Welcome back to another edition of books I did not finish featuring a series. And a very well known one at that, so popular it became a very successful American TV series. . . .
The Vampire Diaries
by
L. J. Smith
Anyone who knows me can tell you that I loved the Vampire Diaries the minute I read it. I read it after Twilight, and was one of the people putting the 'Twi-hards' who claimed it was a copy of Twilight in their place by revealing it was published more than a decade earlier than Twilight. Yes I very much enjoyed that!
The picture above is my copy of the first 2 books The Awakening and The Struggle, yes it is almost identical in cover to Twilight, but honestly the story is better and far less infuriating.
Now I know what you're thinking. This book is Love Triangle central, well first of all I read this book just before the Love Triangle craze boomed in YA novels, and second for me there was no love triangle, it was always Damon. (Can I just warn you that I am staunchly Team Damon, for me Stefan never had a look in!)
I hated it in the TV show when in the first series they made Damon even more of an ass-hole (pardon my language) than he was in the book. Pretty much everyone I knew was team Stefan it was only those of us who read the book that were Team Damon.
Anyway back to the books, I read all the books in the original series, and I read all the books in the return series, and was preparing to read the next series, but something happened that meant I would never ever touch that series (and it has nothing to do with Stefan or Damon just for clarification) but I will get on to that later.
I shall now divulge synopsis'.
The Awakening: "Elena Gilbert is used to getting what she wants and she wants mysterious new boy, Stefan. But Stefan is hiding a deadly secret - a secret that will change Elena's life forever ..."
The Struggle: "Elena is torn between her boyfriend, Stefan, and his brother, Damon. But these brothers hide dark secrets and a tragic past that threatens them all. Damon wants to lead Elena astray - and he'd rather kill Stefan than let him possess her ..."
The Fury: "Elena is torn between her love for Stefan and her desire for Damon. The time spent with each brother leads her to their same fate - eternal life as a vampire. The Salvatore brothers are ready to kill each other but a threatening darkness from their past shows up forcing them to try and work together."
Dark Reunion: "With Elena gone, Stefan and Damon struggle to keep their final promise to watch out for each other. When Stefan is summoned back to Fell's Church Damon follows. The Salvatore brothers will face the darkest evil that either of them have ever seen as they try to save the small town and Elena's family and friends."
At the time I read these books they were everything I needed them to be. To me they were the books for an 'ageing' Twilight audience, it was vampire romance but darker and bloodier, and it had more going for it that just its love triangle. I told anyone who would listen to read them because to me they were better than Twilight and always will be.
I'm about to go off an a tangent here, but it's my blog so I'll do what I like and if I can't ramble here were can I? I need to vent! Books vs TV series. I've always had a love hate relationship with the TV series. Like Damon being a complete ass-hole on TV. I was about ready to give up on the series when the second season finale came and went and Elena was still human, but something made me carry on with it and sure enough season 3 finale see's Elena becoming a vampire and I was just jumping for joy, I was so happy. Then season 4 happened. But let's back track, I remember reading an Interview with Paul Wesley and they asked him what he thought would happen to Elena now she was a vampire. He didn't know. But I did I read the books, I knew that Elena died as a vampire at the end of book three, she was killed by Katherine. Then she comes back to life as a supernatural being at the end of book four. What happened in the season 4 finale you ask? There was a fight between Elena and Katherine (throughout this fight I'm jumping in my seat thinking it's going to happen!!!) and in the end Katherine is killed. Wait! What?! That's not how it goes!!! Yes fans of the TV show who haven't read the book, it should have been Elena who died! And it infuriates me to no end that it was Katherine who died instead! I honestly don't know if I will carry on with the TV show because they changed such a pivotal plot point. That's not okay with me.
Anyway away from my anger at the TV show let's go back to my anger with the books and why I did not finish this series despite loving it so much. As I mentioned above I read all the original series and the return series. I loved them all except the end of the last book in the Return series when Damon dies I cried like a baby when I read that.
I will not touch the Hunters series with a 10 foot pole. Why? Because the author L J Smith was fired. Yes fired from writing the last books of her series. (By the way I told a little white lie earlier when I said it had nothing to do with Stefan and Damon). She was fired because the publisher wanted strictly Stelena (Stefan and Elena) books, and the author was making it Damon and Elena (Delena) something I was very happy about. It makes no sense to me because the majority of people I have spoken to who read the book preferred Damon and Elena, and a lot of the fans of the original series have refused to carry on out of loyalty to the original author. Just like me. I have read the reviews of those books, I will not touch that ghost written mess. To me the Vampire Diaries ended with The Return: Midnight. because even though Damon technically died your given a small inkling that he may still be alive and that was enough for me. I was happy. I can't read a series where a publisher fired the author because she wasn't writing what they wanted her to write. I just can't do it. And if the TV show from here on out follows the path of the ghost written books I will be hugely disappointed that something I loved so much was ruined because L J Smith was fired.
That being said I will not discourage anyone from reading the books including the Hunters series that is your decision to make. I recommend the first two series but I cannot recommend the last. In my head Vampire Diaries ended with Midnight. To me it will always be Damon and Elena because of the way the characters were developing anyone could see that, and just to be clear, I could have lived with a Stefan and Elena end game if L J Smith had written it. This was her series it was her vision and if that was the way she saw the characters developing fair enough, I can't deal with a Stefan and Elena end game when it became the publishers choice.
Did you read this book? Did you finish the series? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.
That's all for today I hope you enjoyed this post and I shall see you all on Wednesday!
Don't forget to comment below and tell me your opinion on this book! I would love to hear from you!
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I liked the first three, even though not much actually happens, but I'm upto the fourth one and it's so much harder to read, maybe it's because I hate Bonnie.. I dunno! Xx
ReplyDeleteOh yeah I forgot the fourth one is Bonnie telling the story! Glad I'm not the only one that doesn't like her! I probably only liked that one because of how it ended! Xx
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