From the Small Screen to Many Books

The Awakening and The Struggle by L.J. Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is so similar to Twilight (high school girl falls for mysterious dark new boy in town who ignores her but it's really because she drives him to distraction and he finally shows her when he saves her life and then they have an intense love that no one can understand because he's actually hundreds of years old and is a killer but wants to be good) that I had to see who did it first.  Turns out LJ Smith started this series in 1991 so was the originator but I actually think that Stephanie Meyer did it better.  This book is Young Adult and it reads that way.

Also, I love the TV series and they've taken some major liberties in adapting these books for the small screen that made it a little hard to get into.  Where's Jeremy?  Why is Stefan from Renaissance Italy (altho it explains the Salvatore name)? Bonnie is a red-headed Irish psychic? Elena is a blonde and Katherine was weak and fragile?

The thing that the book and the series have most in common (other than everyone's names) is that Damon is one bad ass hottie.  The show's creators did an amazing job casting for that because he is spot on to what Damon is supposed to be.  Scary, sensual, dangerous but fascinating and beautiful.  He's the entire draw for this series and I think I'd like to skip right to the books that tell the story from his perspective.

The end of the first two volumes also went to a place that the series hasn't gone (YET?!?)

Bottom line is that I still read 492 pages in 4 days.  So it is def entertaining, when I access my 12 year old girl self...who's never far away anyway :)


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