Gil’s All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez

“Reality is like a fruitcake: Pretty enough to look at but with all sorts of nasty things lurking just beneath the surface.”

That’s it, that line up there. That’s as good as it gets, you’d think with a vampire, a werewolf a couple hundred pound waitress, ghosts, a horny teenage boy, zombies and the end of the world, not to mention undead cows there would be something more to say, but there isn’t.

Would I recommend this? No. This was Martinez’s first book I have read In The Company Of Ogres and A Nameless Witch and enjoyed both of them, they do have a dark, snarky sense of humor but they were good. This one was not.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

Now the problem with this post is that I must publicly admit that not only have I read all the twilight books but that I was interested enough to check out this “eclipse novella.”  Yup, I read them, and I liked them. I did not start until after they were all written and I had a few friends rave about them, but I did eventually cave, and I was addicted, and I read them all back to back, and my husband has teased me about it ever since. I have not however gone to see any of the movies. How you can make a movie out of a book where the main character just talks about how beautiful her vampire boyfriend is and then not have that beautiful of a guy acting as the vampire is beyond me, but I digress…

This book takes one very minor character from Eclipse and gives you her whole story.  I think I can do no better than what Stephenie Meyer says in the forward:

“I hope you end up caring about Bree as much as I do, though that’s kind of a cruel wish. You know this: it doesn’t end well for her. But at least you will know the whole story. And that no perspective is ever really trivial.”

I think it exemplifies the part of authors that awes me. To create and know your characters so well that you have all these back stories in your head, to not only choose what goes in a book  and what doesn’t, but to have enough knowledge of your creation that everyone no matter how small a part acts accordingly, whether we as readers know it the first time we meet them or not. It amazes me.

Would I recommend it? Now I feel sort of silly, and maybe I’m not making any sense tonight, but my answer to this is no. This isn’t really a book to pick up just to read, if you have read the rest of them then sure, its a fun (OK,well not super fun it is a very short life) read. But I didn’t think it was awesome in itself or a necessary addendum to the books.  It is what it stands for that amazes me, the actual book not so much.

There is no picture, becuase the book is black and shiny which I find mostly impossible to photograph. Not only that it is highly recognizable from afar as a Stephenie Meyer book, you don’t need my poor picture to find this one on a shelf!