Chelsea S. (PengQueen) reviewed Unimpressed on 7/8/2009 + 114 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 7

Like many people, I chose to read this book because I saw that there is a TV show coming out based on the series and I was intrigued. Now to start with, I am not the target audience of this book--it's most definately meant for preteens and high school students. I'm an adult who's read a lot of paranormal romance, fantasy, and horror, so my tastes are a bit more particular.

Basically the story is about a very popular girl named Elena who experiences a strong attraction toward the new guy at school, who's name is Stefan. What Elena does not know is that Stefan is a vampire, and that he's hundreds of years old. Stefan in turn finds himself drawn to Elena--mostly because she reminds him of a girl he knew when he was young. The plot and themes are very simplistic. I believe anyone over the age of twelve would be perfectly comfortable reading this, so mission accomplished there.

The main problem I had with this book was Elena--I found myself both loving and hating her. She's self-obsessed, determined, immature, and utterly stupid. I guess you could say that since she's so flawed and develops so much , she's actually fairly well-written. But she is annoying. As for Stefan, he was less well-written in that I really couldn't get a grip on his personality or motivations at all. Additionally, some of the high school social drama had me rolling my eyes at the silliness of it all.

Upside to this book--there are some nice romantic moments, decent imagery, and a few good action sequences. As an adult I'd say skip it, there are better vampire stories to be had in the paranormal romance world. But for the 12-15 crowd, it might be somewhat enjoyable.

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