Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Awakening & The Struggle - Review

The Awakening and The Struggle (The Vampire Diaries 1&2)
by L.J. Smith
Rating: 1,5/5

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Elena: the golden girl, the leader, the one who can have any boy she wants.

Stefan: brooding and mysterious, he seems to be the only one who can resist Elena, even as he struggles to protect her from the horrors that haunt his past.

Damon: sexy, dangerous, and driven by an urge for revenge against Stefan, the brother who betrayed him. Determined to have Elena, he'd kill to possess her.

Collected here in one volume for the first time, volumes one and two of The Vampire Diaries, the tale of two vampire brothers and the beautiful girl torn between them.

I've tried to read these book one time before, but I stopped about 150 pages in. I was following the TV series at the time and got really annoyed about the differences between the books and tv series. But I've stopped watching The Vampire Diaries, so I decided to pick up the books again. And this time try to not compare the books to the tv series.


The plot is not the most original. A new boy, Stephan, comes to Elena's school. He's gorgeous, cool and mysterious. He doesn't really talk with people, but of course all the girls want him. Elena, who's kind of the queen bee, tries to "make friends" with him (Read: Tries to get together with him so that all the other girls will be jealous of her). In the beginning he rejects her but after some time she gets what he wants. But then Stephan's super sexy brother (who wants to get together with Elena) comes and makes crazy shit happen in the town and in Elena's life! BAM BAM BAM *Insert dramatic music here*

To be honest, I didn't like the romance in these books. It felt unrealistic. I understand that Elena wanted Stephan's attention in the beginning. But after he's been acting like a jerk and they've only known each other for really short time, she's in love with him and sure that they'll marry each other? Now you're probably thinking: "But hey, that's exactly like Twilight?! How can you like Twilight so much, if you don't like this?". But no, it isn't exactly like Twilight. In Twilight, Edward opens up after a while and becomes really cute, funny and lovely. Stephan doesn't. In fact, Stephan was kind of boring the whole time. And Elena was a bitch.

Aside from the bad "romance" I don't know what about these books annoyed me so much. The writing was okay, the rest of the characters were okay, the ending was cliffhangerish (In both books). But this book just wasn't for me. But obviously everyone else loves it. So I'm not going to tell you to not read it. You might love it.

1 comment:

  1. I'm going to have to agree with you on this one... I just finished reading it and it didn't really impress me either. I didn't find it annoying, but the whole story of how they got together was unrealistic. Elena wanted Stefan, Stefan ignored everyone and then it was suddenly, bam, Stefan, I love you... I don't usually mind reading books where the romance develops a little to quickly, but this was just stupid.
    And yes, Elena is a bitch. And Stefan just sits there and looks, or talks. Doesn't really do anything! I am glad I found someone who sees it too!
    Other than that, the writing was ok, and I enjoyed The Struggle a lot more than The Awakening.

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