Bitting into a great book!

The Vampire Diaries (1991)

Smith, L. J. 

Fiction

2.5/5 stars 

     Elena Gilbert had always gotten what and who she wanted. She was the prettiest, and the most popular girl in school, everyone wanted her approval. She was always looked up to as the confident young women everyone wanted to be. That is until the summer before her senior year at Robert E. Lee Hight School. Elena's parents were both killed in a car accident leaving her four-year-old sister Margaret and herself to be raised by their aunt Judith. After that everything changed. Though Elena tried very hard to act normal, and confident like she had always been everyone knew she was not the same. When senior year started  she was determined to be that "popular girl that everyone wanted to be"again. On the first day of school Elena, who had always had an eye for boys, spotted one in particular. She had never seen him before, and she was determined to make him hers. Elena makes her two best friends, Bonnie and Meredith swear to do anything and everything they can to help her get him, and because of that without knowing they had just found themselves in the most horrifying year of their lives. 

   Elena finds herself, and finds what it is like to choose right from wrong. She learns that popularity is not all that needs to achieved in life. In the beginning of the book Elena is very egotistic. She only cares what is going on with her life and how she can make her popularity increase even more, but after she meets Stephan her perspective shifts, and she realizes that even though she is no longer the most popular girl she is happy, and she does not care what other people think of her any more. 

     The Vampire Diaries has some humorous parts to it, but mostly it focusses in on the drama of the story. L. J. Smith wrote this book in a third-person omniscient narrator which gives you an inside look on any characters thoughts and feelings at anytime. Though you are mostly reading from the prospective of Elena and Stephan it does switch around to other characters. This is confusing at sometimes because you do need to read a bit into each "change" in order to know what character you are reading from the prospective of because the author does not really give you a hint that the prospective has changed. 

      This book was definitely intended for an older group around 15 year-olds and older, and most likely the gender reading it would be female, but that does not mean males would not like it as well. There are fight scenes quite often adding to the the more intense side of the book, but also watch out there is the lovey-dovey things as well. There is very mild language but the book does have violent  scenes in it so be prepared.

     The Vampire Diaries is actually nothing at all like the Twilight series, but I am still not a die hard fan of the books. The writing is put together well and the plot has many well thought out twists and turns, but I was not totally in love with the story itself, and that could just be that I am not one for vampire love stories, but that is just my opinion. The Vampire Diaries was on the "New York Times Bestselling List" and had many good reviews written about it.