The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

                  (An Eclipse Novella - The Twilight Saga)

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner follows a newly transformed Bree Tanner through her dangerous and confusing new immortal life. She’s managed to survive as a vampire for 3 months under the strained rule of notorious vampire Riley mostly due to luck and her clever notion that hiding behind Freaky Fred (a large and intimidating vampire with a knack for mentally repelling other vampires) will render her invisible. She falls in love with Diego, Riley’s trusted right-hand man. Out of respect and fear they both support Riley’s rules and follow them to a T. They know only one thing for certain, the most important of his rules, you must be home before sunrise unless, of course, you want to explode into ashes.  However, when Bree and Diego become trapped inside a sun-infested cave after coming back from a late hunt they learn the truth about the sun, and begin to question not only Riley’s knowledge but also his motives. They want to know exactly what source he ‘s been extracting these lies from. Is it the woman in the house he frequently visits, the one they’ve never seen? Is it the group of hooded figures that rarely come to call, giving them chills down their already frozen spines? When Diego suddenly disappears one day Bree is left to question their existence alone. As Riley’s army makes their journey from Seattle towards Washington (Forks, to be exact) Bree struggles between her need to reach Diego and her fear of what lies ahead. She’s faced with a terrible choice of fight or flight, but just what exactly are they fighting for and who’s commands are they truly fulfilling? She’s heading towards death itself with only half-truths and half an army on her side.

In all honesty, I didn’t like this book. Not because it wasn’t interesting or was poorly written, but because it took one of my favorite characters from the saga and completely twisted her into something I didn’t care for. I had a fixed image of Bree, a character I easily felt sympathy for, but when she began calling herself a god I realized this wasn’t a character I could relate to. She was revealed to be something completely opposite of what I had envisioned. What I did like about this book was the glimpse into the backstage action that we finally got to see. My sympathy immediately shifted from Bree to Riley himself, as he was dragged over and over through the maze of lies Victoria pulled him through. He was just as much a victim as any of the other newborns, only he was the one left holding the blame. I think this book allowed his character to redeem some respect and brought closure to some of the unanswered questions fans of the saga still had. 

The Trylle Trilogy

The Trylle Trilogy by Amanda Hocking

Switched 

  (Book #1)

Switched follows the life of Wendy Everly, your typical under-achiever who is bounced around from high school to high school while her older brother Matt and guardian Aunt Maggie plead with her to stop slacking off. She’s felt like an outsider her entire life, well, ever since her mother tried to impale her with a butcher knife at her sixth birthday party. Her mother claims that Wendy is not the same child she was pregnant with and swears that Wendy is responsible for somehow misplacing her unborn son. Shortly after Wendy makes a promise to Matt that she’ll begin applying herself at school, she begins noticing a dark, mysterious figure watching her (amazing the things you notice when you’re actually awake in class). Finn Holmes isn’t your typical teenager and when Wendy confronts him about his staring problem she realizes just how unusual he can be. He begins dragging her down a frustratingly sloping road of “He likes me; He likes me not”, and constantly turns up outside of her bedroom window, much to the displeasure of Matt who promptly vows to kill him. Finn forces Wendy to acknowledge the reasons why she feels like an outsider. Why she seems to always get her way, why she hates wearing shoes and why she’s the only Vegan in her entire family. Wendy is an outsider, in fact, she’s not even human. Worst of all, for any teenager, Wendy realizes that her mother was right.

It’s a little sad to say, but what initially prompted me to download this book was her clever use of the word ”Batshit”. In all seriousness though, the storyline grabbed me immediately. I can’t resist dark stories about violent, knife-wielding family members, it helps me forget about my own dysfunctional family for a while. Now I know what you’re thinking, a high school teenager in a new town being stalked by a mysterious guy who has a habit of climbing through her bedroom window. I get it, I thought that too.  Rest assured, there are no sparkles involved. While there are more than a few similarities to *ahem* other stories I’ve read, this book manages to hold it’s own and cleverly veers off of that “Been there, done that” road. I was hooked by the storyline but I stayed for the characters, especially Matt, who openly struggles with the unstable balance of being both a father-figure and brother to Wendy. It was way too easy to develop feelings for these characters, and that has to be one of the best things about this book.

(*Note: I chose to grade each book as a separate entity instead of grading the entire trilogy as a whole.)

Torn 

  (Book #2)

The one thing I hate about sequels is that they don’t begin where they left off. They constantly go back and re-explain things that (if you had read the first book) you should already know. And honestly who reads the middle of a trilogy without reading the beginning?

Okay so to catch you up to speed, Wendy isn’t human, in fact, she’s royalty. Wendy has to come to terms with who she is, battling her longing to remain with her host family or her duty to step up and lead her people, the ones who have been waiting so many years to finally meet her.  Wendy is also struggling with the immense disappointment of meeting her biological mother, Elora, who is distant and cold, and learning to share Matt with his biological brother, Rhys. Things begin to get a little more complicated. The Trylle tribe (or the dream team as I’ve come to think of them), which chiefly consists of Wendy, Finn, Duncan, Rhys, Willa, Tove and most recently Matt, is having an incredibly busy time. Finn, as a low-ranking tracker, has to learn to hide his feelings for Wendy from everyone else for fear of exiling himself and his entire family. Also, the Vittra, an enemy tribe who are bent on kidnapping Wendy prove that they’re not afraid to kill, maim and injure innocent bystanders to get to what they want. It’s only then that Wendy learns the truth about her biological father, King Oren, leader of the Vittra. It’s in her father’s household that she befriends Loki, a strange, non-violent member of the Vittra who seems amused and even intrigued by her.  Tove takes on the immense goal of training Wendy to control her psychic powers, preparing her for an inevitable battle with her own father and his people. We learn a little about Elora’s past, at least the love triangle she plays a part in, which her daughter, it seems, is doomed to repeat. Elora’s powers have drained her to the point where she’s clinging to life by her fingernails. When she dies Wendy will become Queen and the Vittra will come with a vengeance. Wendy’s complicated love triangle comes to a point with an awkward proposal before abruptly transforming into an unpredictable love square. Between wedding plans, strategizing how to overthrow the king, and wondering just what dark secret Matt has been concealing under the covers, Wendy has less time and more to lose than ever. The choice between love and duty has never been an easy one, but where do you start without knowing exactly where you stand? Wendy has to find out, and she has to find out fast.

This took what I expected to be a thoroughly predictable storyline to astonishing new heights and undiscovered depths. Sure, I was able to foresee the proposal probably from the very beginning but that’s where my crystal ball became hazy and unfocused. The love square, well that was just brilliant, and the fact that Wendy’s father would be revealed as her darkest enemy was just another pleasant surprise. I have to admit I didn’t see that coming and that’s exactly what I like to see (or not see) in a good book.  

Ascend 

   (Book #3)

Wendy begins coming into her own, taking on the duties her mother is now too weak to perform and actually, for once, acting like the Princess everyone expects her to be. She’s fighting against centuries of narrow-minded traditions set in place by both ignorance and fear (and just think she hasn’t even turned 18 yet). The coy but friendly Loki is treated like a chew toy, allowing the King to take out his frustrations on his skin to invoke a reaction from his daughter, and seeks shelter in Wendy’s palace. He then begins to reveal his true feelings for her and he’s not the only one. Ironically, it takes Elora being on her deathbed to prompt her to have a decent relationship with her daughter. It becomes clear just how much she now regrets her isolation and how much she had to go through to keep Wendy safe. With her childhood now behind her and her wedding fast approaching Wendy doesn’t have time for doubts or hectic thoughts. So, of course, the night before her wedding Finn decides to arrive ready and willing to show her exactly how much longing he’s been concealing (now that’s good timing). Her father decides to crash her wedding the next day to simply deliver a message and when Wendy assures him that she can’t be intimidated he saunters off but by no means backs down. Instead, he attacks a nearby village, destroying houses and killing thousands. He then launches an ambush on a small Trylle group who were out assessing the damage, killing some and injuring others, including Finn, much to Wendy’s dismay. Wendy then takes matters into her own hands attempting to barter with the king in exchange for peace for her people. However, the king’s twisted words convince Wendy to question Loki’s motives and she begins to wonder just how much of what he’s told her has been a lie. When the group travels to help the nearby village recover Wendy’s life joins the shambles surrounding her. She’s overcome with unexplainable emotions and overstressed about the future of her kingdom. After being beaten physically and emotionally, she’s close to the very edge of sanity. Her loveless marriage, her kingdom and her mother’s life are all hanging by a thread. The devastation around her opens her eyes to how real the threats from her father are and how horribly this could all end for her friends and her people. She begins to realize that this can only truly end in either war or murder. The question is just how do you kill pure evil and how much do you have to sacrifice to protect the ones you love?

This was by far my favorite book in the trilogy. It was the first time I allowed myself to leave the shallow waters of denial and was forced to admit that I was falling for these characters. The scenes between Tove and Wendy had me laughing so hard that I actually had to put down my Kindle, pick it up, reread the lines and start cracking up again. This was definitely the darkest of the three books, with unsuspecting turns and downright shocks to the system. I found myself actually screaming “What!?” at some of the choices being made. The one complaint that I have is that the grammar was a constant annoyance throughout the entire trilogy. There were misspelled words and even entire halves of sentences missing. However, for me, this book saved the entire trilogy.  Ultimately by the end, I was sad to see these characters go.

The Strange Case of Finley Jayne

The Strange Case of Finley Jayne by Kady Cross

        (prequel to The Steampunk Chronicles) 

Firstly, I just have to say, could her name get any cooler?

It just sort of runs off of your tongue like hot chocolate.

The Strange Case of Finley Jayne follows the life of (who else?) Finley Jayne of course. She’s a young girl simply trying to make her own way through 19^th century London but she’s by no means your ordinary girl. She harbors deep anger management issues and possesses superhuman powers that even she herself can’t understand. When one of her outbursts gets her fired from her job, she is sent back home and suddenly finds herself in the company of a rich aristocrat named Lady Morton. She is offered a position in Lady Morton’s luxurious home in exchange for providing companionship to her young daughter, Phoebe. Finley soon learns that Phoebe is recently engaged to Lord Vincent, a wealthy inventor with a mysterious, tragedy strewn past, and not only was Finley hired as a companion but also as a protector to soothe suspicions Lady Morton has been having recently. As the story unfolds Finley learns that almost everyone involved is concealing some kind of secret, false pretense, or hidden motive, but that some are more deadly than others.  

I loved this story almost from the second I began reading it. Finley Jayne is such a lively character. She’s bold and unforgiving unlike most of the simpering, spoiled, ball-gown-wearing, damsels in distress we encounter in so many old-century based books. This story surprised me by being less gruesome but somehow much darker than I expected. I wasn’t entirely sure that was possible. I read this story shortly after completing the Xbox 360 game Alice: Madness Returns and they blended together almost seamlessly, complimenting each other so well that it was almost scary. It really solidified the entire experience for me. I’m a new fan to the old Steampunk Era (how’s that for a contradiction?) and this story definitely left me wanting more.

  

Introduction

Let’s start this blog off with what every good idea should either begin with or ultimately end in...

a dream.

Rage by Richard Bachman (a.k.a. Stephen King)

This book is exceptionally hard to get your hands on, trust me I’ve looked.

 Then again everything has a price and for the right price you can get everything.

 For about $350.00 you can purchase this book used. 

Such a high price for a bound bit of paper, don’t you think?

Rage follows the life of Charlie, an unexceptional High School Student whose life takes a major turn when he is unexpectedly expelled from school. This then sends him spiraling into a fit of (no pun intended) rage, where he begins shooting various teachers and takes his entire Algebra 2 classroom hostage. He then successfully manages to turn the students of the classroom against each other in psychological, brainwashed, animalistic feuds, all the while keeping the police and media at bay with brutal threats and mind games. 

Stephen King chose to take the book out of print sometime after the 1997 Heath High School shooting in Kentucky. 

Due to certain similarities the book has been believed by some to have inspired several school shootings since its publication. Of course, it doesn’t help that copies of the book were found in possession of the students who were responsible for such events. 

Imagine, a dangerous book…and for once it’s not the Bible. 

Maybe that’s why this book seems so intriguing to me, because it’s the one book that shouldn’t be read. Or at least, it shouldn’t be read…by the wrong people.