Vegetarian vampires turn non-veg

Vampires were never this much in vogue. Stephenie Meyer took the bloodsuckers of popular fiction and turned them into candy floss heroes with her vampire-meets-chic-lit novels: the Twilight series. Her vampires look like high-end fashion models and stick to a ‘vegetarian’ diet of animal blood. What’s not to love, really? 

So it comes as no shock when Meyer returns in The Short Second Life Of Bree Tanner, to the fringe world of vampires Isabella and Edward Cullen. Except this time she explores the darker world of the newborn vampire. And as if to make up for lost time, her latest book is sparking with crazed vampires thirsting for human blood. Hobbes, British political philosopher of the 17th century described a world where every man was against every man and life as, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” This could very well serve as an apt description of newbie vampire life in the Bree Tanner novel.

Bree’s fateful end is as already described in the Eclipse novel: a fight in the meadows with the young vampire ending up as collateral damage. What Meyer outlines now is the brief window between her becoming a vampire and dying as one. But disappointment is imminent. Sure there’s the predictable buzz of seeing “newbie” vampires savage innocents and each other. But Bree’s life, though intensely lived, lasts only a few days. Her budding romance with Diego is nipped before we really begin to care. The only other character, Fred, that is of interest is too clearly labelled ‘subplot.’ The story lacks the kind of momentum that built up the Twilight series.

Nevertheless, most Meyer fans will likely pick it up. If only to relive the adrenalin rush of Twilight: that seductive combination of menace and romance.