What's up Rad Readers? So I think the title says it all, but incase not, I did not like The Vampire Diaries at all. I read The Awakening and The Struggle in the edition where both were included, so I only bought one book but in contained both the first and second volume, and I can't imagine not reading them back to back because when the first volume (The Awakening) ended I was still unsure what the main plot was supposed to be. Like, we get it, Stefan is a vampire and Elena doesn't like Caroline and is kind of a sociopath, but where is the conflict and motivation for the story? The whole story line with Tyler felt so weirdly forced and the way the author describes high school and the way she envisions the way they interact cringed me out wayyyy too hard.
I know I've said before that I don't like when book reviewers say that a book "lacks substance," but oh boy -let me tell you- if there is one book that lacks substance that I have read thus far, my fellow book readers, this is it.
Where do I even begin?
I know that the TV show and the book weren't really intended to be very similar at all and I knew when I bought the book it would be not much like the show I'd watched, but I didn't know it would be SO different. By that I mean I thought the show was good and the book was bad. The clichés in this book are infinite, and I don't mean tropes. A trope is just something done commonly. Just because it's common doesn't mean it's bad. Some books really pull it off! One that immediately comes to mind is the Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. In the Mara Dyer series you get the "I have powers!?" trope, the semi-bad guy with a tragic back story trope, the dealing with a tragedy trope, and so so so much more. The difference is that it is done extremely well. A cliché lacks original thought, is overused, not spun in a more creative or different direction. That is what you get in The Awakening and The Struggle.
I almost didn't finish this one and I'm not a big supporter of DNFing books. I typically give them a chance, but this book just dragged on for so long, didn't have any serious content given the potential severity of the matter, and a lot of it was just so annoyingly unrealistic.
No social construct in the face of the world even parallels what was described in this story; this competition between Caroline and Elena to be the most self centered, shallow, "popular" (whatever that means in this book) is painful to read about because I just could not care less, and I cannot recognize this to be my fault for picking up a book about vampires because I have familiarized myself with all types of vampire based literature and have never found it as mind numbingly pointless as this.
Also! What is up with this new history teacher, like I don't care that some tragedy happened at this school, teachers don't invite students over their houses, let alone throw parties, let alone make it part of their grade! That is the kind of stuff I'm talking about when I say things in this book are annoyingly unrealistic, not the whole vampire super natural stuff.
The two main characters... I mean can we talk about brooding and dramatic for a second!? Elena has literally only seen this person walk by her in the hallway and suddenly she configures this whole game plan with half the school behind her back so she can "have him." WHAT? If this were written the other way around it would be more obvious how wack this is. It's so stalker-ish and weird. Then she hangs out with him for like half of a night and professes her love for him... ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHAT IS THIS? Also, Elena just found out that Vampires exist and all she cares about is that Caroline and Tyler stole her journal, and then she didn't even think to have her freaking vampire boyfriend use his powers to have them give it back?
Why do Caroline and Tyler care so much about Stefan to the point where they are trying to literally FRAME HIM FOR MURDER! Sure, you don't like the kid but this is definitely a little extreme, all he did was reject Caroline and get into a fight with Tyler. That is definitely not reason enough to commit a serious crime. High school students don't frame each other for murder, not even in the most extreme alternate bookish universes.
Enough of the complaining though, I will give this book credit where credit is due; I think Damon is a very interesting and intriguing character that L.J. Smith wrote very well. I like that he is unapologetically blatant about what he's out for and I like that he isn't your typical villain. That was one cliché that this book definitely avoided, that being the villain turned good guy because of the main girl. He was bad from the beginning and bad at the end and never really faltered and totally owned it. I recognize that L.J. Smith is a good author and I have other books of hers on my TBR list, perhaps it is because I read this book very long after its publication and likely long after this story line or plot/subplots were popular, but unless I am feeling particularly masochistic one day I do not plan on finishing this series... who knows.
I would still say read it though, because there have been books I've read that I've really loved despite consistently poor reviews, so, to each their own.
Form your own opinions dudes and check out this book if you don't mind some lame story lines.
Keep it cool readers,
-C8 ;)
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