The Vampire Diaries Review
Title: The Vampire Diaries Books 1-4
Author: L.J. Smith
Publisher: HarperTeen
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
The Vampire Diaries is a young adult vampire horror series of novels written by L. J. Smith. The story centers around Elena Gilbert, a high school girl torn between two vampire brothers. The series was originally a trilogy published in 1991, but pressure from readers led Smith to write a fourth volume, Dark Reunion, which was released the following year. The first four novels in the original series: The Awakening, The Struggle, The Fury and Dark Reunion all feature Stefan Salvatore and Elena Gilbert as the main protagonists. The first three novels in the original series are from both Stefan and Elena’s point of view, but the last book in the original series, Dark Reunion, is from Bonnie McCullough’s point of view. – Summary from wikipedia
I initially started reading The Vampire Diaries because I got hooked on the show. I have a rant about television shows, movies, and book reading regarding the whole ordeal here: https://anakalianwhims.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/books-to-movies-to-tv-shows/, basically saying I was shocked to find that I love the series and hate the books.
Well, why bother reading the rest of the series after loathing the first book so much? I’m a start a series finish a series kind of girl, no matter how awful. It’s just polite to give the author a chance to 1) redeem themselves after a bad experience 2) let the characters and story warm on you, sometimes you meet someone and think they are horrible people only later find out they were just having a bad first impression day 3) be sure you weren’t just in a judgmentally bad mood that day.
And I tried, I really did. I read the first volume of books one and two and got all the way through book three of this second volume. One chapter into the fourth part and I gave up. How can the show be so intriguing and the books be so awful? Amazing liberties taken with the story by those fab people in Atlanta, that’s how. These books are truly terrible; I don’t know why I bothered.
Smith has the uncanny ability to make dialogue something I dread. Instead of the simplicity of a he said she said, we get every –ly word found in my third grade Webster’s dictionary thrown at us, even when they don’t make the best of sense. Admittedly, I always hated the overuse of this in writing, but didn’t really understand how much until Stephen King put my own thoughts into words in On Writing. Now that I have read detailed explanations of my own gut instinct, I find it even more nauseating.
L.J. Smith’s original books are merely a reoccurring fad due to people’s fascination with vampires. But if you’re looking for Stefan, Damon, and Elena time – watch the CW television show, it’s available on Netflix. If you’re looking for some Vampire literature, stick to Anne Rice and Bram Stoker. Then, there’s always one of my cotton candy favorites: Robin McKinley’s Sunshine. My copies of The Vampire Diaries series got thrown along with Twilight – the library donation bin.
*Edit/Postscript in the form of a confession: I am not and never have been the target market for this book. It’s unfair for me to judge so harshly when the book was clearly not meant for me and I knew that from page 2 of the first installment.
A Book Review: TumTum & Nutmeg by Emily Bearn
Title: TumTum & Nutmeg
Author: Emily Bearn
Available from Egmont
Genre: Children’s fiction
180 pages from Adventures Beyond Nutmouse Hall by Little, Brown
Please visit: http://www.tumtumandnutmeg.co.uk/index.htm
In the broom cupboard of a small dwelling called Rose Cottage, stands a house fit for a mouse – well, two mice actually. A house made of pebblestone, with gables on the windows and turrets peeking out of the roof. A house with a ballroom, a billiard room, a banqueting room, a butler’s room and a drawing room. The house belongs to Mr and Mrs Nutmouse, or Tumtum and Nutmeg as they affectionately call each other.
Tumtum and Nutmeg have a wonderful life but the children who live in Rose Cottage, Arthur and Lucy, are miserable. So, one day Tumtum and Nutmeg decide to cheer them up…
Tumtum repairs the electric heater in the attic where the children sleep and Nutmeg darns the children’s clothes. Arthur and Lucy are delighted and think a Fairy of Sorts is looking after them.
But then Aunt Ivy with her green eyelids and long, elasticey arms arrives. She hates mice and hatches a plan to get rid of them. Soon Tumtum and Nutmeg are no longer safe to venture out…
Tumtum and Nutmeg is a miniature masterpiece that will be loved by generations to come.– Summary by Egmont
I picked up TumTum & Nutmeg: Adventures Beyond Nutmouse Hall at Half Price Books in Humble, TX a few months back, with the intention of reading the stories to my daughter one day. I had never heard of them, but the front cover looked delightful and reminded me of the childhood days I spent pouring over The Borrowers by Mary Norton.
My daughter just turned one this last month and tired of re-reading every Eric Carle and Marcus Pfister book we own, I decided to see if she could sit through a few pages of Emily Bearn. I thought, maybe we can at least make it to the first illustration.
Low and behold, we were both captivated. I read until she fell asleep, and despite this book being written for very small children, I found I couldn’t put it down and wanted to know what would happen next. I was five years old again, huddled up in a quilt, lost in a world of a little family living in the nooks and crannies of an old house.
TumTum & Nutmeg is wonderful. It is precious in its descriptions and histories, the story is sweet and adventurous, enriching and exciting. I cannot wait to read the additional stories in the compilation and with sheer joy anticipate re-reading this story to my daughter when she is old enough to follow the story and not just my voice. This should be a part of every child’s library.
Exposure is Everything
My whole life I have been enthralled by the world of books. As a child, I was an avid reader the school librarian could not keep appeased. I lived in the worlds of Laura Ingalls, L.M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and more. Although I went to college to study business, as soon as I was out I sought a position in a bookstore; my dream was to run the literature section, and I did. I worked there for some years, fully stocked up my home collection, became the inventory manager, but then had a baby and so left the company.
We have 17 overflowing bookshelves in our house and books stacked on every available end table in between. I have been gathering up children’s titles throughout my pregnancy until now for my daughter, preparing for a lust of the written word comparable to mine.
People keep warning me that she may not want to read, she may not like it like I do. They keep telling me I cannot force my child to enjoy my hobbies.
I am not forcing her. I am making the written word available. She sees books everywhere, she sees people enjoying books everywhere. In addition to our own collection that we read from every day, we visit the public library for group readings and she sees people outside her family unit gathering to enjoy a book.
My daughter is one year old, and already she often chooses Eric Carle over a stuffed animal. She brings me Rainbow Fish and expects me to read it aloud while she sorts her blocks. It seems sometimes as though she is not actually listening, just sorting her belongings, until I stop reading and she looks up and points at the book. My daughter sorts through her picture books and flips through the pages, she even has her own little cushioned rocking chair she climbs into to do it. She rocks and pretends to read while I lounge and read in our library in our house.
My daughter loves books, and I am both amazed and proud. I implore the world to make books available to their children from a young age. Read aloud to them, they cannot help but be interested and thirsty for stories and knowledge.
Books to Movies to TV Shows
I’m a bibliophile – a crazed book junkie. But more than that, I’m a sucker for a good story. So, admittedly, when it comes down to it I can enjoy a well-crafted TV Show storyline just as easily as a classic like Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.
I grew up with the token line “read the book, its always better than the movie.” I lived and breathed this credo, I pushed it on others as a bookseller. Up until recently, I’d vow that it was complete and utter truth.
But has anyone noticed how crafty these TV Show writers have been getting? Look at Lost, the whole nation was hooked. And then all the over-rated vampire dramas… True Blood, I must say, was pretty fascinating. The book series counterpart by Charlainne Harris, uuuhhh, cute and funny – but not something that would keep me going back for more except for the fact that I can’t stand being that person that has watched the show or movie and not read all the books, being that person hurts my soul.
The whole phenomenon of liking the show better than the books threw me for a loop. I’m not that person – I always enjoy the books better. Look at The Scarlet Pimpernel: God only knows I adore Jane Seymour, but nothing compares to just reading it all for myself. Jane Austen renditions I could eat up day after day, but you’ll never get me to concede that I’d take any of the movie versions over the books ever. East of Eden, Nicholas Nickleby, Wuthering Heights, Harry Potter, my list of loves goes on and on, and as fabulous as some of the movie versions get they just can never compete with the books.
Until lately. I saw White Oleander and despite its major differences from Janet Fitch’s original work, I loved it, and will re-watch the movie long before I’ll re-read the written format. Girl Interrupted… I adore Susanna Keysen, but man, Angelina Joli and Winona Ryder did such an awesome job, I was riveted. And finally, to my shame, I have a closet addiction to the TV Show The Vampire Diaries. Its lame, I know, the whole ‘I’m in highschool and I’m doomed to love this vampire from first sight’ business is such a racket and mostly I hate it. (The Twilight book series stressed me out beyond belief, I didn’t really care for it although it was entertaining – but overall, pretty awful.) Yet, here I was this week, hooked on the Vampire Diaries (thanks to Netflix) and I thought: The books are bound to be even better, after all they are books.
So, I bought the first two. I’m reading them. I’m HATING them. How did a TV Show screen writer write such riveting stuff based on a book that is not remotely riveting at all? The books are so young, and in comparison the show is so much older. The Elena of the book is so shallow and a huge jerk so far, completely obsessed with herself and her status, and the Elena of the show is actually a bit lovable with the makings of a heroine.
I ask my fellow book readers: How has this happened? Has book quality gone down so low? Has the technology and budgeting of the movie and television industry risen so high to make a lame storyline become something fascinating with visual stimulation? Is it a combination of the two? Does any other book lovers find themselves in this hypocritical dilemma? I love my books. I love discovering the latest Simon Winchester, I love diving into ancient classics, I love studying history and researching ideas and philosophies of the past, I even love my bubble bath reads (the books I call cotton candy for the mind and soul). And sometimes, I find myself loving the movies and shows just a tad bit better.
Anakalian Whims 