
I have no idea why they put two unnecessary letters in front of the word “forgettable”. Must be a typo.
So! We already know that the book summary has lied to us. I mean, all of the others have. So, why don’t we just head into it?
The online copy has it split into ten-page increments, seeing as there don’t appear to be chapters. I hope she has some kind of breakers-otherwise, this is going to be very painful. Well-more painful than I already know it’s going to be.
There’s a dedication, as usual, and it’s normal-I have no idea who those people are, but, hey-dedications can work that way. And I see we have an introduction-from the author! How nice! Do you guys understand why I am about to go large font and capslock? You don’t? Well, here. Lemme spell it out for you.
FOR ONCE IN HER LIFE, SHE ACTUALLY WROTE A GENUINE PREFACE, BUT CALLED IT AN INTRODUCTION INSTEAD OF A PREFACE.
Now I’m sure you’re all laughing at me for getting my panties in a knot over something so trivial, so let’s move on-I’ll spork the intro. It deserves it.
No two writers go about things in exactly the same way.
While all Suethors go about things in exactly the same way. Step One: Wank. Step Two: ??? Step Three: Profit. It served you well.
We all are inspired and motivated in different ways; we have our own reasons why some characters stay with us while others disappear into a backlog of neglected files.
And you thought that that statement was original and earth-shattering enough to be put into your INTRODUCTION why, exactly? Hundreds of writers have said that exact same thing.
Personally, I've never figured out why some of my characters take on strong lives of their own,
*cough*
but I'm always happy when they do. Those characters are the most effortless to write, and so their stories are usually the ones that get finished.
“Effortless.” Let’s just stick with that word, Meyer, I think it describes your style well.
Bree is one of those characters, and she's the chief reason why this story is now in your hands, rather than lost in the maze of forgotten folders inside my computer.
…considering the title of the story, Q.E.DUH, MEYER.
(The two other reasons are named Diego and Fred.)
Yes. Slap a love interest on her and suddenly she becomes a valid character!
*stares at what she just wrote* I hate everything right now.
I started thinking about Bree while I was editing Eclipse.
Yes, thinking up more synonyms for the word “perfect”, figuring out the best way to make Jacob as date-rapist as possible, thinking how to make the Quil/Claire relationship as squicky as you possibly could, really beating down on Leah for being an unlikeable bitch because she can’t have babies and doesn’t have a man…editing is hard work!
Editing, not writing - when I was writing the first draft of Eclipse, I had first-person-perspective blinders on; anything that Bella couldn't see or hear or feel or taste or touch was irrelevant. That story was her experience only.
Okay. That makes no sense and is a terrible way to write something. Allow me to explain in simple terms that even Meyer could understand. You know what else Bella couldn’t see, hear, feel, taste, or touch?
The newborn army. And yet that was supposed to be your plot.
Now for literary terms that will probably sail right over Meyer’s head. How the hell do you write a story without knowing what is going on all around your main character? Just because Bella can’t see what’s going on in Italy or Seattle, you as the author should know what’s going on and write things accordingly! She does interact with other characters, does she not? She does have LATER interactions with the main characters, does she not? Her actions and interactions now are important for later books, ARE THEY NOT? Geez-no wonder all of the side characters just keep coming back for more and obsessing over Bella and falling in love with her even after she reveals herself to be a horrible and selfish bitch-Meyer didn’t bother getting into their heads and considering how they might feel about how she’s treating them! Not just that, but things just popping up in the story like cows from the sky-Bella pays no attention to her surroundings, so we never ever see them. GEEZ.
The next step in the editing process was to step away from Bella and see how the story flowed.
Yeah, down your leg.
My editor, Rebecca Davis, was a huge part of that process,
An editor, a huge part of the editing process? How shocking.
and she had a lot of questions for me about the things Bella didn't know and how we could make the right parts of the story clearer.
I thought for sure Ms. Davis would understand that if it doesn’t affect Bella, neither Meyer nor Bella cared. I mean, right up there, didn’t she call anything Bella couldn’t see directly “irrelevant”?
Because Bree is the only newborn Bella sees, Bree's was the perspective that I first gravitated toward as I considered what was going on behind the scenes.
*wryly* As opposed to maybe the more important one-you know, VICTORIA’S. I’d even take Riley’s at this point, as Victoria has him by the balls. But no, you chose the useless newborn that exists for five minutes and existed only to praise Bella and then show how EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL the Volturi are.
I started thinking about living in the basement with the newborns and hunting traditional vampire-style.
And probably getting off on it, the sick bitch.
I imagined the world as Bree understood it.
WASN’T SHE JUST HUMAN A FEW MONTHS AGO?
And it was easy to do that.
It was? You can’t hardly write anything that isn’t all flowers and bunnies-I find that very hard to believe.
From the start Bree was very clear as a character, and some of her friends also sprang into life effortlessly.
Stop putting on airs, you supercilious bitch. I thought you were supposed to be talking about the story, not talking about how EASY it is for you to write this bullshit.
This is the way it usually works for me:
I stand corrected, I guess.
I try to write a short synopsis of what is happening in some other part of the story, and I end up jotting down some dialogue.
And most of it consists of, “I’LL TELL YOU WHAT I WANT, WHAT I REALLY REALLY WANT, SO TELL ME WHAT I WANT WHAT I REALLY REALLY WANT-”
In this case, instead of a synopsis, I found myself writing a day in Bree's life.
And I’m placing a bet now, that the majority of the day revolves around Diego.
Writing Bree was the first time I'd stepped into the shoes of a narrator who was a "real" vampire - a hunter, a monster.
No, you did that with Midnight Sun, sweets.
I got to look through her red eyes at us humans;
Oh? Things like the confusion of being thrust into newborn life, being told that you’re now basically a slave and you have to do what they tell you to do, suddenly being forced to murder countless human beings just to keep yourself alive, and maybe the conflict that will come with that, and show a warring of instinct versus morality-
suddenly we were pathetic and weak, easy prey, of no importance whatsoever except as a tasty snack.
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
I felt what it was like to be alone while surrounded by enemies, always on guard, never sure of anything except that her life was always in danger.
Kind of like how Bella didn’t when she found out there were seven vampires who wanted her dead.
I got to submerge myself in a totally different breed of vampires: newborns.
Considering you skipped it with Bella, I’d assumed you just didn’t wanna write that nonsense.
The newborn life was something I hadn't ever gotten to explore - even when Bella finally became a vampire. Bella was never a newborn like Bree was a newborn.
Yes, she was the head Sue-she always gets the best stuff.
It was exciting and dark and, ultimately, tragic.
Oh, I agree with that word.
The closer I got to the inevitable end, the more I wished I'd concluded Eclipse just slightly differently.
Oh, JESUS. WHY DOES THIS WOMAN IMMEDIATELY REFUSE TO KILL OFF ANY CHARACTERS SHE FINDS SHE LIKES?!
I wonder how you will feel about Bree.
I feel sorry for her-she’s horribly tortured by the Cullens.
She's such a small, seemingly trivial character in Eclipse.
She IS a trivial character, you knob.
She lives for only five minutes of Bella's perspective.
See? Bella sure thinks she’s trivial. She never thinks of her again after she watches her get murdered by the Cullens by way of the Volturi.
And yet her story is so important to an understanding of the novel.
No. It isn’t.
When you read the Eclipse scene in which Bella stares at Bree, assessing her as a possible future,
Meyer just flat-out admits that Bella was only thinking about Bree in relation to HERSELF, never considering BREE at all, and still doesn’t get it.
did you ever think about what has brought Bree to that point in time?
Uh-Victoria?
As Bree glares back, did you wonder what Bella and the Cullens look like to her?
Sadists.
Probably not.
*scowls* Don’t act like you know what I think, bitch. Stop being so pompous.
But even if you did, I'll bet you never guessed her secrets.
Because she was an empty effing character!
I hope you end up caring about Bree as much as I do, though that's kind of a cruel wish.
Kind of like the Cullens.
You know this: it doesn't end well for her.
Tortured by the Cullens, tossed to the Volturi so the Cullens don’t get their hands dirty-that is terrible.
But at least you will know the whole story.
WE DO ALREADY, YOU IDIOT.
And that no perspective is ever really trivial.
O RLY? So let’s hear CONNER’S story now, then!
Enjoy,
Stephenie
*sharpening her spork* Oh, I’ll enjoy it, all right, Stephy.
We are not off to a good start, are we? Just from that preface, we know her opinions and attitudes towards vampires and her characters have not changed in the slightest. And she still doesn’t know what a preface is. Oh boy.
I’m going to make some predictions right now. Let’s see if any of them come true.
1) Diego will die at either the hands of the Cullens or the other newborns. When it happens, Bree will suffer from a Goddamn Hole™ immediately.
2) The characters will spend very little time trying to discover who is behind their creation and more time talking about feelings.
3) Meyer will never paint the Cullens in a bad light-and if she does, it will be in total Scary Sue fashion, and deliberately bad and nasty so we will disagree.
4) We will never really be able to discern what the actual plot arc of this story is supposed to be.
5) Bree will spend an inordinate amount of time describing either Bella, Edward, or both-and even if she goes Scary Sue and talks about how bad they are, she will be sure to talk about how pretty they are.
6) Meyer will never portray the newborns murdering a whole bunch of people as bad-and will, in fact, expect us to never look down on them for it.
7) Humanity will never be explored-only derided (thought that might be cheating-I mean, she already did that in the preface).
8) None of the vampires will be conflicted with what they have become or question what has happened to them or what they are doing.
That’s eight. Place some bets on them now-or add your own! I’ll tally them all at the end and see who got stuff right. NO CHEATING. If you’re reading it already, you just keep things to yourself. This is an as-it-happens, folks. I have only read a few pages of the sample that went up on Friday, and predicted nothing based on what I’d read there. So don’t spoil me. I mean it.
And we’re off!!!
Part I
We open up with Bree-I think it’s Bree-looking down at a newspaper vending machine and seeing a new headline about how the death toll in Seattle spiked again, and she bitches about it, saying that Riley will have a fit and he’s gonna start tearing arms off when he sees it. Meaning if you were hoping to see her life as a human, and see her change, truly witness a newborn waking up with an unquenchable thirst and see the conflict of waking up not knowing what you are when you had zero preparation for it? You aren’t gonna get it. Nope-Bree’s already a vampire, and already has a full grasp of her situation if she knows to avoid Riley when he’s mad because he tends to dismember people.
If that weren’t bad enough, here’s her comment when she sees the newspaper: “I hadn't seen this one yet. Some paperboy must have restocked the machine. Lucky for him, he was nowhere around.” So far, looks like two of my predictions are well on their way to being confirmed-no respect for human life after only a couple of months of being a vampire, and that is supposed to be our protagonist.
Bree is sitting around, apparently waiting “for someone to make a decision”. She spends a great deal of time whining about it, too, talking about how they need to hurry up, dammit.
We’re gonna pause now, and let’s examine how Meyer has opened up each point of view thus far.
Bella
Twilight: Whining about having to move to Forks.
New Moon: Whining about being old.
Eclipse: Whining about how she can’t see Jacob.
Breaking Dawn: First whining about how everyone is staring at her with her shiny new car and black credit card, then whining about how she’s in pain from the venom.
Jacob
Eclipse: Whining because Bella didn’t choose to have sex with him and because Leah’s a total bitch, man.
Breaking Dawn: Whining because Bella didn’t choose to have sex with him and because Leah’s a total bitch, man.
Edward
Midnight Sun: Whining because everyone around him is sooooo pathetic and boring and humans suck.
And Bree’s story opens up with her whining that people are too conspicuous with their murders and people aren’t doing stuff fast enough to suit her.
I do believe Meyer is incapable of opening a story without having the character who is doing the telling do a whole lot of whining. Which I cannot say surprises me, seeing as the characters have no individual voices and are instead the exact same person every time-that person being Stephenie Meyer (which, as usual, does not speak well for her).
We then get our setting established-we’re in a bad part of town, full of abandoned buildings, and Bree is apparently part of a hunting party and “wished somebody would decide something”. Uh, so do I-I wish I knew what something was, though. Bree then elaborates, and says that she “just wanted to find some unlucky people who wouldn't even have enough time to think wrong place, wrong time”.
*slow clap* Our heroine, ladies and gentlemen.
Bree continues whining, saying that Riley has sent out Bree with two meathead newborns who are part of “Raoul's gang”. Don’t you go insulting him, he’ll sick Morticia on you. Bree keeps droning on, saying that the two guys she’s with are stupid and dangerous, “mostly stupid”, because instead of hunting, like they should have been, “they were in the middle of an argument over whose favorite superhero would be a better hunter”.
*raises hand*
1) These are newborns, right? And they are apparently careless, stupid newborns, right? So why did Riley send them out, unattended and unsupervised, to go get something to eat? Why did he send out multiple stupid, unattended, unsupervised newborns? Are they trying to get caught?
2) I thought newborns were supposed to be mad with thirst. Bree is just whining that she’s really hungry and those two don’t show any problems at all, if they are preferring to talk about superheroes instead of go kill something.
Pfft. Meyer then does what we all knew she would do-Bree then sees the final member of this hunting party, Diego, who we all know is going to be Bree’s love interest. Yeah, can’t waste any time, gotta get him in on page three. Otherwise, Bree is a nonentity without the man to validate her existence. *spits* Bree takes a moment to tell us all about how important Diego is, and that he’s older than the others and Riley favors him. She notices Diego looking at her, then spazzes out because, she says, “Keep your head down and your mouth shut - that was the way to stay alive in Riley's crowd.”
We then get out first line of dialogue! Kevin just shouts out, “Spider-Man is such a whiny loser.” And Meyer thus demonstrates how very much she hurts her writing by the limitations she places on herself.
There is very little I know about this story, but one of the things I knew was that Victoria was picking out people who would not be missed and are from the slums of Seattle. These people are from bad neighborhoods and are probably familiar with gangs. And yet he says “whiny loser” to describe something. If he was truly from a bad part of town, he would not say that. He’d be more likely to say, “Spider-Man is such a pussy,” or even, “Spider-Man is such a fag.”
This is not to say that I have problems with people who don’t like to write lots of language and violence and sex in their novels. More power to you if you don’t. Except sometimes, it’s necessary for characterization. I hate to use myself as an example, but here you go-imagine if I wrote a fanfic with Sands in it and he never said a single curse word or made a single innuendo or a single threat while dealing with an informant. It’d look OOC-that’s not his character. Sands loves to drop the word “fuck”. Even worse, “whiny loser” is so obviously substituted in place of cursing. It brought to mind the monkey-fighting snakes on the monkey-fighting plane.
In conclusion, Meyer? If you want to write slum kids, learn how to write four-letter words.
So, Kevin says he’s gonna show off. He jumps into the street and a car comes around the corner and he poses in the headlights. The car does not slow down, because apparently, when somebody deliberately jumps in front of your car and stares you down, don’t ever slow down because they will definitely move. He doesn’t, of course, and then zips over and, with a might cry about the Hulk smashing, “grabbed its front bumper, and flipped it over his head so that it struck the pavement upside down with a squeal of bending metal and shattering glass.”
*raised eyebrow*
I wanna show you guys something.
Click to viewSpecifically, I want to show you 1:57. Even more specifically, the shot of Hellboy smashing the front bumper of a car, causing it to flip over his head so that it strikes the pavement upside down behind him.
I would not normally be pointing that out. Except when you A) combine all of the talk of superheroes that Kevin and his friend were previously discussing and B) how much that blow-by-blow description sounds like when Meyer was describing the prom dresses in Twilight…I think it is safe to say that Meyer just totally ripped off Hellboy and hoped nobody would notice. I know lots of people are Hellboy fans, so go right ahead and scream-I’ll wait.
So, there’s a screaming woman in the car, she’s probably badly injured, they just made a whole lot of noise and a big scene right out in public-so naturally, this is a good time for Bree to tell us all about what Diego looks like in an infodump, as well as talk about how gorgeous they all are. “He was pretty, with dark, dense, curly hair, big, wide eyes, and really full lips, but then, who wasn't pretty? Even Kevin and the rest of Raoul's morons were pretty.”
That is never a good way to narrate something, Meyer. “He just smashed a car with a person in it and has every intention of murdering her. We’re all so pretty!”
Of course, now I am going to be on point. I am quite convinced that Diego is a black man. Meyer has zero qualms with stereotyping people’s looks, and the dense curly hair and full lips are a dead giveaway, and the wide-eyes just sling-shotted him damn near into minstrel territory. But, as we all know, it doesn’t matter what color you were before you were turned-once you’re a vampire, you’re bleached.
And if I get one hint that Diego was a black man before and is now a bleached white person, you can rest assured that there will be large font. I don’t know if it will be laughter or not, but there WILL be large font.
Back to our story. Diego calls to the morons who just did that, and they just make fun of him for being Riley’s bitch, telling him to “get a spine”. It’s “grow a spine”, Meyer. Also, again-these are people from a slum. Try “grow some balls”.
Now, this is the point where we get a complete contradiction of what Meyer just said in her preface.
Kevin starts tearing the car apart to get to the chick inside, and his buddy jumps down and they start arguing over who gets to eat. And Bree tells us that she’s oh-so-hungry…but then, right as they tear the chick in half (described in very delicate and non-descriptive ways, of course), Bree holds her breath and runs away.
Which is exactly what Bella did with the people she ran across in the woods on her first day out.
Really, it’s more impressive for this one. A woman just got torn in half. There’s blood everywhere, spurting out all over things, and Bree just scampers away with only one mention of how thirsty she is, complete with “ugh” by page five to really make me feel all tingly.
So much for writing about the newborn perspective that she never got to write with Bella.
Diego and Bree go hopping away, and Bree yet again gives us an aside that, because she’s younger than Diego, she’s stronger than he is and keeps dropping more very obvious hints about how brutal Riley is to everyone. If he’s so nasty and mean to all of them and since they have zero respect for him, why haven’t they teamed together and torn HIM apart instead? Just curious. Hope you plan on explaining that, Meyer. Meyer also is totally heavy-handed with how Bree keeps Diego in front of her instead of behind her, because clearly, he’d attack and kill her if he was.
So they run away for a while, and then Diego starts bitching about how dumb the other two are, and I’m still left wondering, if what Diego was saying was true, that Riley would not issue instructions without good reason, WHY IS HE JUST SENDING THEM OUT ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT SUPERVISION? Bree even said that he didn’t give a shit about who went out with who!
Bree says she wants to hunt now, and Diego is all friendly while Bree is very wary of him. And we then get ANOTHER aside about how Diego “wasn't like the others”. Of course not. Can’t have the protagonists be anything but special. GODDAMMIT. More emphasis on eye color, how Diego’s are a darker red, and considering all of this, I think I might revise my prediction-Diego does not die in battle, he gets axed because he’s too old and no use now. After all-if the Cullens killed the one man Bree comes to love, she won’t kiss their asses, and we can’t have that (maybe the werewolves will kill him, then, since they’re poor and not-white and it’s okay to hate on them).
So, they sit around and listen for a bit, and Diego strikes up a conversation, confirming her name and calling her “one of the newbies”. Oh dear God. Meyer just used netspeak. Bree bitches about that, and then gives us a firm “whatever”. Just one word. So, she’s used netspeak and just had a character say whatevah. I know it’s too early to want to kill myself, but hang that. I WANNA KILL MYSELF.
Bree finally says her vampire age-she’s three months old. Diego praises her with how wonderful it was that she bugged out away from those people, because surely no vampire newborn could do that. You know-like when Wardo talked about how amazing it was that Bella didn’t eat the hikers. *facepalm* Bree says she mostly wanted to avoid a fight with the other two, and Diego says, “Amen, sister. Their kind ain't nothing but bad news.”
He’s black. That is really all there is to it. But is he white-washed? Now that’s the real question.
Well, Meyer then starts beating us with that horrible, hand-holding style that I hate so much, complete with a dead herring.
Weird. Diego was weird. How he sounded like a person having a regular old conversation. No hostility, no suspicion. Like he wasn't thinking about how easy or hard it might be to kill me right now. He was just talking to me.
*wryly* Gee, folks. Do you think Diego might just be talking to her like he isn’t thinking about how easy or hard it might be to kill Bree right now?
I’ve got a question, though-why do the newborns do nothing but think about how they want to kill each other? If it was over food, I’d be fine with that, except as we just saw up there, food is not an issue. So what’s the deal? Why do they want to murder each other? Is Riley telling them that only so many of them are going to make it to the end, so they’d better prove their worth? I mean, what? If you’re going to tell me these things, I NEED A REASON FOR IT.
Diego then says that he’s eleven months old, and Bree talks about how amazing that is.
Wait…he’s eleven months old?
The only possible way that could work would be if Victoria started making her vampire army directly after James was killed. Eclipse starts up in May. We hear nothing of murders UNTIL May. And back when she would’ve been turning Diego? SHE WAS RUNNING AROUND FORKS BEING CHASED BY WEREWOLVES.
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT A TIMELINE IS, MEYER? OR EVEN HOW TO STICK TO ONE?!
*growling at this point* I’m on page seven right now. And already, you see I have a very long list of grievances, but that one is just RIDICULOUS.
Moving on. Bree talks about how that’s “older than Raoul”. Who is Raoul and why should we care about him? Diego says that Raoul is gonna ruin everything (probably because he’s ethnic; just my guess), which begs the question of why Riley would not just change but also KEEP someone like that. We get a sledgehammer hint of romance when Bree wonders what Diego thinks of her, but then she covers herself by saying that she doesn’t care what anybody thinks of her, because: “I was a god now. Stronger, faster, better. Nobody else counted.”
Wow. I must say-remember how Bree’s chapter title in Eclipse was “Mirror”? Apparently, that was a lot deeper than we originally thought it was in relation to Bella.
Diego then reminds us that hey-weren’t they supposed to be hunting? Isn’t she supposed to be all wild with thirst and in pain from her newborn hunger? Because she forgot, too. Diego points out a pimp and two hos engaging in some stereotype as Mr. Big smacks his bitch up. Bree emphasizes that this is the kind of hunting they are supposed to be doing, but so many newborns just neglect to do.
*raises hand*
If they live in such a harsh environment and it’s so horrible and Riley is so in charge, why is he doing such a suck job that he can’t keep hardly any of them in line and they just go off and kill whatever they want whenever they want?
Bree continues to be unlikeable, talking about how Riley picked both “meals and gods” from the dregs of society, once again emphasizing how bad Meyer hurts her characterization by refusing to have her dregs TALK like dregs. She says that she mostly does what Riley says because it makes sense, seeing as vampires have hidden this long without exposure, so hunting smart must be the way to go. I have already discussed everywhere else how I have no idea how Meyer’s VERY OBVIOUS VAMPIRES have managed to keep themselves hidden, so I won’t belabor that again. Bree also says that they all make lots of mistakes, which usually makes Riley all pissy and he breaks “Raoul's favorite video-game system”.
*slaps her forehead* OH, BRILLIANT. YOU’VE GOT A WHOLE BUNCH OF NEWBORN VAMPIRES, THEY’RE ALL IDIOTS AND HAVE NO SELF-CONTROL, BUT INSTEAD OF HIDING IN, YOU KNOW, THE DOZENS OF EMPTY FORESTS THAT ARE ALL OVER WASHINGTON AND CANADA, YOU SET UP IN A HOUSE AMONGST PEOPLE SO YOU CAN PLAY YOUR VIDEO GAMES.
Christ, these people are stupid. MEYER MOST OF ALL.
It gets better-apparently, breaking Raoul’s Playstation is just too much to bear, which results in him “[taking] somebody else apart” and torching them. *points at the quote* Why not just say “disassemble”? It’s much more sterile, which is what you apparently are going for. Meyer drops her first curse word, saying that Riley gets “pissed off” when Raoul does that. Not pissed off to actually do anything about it, other than take his matches and lighters (which are very easily obtained). Why not take Raoul apart? That seems like a good solution to this problem.
But no. They just let Raoul tear people apart for no reason, and then Riley goes out and gets “another handful of vampirized dregs kids to replace the ones he'd lost”.
First off-nice typo.
Second off-kids? He’s changing kids? He thinks kids are going to be the most responsible and the ones least likely to be missed? He thinks kids will be the most stable and most expendable?
Let’s not kid (tee-hee) ourselves. This is just Meyer talking-once again, not a single character is allowed to be over eighteen, because she is determined to recapture her teen years. Except in this case, it’s just STUPID.
And then abruptly, Diego’s hunting. Meyer does something I hate, and Bree “[turns] off her brain”. I hate it because it is once again Meyer saying that becoming a vampire instantly gives you instinct and you never have to learn how to hunt, and I hate it because it doesn’t sound like she’s turning off her brain-it sounds like she’s turning off her conscience. Bree also confirms that you can just sit there and pick and choose who you want to eat so long as you don’t breathe. Great. I really wanted to see more fail with regards to Meyer’s insistence that the vampire bloodlust is insane and drives them crazy versus what we are shown.
Diego jumps down normally, but because Bree is currently Meyer’s self-insert, she does a backflip off of the roof and spins down like she’s doing some kind of high dive in the Olympics. Clearly, you are driven insane with bloodlust. She lands on her feet, naturally, and-oh, man.
Folks, Meyer is still a bitter, bitter brunette who didn’t make the cheerleading squad. The chick Bree eats?
A blonde. A blonde prostitute on drugs.
*twirls her blonde hair and looks at her cheerleading pictures* Up yours, Meyer.
So Bree eats the person, and considering this is written in first person, it’s very detached. Nothing like this, and that was in third person. She mentions she’s moaning (a hint of how much they enjoy feeding glossed over and ignored because Meyer thinks vampire stuff is icky) and that the blonde chick is gurgling, but a couple of paragraphs later, she’s done. “The problem with humans was that they just never had enough blood in them.” My apologies, Bree. Why don’t you go for Bella? If Breaking Dawn is anything to go by, she’s got about fifty gallons in her. On a more serious note: Why do these vampires forget so quickly that THEY WERE ONCE HUMAN? Or should I be asking Meyer that?
Bree has a tantrum when she’s done, throwing the body away, and considers stealing the other chick before Diego is finished with the pimp. Unfortunately, Diego’s finished, and looking at her. “He looked at me with an expression that I could only describe as… sympathetic. But I could have been dead wrong. I couldn't remember anyone ever giving me sympathetic before, so I wasn't positive what it looked like.”
Would you like some cheese to go with that whine, Bree?
Diego then is a gentleman and tells her to eat up-he doesn’t need the other woman. Aww, this is just like that scene behind the Italian restaurant in Lady and the Tramp where Tramp gives Lady the meatball. Bree is all overly-suspicious but then hops on and eats up. Considering all of the sexual connotations feeding usually has, let’s just all laugh at how Meyer essentially wrote Bree date-raping an unconscious prostitute and didn’t even know she did it. Bree talks about how this one is better than the other, because the other one tasted all nasty and like drugs. See how insane with bloodlust newborns are, that they can complain about taste and can tell the difference between one human and another? That thing that Meyer claimed only experts like Edward can do after a century of experience?
Bree finishes, and turns to the audience as usual and tells us all about how strange it was that Diego would give up something so tasty, complete with the wondrous and lone sentence of, “Why had he done it?” This is really, really stupid.
Bree thanks him for it when she finishes, and Diego says that it gets better as they get older and then says they should ditch the bodies in the nearby sound. Diego grabs two of them while Bree gets one, and I am supposed to think about how nice it is that Diego is grabbing more than she is, except there are a number of problems with that.
1) These vampires can pick up cars that can weigh tons, so why the hell is he being all gentlemanly by picking up two bodies?
2) Wasn’t Bree just talking about how she was so much stronger than he was?
3) It doesn’t sound so much as like he’s being gentlemanly as much as it’s more of that crap Meyer likes to do where the women do less than the men when it comes to physical work.
4) YOU ARE USING BODY DISPOSAL AS A WAY TO SHOW HOW NICE AND CONSIDERATE DIEGO IS.
They start making their way over to the sound, and Bree makes the following observation when they pass over a freeway: “I thought how stupid people were, how oblivious, and I was glad I wasn't one of the clueless.”
Sometimes, all you can really say is just a resounding “fuck you”. So-FUCK YOU, MEYER.
They reach the sound and dive in, and Bree talks about how sexy Diego is as he swims through the water. Bree tells us that they are a hundred feet down, and that to a pitiful pathetic human, “it would have seemed pitch-black”. No. It wouldn’t have. You have to go a bit deeper to have total lack of light. Of course, that also begs the question of just how these vampires are able to see in pitch-black. They are science-based, yes? And if you base it on science, the only way they can see is if there is the tiniest bit of light there for their eyes to amplify. Oh, wait-Meyer’s a dumbass.
Diego picks up a boulder with one hand and they pop all three bodies under it, and he puts the boulder back on. And I gotta say-the body disposal took a lot longer to describe than the actual eating. Diego then offers Bree a high five. Yeah, Bree, wooooo, you two murdered three people and have now smashed their bodies under some boulders! Let’s all celebrate!
Meyer, do not make me pull out my fist-pounding chart again.
Bree is all freaked out and can’t figure out that he’s offering her a high-five. THIS IS SO STUPID. Bree just pokes his hand and runs away, and Diego goes up to the surface to have a good laugh, and Bree bitches at him because she thought he was going to tear her arm off.
WHY? WHY WOULD HE DO THIS? WHY WOULD ANY OF THEM DO THAT? ARE YOU JUST THAT BIG OF A BITCH? Honestly! This makes no sense! Are these people just naturally this psycho when they turn?! Maybe I should give Wardo a break now, seeing as all of the newborns are nuts who just tear people apart for NO REASON, and this is only after they’ve been vampires for a couple of months! Meyer, this is a bad dead herring, even for you-all of this emphasis on how he’s CLEARLY GOING TO TRY AND KILL HER, SINCE EVERYONE ELSE DOES, when that makes so very LITTLE sense in ANY scenario-even if I bought that when you turn into a vampire, you apparently turn into a complete bastard who wants to dismember everyone you look at. HOW ON EARTH DOES THAT WORK STRATEGY-WISE FOR A NEWBORN ARMY? I’m not talking about just your troops tearing themselves apart-I’m talking about your troops tearing YOU apart. They are newborns-YOU AREN’T. I ask again-WHY HAVEN’T THESE CRAZY PEOPLE TORN RILEY TO SHREDS YET?!
Hmph. Diego then asks her out for some more hunting. Aww, how sweet-they’re on a date! They find two homeless guys, suck them dry, and bury them in the sound too. This is so sweet. Can’t you feel the romance? They have a mutual interest of killing only disposable people.
Diego talks about how he won’t need to eat for “a few weeks”, while Bree only has a couple of days before she is hungry. Or rather, “burning”. It’s just that she’s hungry, Meyer, stop calling it burning. I’m just getting the vibe that she’s doing her best to avoid the idea of her precious characters eating people. Bree complains some more about how she’ll have to hunt with Raoul’s folks, because Riley will make her. If he doesn’t care who goes out hunting, why would he deliberately send you with Raoul’s bunch? Diego offers to go with her, since he has his run of the place.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Bree turns to the audience AGAIN. Jesus, we’re only on page fifteen, how many times has she done that so far?! This time, she’s hitting us with the romance sledgehammer again. “I thought about the offer, suspicious for a second. But Diego really didn't seem like any of the others. I felt different with him. Like I didn't need to watch my back so much.” Thanks for telling us. Any time you are interested in simply SHOWING us, I’m sure we’d be glad to watch. She tells Diego she’d like it if he went with her, but then quickly emphasizes how totally hardcore she is and how she doesn’t need him and saying she likes something is totally foreign to her because she’s from the slums, dood, and as that’s the end of page fifteen, I’m gonna cut it off here.
So. Fifteen pages. Six people have been killed, and nobody is likeable. I have found out that Bree is a bitch and thinks she is better than everyone else. After fifteen pages, I do not feel for these people. Well, that isn’t true-already I don’t like them, because they’re psychotic murderers who don’t feel bad about killing and eating people, and in fact are telling us as humans that killing us is great because we just suck. And Meyer has done nothing in the text to indicate that this is a bad opinion to have. I would have no problem with this if she were deliberately writing them as monsters or completely alien with no sense of right or wrong, but these are normal people. These people were human. But not anymore! Because they are now physically different than me, they think I suck and that it’s awesome to kill me. So tell me, Meyer-is it white-washing or simply a white sheet?
I’ll be back with another section tomorrow. BEWARE.
Table of Contents | Part II