The Vampire Diaries (Series)

Lies dieses Review auf Deutsch!

Title: The Vampire Diaries
Author: Lisa J. Smith
Publisher: Harper/HarperTeen
Price: 9.99 $ /two-in-one-book
Source: bought
Pages: ca. 500-530
Books: 1. The Awakening, 2. The Struggle, 3. The Fury, 4. Dark Reunion, 5. The Return: Nightfall, 6. The Return: Shadow Souls, 7. The Return: Midnight (March 2011)

Elena is the most popular girl at school and falls in love with Stefan Salvatore. What nobody knows is, that Stefan is a vampire, a vegetarion one (=he only consumes animal blood), but if he lost control, he'd be a huge danger for the humans. He came to Fell's Church to escape his brother Damon, who is a vampire too, drinks human blood, tho. And he loves giving Stefan a hard time.

The brothers are bound by their love to the vampire Catarina, who, back then, couldn't decide between them and just picked to change them both into vampires. But Damon and Stefan didn't want to share and since then, there's a bitter "war" between them. Catarina may have died soon after the change (because she went into the sun), but that didn't stop the fight between the brothers.
And it doesn't really help that Elena look exactly like Catarina and that Stefan falls in love with her. Damon follows his brother to Fell's Church to terrorize hime there with the help of his powers. He kills a couple of people and makes the evidence looks like Stefan was the murderer in order to get the citizens against him.
Elena looses nearly all her friends because she's the hated Stefan's girlfriend. Only her and her friends Meredith and Bonnie know the truth about Stefan, so they try to proof the guy's innocence. But then they find out that Damon isn't he only one behind all of it...

Personal opinion:
Looking at the plot, "The Vampire Diaries" is a very interesting book series, but especially the first three books are written very cheesy, looking at the worst situation as if there's always something good to it. For example, if I found out my boyfriend were a vampire, I'd first of all break up with him and follow my instinct of self-preservation, but Elena acts in that situation as if she found out that Stefan played Pokémon or something like that, so it's really surreal. The cheesyness fades with the books, but it's still there.
As most of you know, there's also a TV series called "The Vampire Diaries", loosely based on the novels, but it really only has veeery few got to do with the books: some characters behave differently, don't exist, were newly invented or have different names. The unbearably cheesiness doesn't exist there, it's more trimmed on being a thriller/horror. And Elena even behaves reasonable!
If you want to read those books, you sure can, but I'd recommend the series instead of the book due to the lack of reason behind some character's actions. But still, I think the series was good, the plot is original and the characters lovable.

Who is your favourite character? Mine is Damon in the books, especially in book 4 and 5, and Jeremy in the series. Write down your favourite character in the comments!

by Cecile