Mirkat Always Reading

I downloaded the audiobook version of this novella from my library's electronic-collection website upon noticing that it was recommended to me.  The reason it was recommended, I am sure, is that I had recently borrowed the Kindle edition of The Host (which I've already read in paperback format).  And the reason for my acquiring The Host is that I'm following Das Mervin's sporking of the book over at the Das_Sporking LiveJournal community (look it up if you're not already familiar with it--you won't be sorry!).

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner had been the only book in the Twilight series that I had not listened to or read already.  I frankly didn't see the point, since Bree's fate is already laid out in Eclipse, where she is shown to be an insignificant side character who lives on-page for about five minutes.  However, I was actually looking for something to listen to during runs.  I'm still waiting for the friggin' download of A Dance With Dragons (I haven't been doing enough driving to get very far with the CDs, and ripping them to load onto the mp3 player is too much of a PITA).  (Also been too distracted to do much reading of the text versions I have checked out.)

So, Bree.  I saw how short it is (four hours and change of listening time) and decided to give it a go.  Plus it also gave me a reason to backtrack and reading Das Mervin's spork of the novella.  I definitely recommend it, as she pretty much lays out everything I was thinking while listening, but more meticulously.

This narrative was completely gratuitous.  It didn't make Bree a sympathetic character.  She has been a vampire for just three months when the story begins, and she has maintained absolutely zero connection to her human past.  She slaughters humans without the slightest bit of regret, seeing them as weak and pathetic and deserving to be her next meal.  She's also super-stupid, taking forever to deduce things most people would figure out long, long before she even determines there is anything to figure out.

And insta-love.  She almost immediately falls in love with a fellow "newborn" vampire named Diego, based on pretty much nothing more than killing, feeding, disposing of bodies together, and then discovering that the sun doesn't kill them but instead makes them sparkle.

When the "Bree" narrative finally catches up to Eclipse, we get copy-pasted dialogue plus Bree's adding-nothing thoughts and reactions (mostly being super-amazed by the Cullens and wanting to tear into Bella's super-delicious "sweet"-smelling blood).

As Mervin points out, it would have made much more sense to tell the newborn-army story from the point of view of Victoria, its master-mind (using that word loosely) or Riley (her lieutenant in charge of wrangling the dirt-stupid newborns Victoria creates).  This novella is made of fail