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Vampire Diaries: The Awakening (spoilers) review

Something awful is going to happen today.


That's how the first book of the Vampire Diaries series begins. Elena, the protagonist of this story, has just returned home from her European vacation at the start of a new school year. There's an impending doom in the book from its very first page but Elena shakes off any dark feelings as she returns to school and resumes her rightful place as the "school Ice queen". Ok, first of all book!Elena is a Barbie doll. She's perfect has everything and every boy she wants with some added tragedy in her life so as not to make her a Mary sue. To be honest being a geeky girl since primary school I couldn't empathise with her at all.

Anyway, the school has a new student, the mysterious Italian, Stefan who is gorgeous and very well dressed. And.... he wasn't impressed by Elena's presence at all. And that is a first for her so out of spite she just MUST have him at any cost. Elena plots and plans with her friends ways to obtain the dark young man. In the meantime a number of mysterious attacks occur in Fell’s Church increasing the sense of menace in the story and Stefan avoids Elena like the plague.

In the homecoming dance Stefan invites Elena's ex-best friend/nemesis Caroline and Elena to spite him starts fooling around and drinking with the school tard/football player Tyler Smallwood and his group of friends, Vicky Bennet and a guy called Dick (who, well, is less a dick than Tyler). Anyway, they run off to the old graveyard for shits and giggles and after some stupid jokes and all Vicky and Dick run off to make out and Tyler ends up trying to rape Elena until Stefan Salvatore saves her and beats Tyler to a pulp. They finally hook up afterwards after Stefan explains why he had been avoiding her: she reminds him of someone he loved and has died. Eventually they do end up together.

The plot builds up from that point, ending the book in a huge cliffhanger that would have led me rip it to pieces and throw it on the wall if I didn't have the second book at hand. If you give this a shot then make sure that you own all four books before starting the first.

At this point there will be the inevitable comparison to Twitlight (no I refuse to spell it without the extra t). Which is totally off since Twitlight copied TVD, Buffy and other Vampire Romance books. Girl meets vampire boy and instantly gets the hots for him but he is distant with her,blah blah blah. The similarities are there but Elena is way more believable a character than Bella will ever be (seriously a very clumsy and unpopular girl who has all the school visit her after an accident? Dude, get real) In fact Elena’s character would probably be a plain Mary sue too hadn't it been for her vanity and self-centered character. However, despite her petty ways she grows on the reader as the book advances.


There are very little similarities to the hit TV show (and to be honest I liked the show storyline better) but if you like the show do give this a shot. It helps the summer go until season 2 ;)

/ [Jitter]

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