Bree Part 3

Otis keeps this freight train barreling down the tracks at over a hundred miles an hour without stopping. I can see why she opted to skip chapters as that might give us time to catch our breath and she wanted us to know that, yes she could have been the one to write the script for Unstoppable but Hollywood missed the chance and they had to make do with Mark Bomback, who is, incidentally, also terrible.

Yes, Diego and Bree stop by an empty bigbox retail store to snag some backpacks and sealable sandwich bags. Apparently Bree doesn’t like getting her books wet though why this would be a problem isn’t explained, presumably because Otis has mistaken herself for a suspense writer, rather than someone that panders to the market of retards that need some self insertion fantasy where all the guys with washboard abs pine for them.

They jump into the water and start swimming towards an island in the “sound”. I know Otis doesn’t like to offer concrete details as, those can be fact checked and used to prove she’s a moron, but come on. Anyway, they’re all supposedly hiding out in a cabin on an island in thePuget Sound. Or they were up until this point. Someone threw one of those parties you only see in the movies where seven thousand people show up and then disappear at the first hint of sirens, leaving a mess that rivalsNormandyBeachcirca nineteen forty four.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen our house destroyed—with all the fights and fires in the basements, most of them lasted only a few weeks—but it was the first time I’d come across the scene of destruction with the first faint rays of sunlight threatening.

And how, exactly, are they managing to only get headlines for murder? If they keep moving aroundSeattleand destroying places, surely someone has to be wondering if there isn’t someone out to drop everyone’s property value. I mean, I know Seattle PD has had some embarrassingly moments like being unable to connect the dots in the Green River killings but even theReno911! crew might get suspicious when people go missing and houses are collapsing every week.

And I feel I should mention at this point that someone has convinced the fledglings that they burst into flames at the first touch of sunlight. Though I haven’t figured out exactly why they told them this, it’s good to see Otis is grudgingly acknowledging that vampires existed before she started writing about them. It means that someone inside the Twilight universe has heard about vampires without having to do an internet search first.

Now, being convinced that she’s been turned into a ginger and will go up like the Deepwater Horizon platform at the first sign of light, Bree panics like the strong, Otis brand female protagonist she is. Luckily there’s a man nearby who can share one of his ideas with her. Diego tells her he knows of a safe place nearby.

“Don’t freak out, Bree,” Diego said, sounding too calm. “I know a place. C’mon.”

He did a very graceful backflip off the bluff edge.

Ok, Otis. We need to chat for a second. See, if you decided to narrate this as an omniscient author then you could say that and make it so. But as you’re telling this through Bree that means certain things, like this, are subjective. This wouldn’t be a problem if Bree was attracted to Diego but you haven’t hinted at that yet. How does she know he does all this gracefully then? Is she a former Olympic judge? Maybe she judges men’s gymnastics and swimming in her spare time.

Diego leads her to a small crevasse in the rock underwater which eventually leads to a cave. Bree figures it’s a safe place to hang out for the day and wait for nightfall. Gee, it’s a good thing Diego has all this extra time to go looking for cubbyholes to tuck himself and a friend away for a day. I’m sure it wouldn’t be easier to burrow down using their vampire speed and strength instead of having to find an alternate hiding place. And why can’t they just pitch a tent and then wrap themselves in blankets while hiding inside? Oh, right. That’s too simple.

And so the two sit around a campfire and tell ghost stories while Diego strums a guitar. Then they talk about what they were like when they were human. Ready for a giant surprise? Diego was eighteen and Bree was, maybe, sixteen if not fifteen. Even the antagonists in this series have to have a weird age gap in their relationship. Remember girls, if he’s not creepily older than you he’s not worth it. And then Otis pets her little avatar some more.

“You’ve done really well since you got here,” he said, his eyes sweeping across my crossed arms, my folded legs. “You’ve survived—avoided the wrong kind of attention, kept intact.”

And then Diego talks about how different she is from all the others that Riley brings in and then he hints at how troubled he was. Hmm, bad boy with mysterious past? Check. Young, dumb, female narrator who’s incredibly naïve? Check again. Were you honestly worried that we couldn’t tell you wrote it Otis? This has way too many parallels to Twilight to be worth reading.

We get it Otis, you don’t have any more ideas. You know one story which you repeat endlessly. And even with all the practice you get doing it, you don’t manage to get any better. Why don’t you just walk away from the damned keyboard and go play in traffic?

I mean, what was the point of this? It was supposed to give us insight or some crap, at least Otis claimed she wrote it because it gave her insight. Personally I think this was just a failed novel that Otis decided she could cash in on.