Book Review: The Awakening

TITLE: The Awakening
PART IN SERIES: Book 1 in The Vampire Diaries
AUTHOR: L.J.Smith
PUBLISHED: 1991 (I was in elementary school still...;feels old;)
GENRE: Young adult, series, vampires, romance
PREMISE: Elena finds herself drawn to the mysterious new guy in school...
MY REVIEW: The one word that came to mind when starting to read this book and that didn't go away was SHALLOW. I'm sorry, there is no way around it, this book is shallow. Elena is shallow (it doesn't help that she's a major Mary Sue), her friends are shallow, the vampire brothers are shallow (why were they so hung up on Katherine anyway? This was never explained), even the idea of the series is shallow (girl torn between two hot guys! Who will she choose?!). There's nothing wrong with shallow, I myself indulge in it every so often and I freely admit that had my teen self found these books during her vampire book obsessed phase, I would have devoured it happily though I would have been mildly ashamed that I was reading it.
But my teen self didn't find them at the time she would have been the right target audience so therein lies the problem. Because I notice not only the shallowness, but the lack of character in the books (Elena has no personality traits that I can see, other then being shallow and arrogant and the other characters are the same way, aside from Stefan who isn't arrogant so much as super angsty), lack of plot, and no real reason for why Elena and Stefan belong together other then they're both super hot. Plus, the book was a tad bit boring and just when it was actually starting to get interesting, it cuts off and we're forced to read the next book and thus I feel book one was actually a first half of a book instead of one book which is maybe why now they are releasing one and two together. Either way, it was annoying and I don't find myself super compelled to read the rest of it.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of the tv show, Twilight fans
MY RATING: Two out of Five fangs

FOR THE FOLLOWING CHALLENGES:
12 by 12 in May
One Hundred Plus Books
Support Your Local Library
YA Challenge
First in a Series