Review-Vampire Diaries:The Awakening by L.J. Smith

Synopsis-
A deadly love triangle.
Elena: the golden girl, the leader, the one who can have any boy she wants.
Stefan: brooding and mysterious, he seems to be the only one who can resist Elena, even as he struggles to protect her from the horrors that haunt his past.
Damon: sexy, dangerous, and driven by an urge for revenge against Stefan, the brother who betrayed him. Determined to have Elena, he’d kill to possess her.
The Vampire Diaries, a tale of two vampire brothers and the beautiful girl torn between them.
Review:
Vampire Diaries:The Awakening is the first of the four novels in L.J. Smith’s popular Vampire Diaries series. Though published in the 1990s,the books gained popularity after the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer.
The narrative started off well for me. It begins with Elena,resuming her position as the ‘queen of the school’ at the start of a new year,after having succumbed to unknown fears.Enters mysterious Stefan with his dashing looks and posh Italian clothes.Elena plots and plans to win the heart of the elusive stranger. Stefan,finally gives in to her passion for him after having unsuccessfully resisted her affections for sometime. In the meantime,mysterious attacks disrupt the atmosphere of Fell’s Church.
Damon,Stefan’s brother and greatest rival appears and tries to win Elena away from Stefan. Stefan is badly hurt by Damon and the narrative ends with Elena rushing into the woods in search of Damon.
The Awakening bears uncanny resemblance with the Twilight series. Stephanie Meyer seems to have been highly influenced by L.J. Smith. Edward Cullen can read minds like Stefan,Elena falls for the mysterious and elusive Stefan and Stefan giving into her love after much debating. Even the incident where Stefan sheds all walls and gives himself up after saving Elena from danger is echoed in the Edward-Bella love story.
However,Elena far from being a cool,sassy protagonist becomes irritatingly proud and tends to get on the nerves with her ‘I am the best’ attitude. She is way different from the calm and composed Bella. She is in perfect contrast to complacent Bella. Elena’s attitude is a serious impediment to the enjoyment of the story. She is self centered and becomes pathetically complaining the moment she loses cynosure.
All in all,The Awakening was a moderately good read. The characters of Stefan and Damon saved the book for me. Stefan the reserved gentleman and Damon the perfect ‘bad boy’(though his character needs more exploration) took away the cake and the cherry from the protagonist!! The cliffhanger ending was another negative for me. But then..it does propel me to read the sequel! This book just did not click well with me!:(

My rating:2.5/5