Rating: 3 stars
“Elena is the school beauty, but she’s bored, until a new boy turns up in her class. Stefan is dark and mysterious—and she’s determined to get to know him better. But Stefan is just as determined to resist her… until a series of attacks in the area terrify the town and Stefan is held responsible. Elena is the only one who offers to help and, falling in love with her, Stefan tells her his terrible story. He is a vampire, on the run from his evil brother, Damon, who doesn’t share Stefan’s qualms about drinking human blood. And Damon is the one Stefan suspects of really being behind the recent attacks… Can Elena help prove his innocence—without revealing his secret?”
I just want to start this review off by saying that this book is not at all what I expected it to be, and since I’ve loved the show since it first aired in 2009, it was a shock at how different they managed to make the show. I know that they are essentially the same source material, but since I have such a strong emotional connection to the show, I am going to treat the books as if they are not related to the show in any form, and that may be frowned upon, but I want to give my true reaction to the books without my knowledge of the show getting in the way. There are very few instances where I think the adaptation is better than the book, but I’ll not make my mind up just yet, I could be very suprised, who knows?
We start with pretty much the same premise, Elena Gilbert meets the mysterious Stefan Salvatore at school and she is determinted to know who he is, the funny thing is, he is so closed off from her even though she’s the reason he’s back in Fell’s Church, (not Mystic Falls) because she looks like one of his old “friends”, let’s call her, if you know you know. When we first meet Elena, she is a confident person who everyone at school wants to associate themselves with, and she’s ends things with Matt Honeycutt (not Donavan, more on that soon) in an attempt to pursue Stefan, which doesn’t work at first.
Her friends in this are different from the show, and there are high tensions between her and Caroline, even higher than the show, and they aren’t necessarily friends in this book, more like frenemies. Caroline manages to score a date with Stefan which leads Elena to leave the school dance with Tyler Smallwood, (Lockwood) Vickie Bennet (Donovan, and not Matt’s sister in the book) and a few others, which lets us know that Tyler was a dick in the original material as well as the show, some things just stick, I guess. Vickie is the victim of a vampire attack in the book, and not much else has been shed on that as of yet, so I am not sure if she is going to suffer the same fate as she does in the show or not.
The books tells us that Elena has a friend called Meredith who is not in the show, and not much is revealed about her, which makes me think that she isn’t going to be too important in the story. Bonnie McCullough (Bennet) is still the same badass Bonnie she is in the show, the resident suspected witch, even though her friends don’t believe her, much like the show. Her sister Margaret was replaced by her brother Jeremy in the show, and Aunt Judith becomes Aunt Jenna (love her!).
One thing that really took me by suprise is that the one and only Klaus Mikaelson was mentioned in the first 50 or so pages, which I was not at all prepared for, I didn’t even think he’d be mentioned at all, all changes considered.
As of now, I’m obligated to be Team Stefan as Damon has barely been mentioned, but that may change because the cliffhanger was Elena seeing him, so this means he is going to be a lot more involved in the secind book! Exciting times!
Tea Stains and Book Spines 