House of Night has a good storyline going, but the language and the pagan-esque crud puts me off of that series. Nightworld is okay, if simplistic to me. (And they all have happy endings. C’mon, vampires, people! Let’s have a little tragedy, please?) I’ve only delved a little into Vampire Diaries, but honestly, it’s like reading Twilight all over again. (I’m told VD came first, but still. Beautiful but clumsy protagonist meets tortured but good-hearted vampire. Been there, done that, didn’t buy the T-shirt.) I picked up Vampire Academy expecting more of the same. I know there are more series out there, and I suppose I’ll get to them eventually. I’d like to read some of the inspiration for True Blood, in particular…probably where I’ll go next.

Vampire Academy has the classic YA trope of “there are good vampires, and there are evil vampires, and you shouldn’t confuse the two because even though they all drink blood the good vampires are, you know, good.” And like House of Night, you’ve got the vampire story meets high school story. And you’ve got the confident, badass, sometimes bitchy female protagonist who finds herself juggling a number of boys and can’t seem to get her love life together…also not uncommon.

And then you just get blindsided by this incredible, tragic love story that unfolds in the midst of all the tropes.

Rose, the protagonist, falls for her much older mentor, Dimitri…and of course I’m thinking, “Ah, teenaged girl falls for hot, unobtainable guy. And either he will turn out to be not so nice and use her and break her heart, or after a lot of bumps, she’ll get over him and realize that the perfect guy is that one who’s been right there the whole time. Meanwhile, this crush will get her into no end of trouble and I’ll end up being very annoyed with her before the end of the book. This is what happened in the House of Night series, and was one of the reasons I wanted to shake my fist at Zoey. Frequently.

Only, these two have several legitimate reasons why they can’t be together (age, teacher/student relationship), but the main one is actually based on their own morals. They both are ridiculously dedicated to protecting the Moroi (the good vampires), and that makes them a lot alike. But they both know that their ability to do this will be compromised by a relationship…and so they fight it. And Rose actually fights it, instead of just talking about how she should fight it and giving into it every few chapters (and then spending the next few chapters beating herself up about how she shouldn’t have, but he was just so hot that she couldn’t help it…blech). Dimitri does even better. They both conduct themselves so honorably that when they DO give in, you feel for them (instead of rolling your eyes and bemoaning the lack of character). See, that’s where Twilight screwed up. Edward lamented and tortured himself over how he shouldn’t be with Bella, but he didn’t actually have the willpower to walk away. Yeah, he walked away in New Moon, but it was too late by then…and I’m not entirely sure he didn’t do it for selfish reasons (“I’d never be able to live with myself if I hurt her” instead of “She deserves better”.)

And Rose’s affection for Dimitri actually improves her as a character…it’s a true strength, which is refreshing when it’s so often portrayed as something fuzzy and heady that’s worth alienating yourself from your friends and subsuming yourself in the other person, but really doesn’t improve you much. These two assimilate each others’ characteristics and it makes them better people. Two books into the series, and there’s still no way they can be together…and by then, their being apart was killing me. Finally, they both make the decision that they love each other too much, and they can’t stand it anymore. And it’s not all roses and happiness, because they’d both have to sacrifice some of their goals in order to be together.

Then the bad vampires (Strigoi) attack the school, and Dimitri is turned into one of them. Worse than dead. This is the ultimate hell for Rose, because not only is she grieving him as dead, he’s still out there as a monster, the antithesis of everything he was. She can’t get him back…there’s no going back once you’re turned. She could never be with him while he was alive, and now he’s gone. So she can either hunt him down and stake him herself, or live with the knowledge that he’s out there killing people. Ouch. She chooses the former, because they’d once made a promise to each other that they’d rather die than be Strigoi. This is one of the unique things about the fantasy genre…the ability to turn people into monsters puts this whole other dimension on things like dealing with grief, and what killing a loved one as a mercy would do to someone.

The fourth book is one big agonizing trip through Russia (his homeland), meeting his family, living where he lived, visiting his haunts, and then she finally confronts Strigoi Dimitri. And he tries to turn her. It’s just one big heart-breaker, because no matter what happens, it can’t end well. (Only I think it actually can, because we find out near the end of Book 4 that there might be someone out there who can turn Strigoi back to normal).

I don’t know how these books managed to hit every emotional hot spot in me, but they did. (In fact, I may have to go back through and actually analyze how the author did it. Dude…Mask of Eldarmarch, Dragon Singer, Briar Rose, I have so many stories that are primarily tragic romances. I want to make my readers cry.) Had I been alone, I think I would have cried all the way through Book 4. It was just that…poignant, for me. (Maybe because I have a husband, and so I can imagine what it would feel like to lose someone you loved that much). If I can write a tragic love story like that some day, I’ll be happy. Incidentally, I think this particular story needs a happy ending to be satisfying…because at this point, even if the impossible is accomplished, Rose and Dimitri aren’t set up for a true happily ever after. Edward and Bella felt inevitable in a way that made all their struggles feel a little bit contrived sometimes…I would have enjoyed a tragic ending, in their case.

There’s a lot of just good storytelling going on: complex characters who behave realistically, themes that cycle, no throwaway characters, language that isn’t overly juvenile, etc. I like Rose as a character, which is interesting, because I don’t think I would like her too much in real life.

There are two more books in the series, the first of which doesn’t come out for another two weeks. Bummer, but I just blew most of today reading Book 4…so maybe it’s just as well. So in honor of a thoroughly enjoyable series, I give you this song in honor of Rose and Dimitri (Gods, I feel like such a fangirl, saying things like that):

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This one was about vampires. Well, sort of.

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So…I picked up another vampire book from the library the other day. Too bad our libraries don’t seem to carry any of the newer YA fantasy books that I’d like to read, but oh well. The book I picked up was Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz. which is apparently the first in a series. It was not a bad book…but all the same, I didn’t think it was all that good, either.

The first thing I noticed after the first few pages was that the POV tends to wander from head to head several times per scene, and it’s not always clear whose head you are supposed to be in. One person will enter the scene, and begin talking to another person. You start reading about how Person #2 is internally reacting to Person #1, and at some point you realize that you are now in Person #2′s head. Then Person #3 joins the conversation, and now we start hearing what THEY are thinking. Now I had been informed, in no uncertain terms, by several different sources, that this is one of those things that you Don’t Do in Fiction. Period. After reading a book where it is done, I can understand why they tell you not to do it. It’s confusing. I don’t like having to backtrack in a story because the POV swapped from one person to another and I didn’t realize it. Seriously. Scene breaks! Don’t head-hop.

The story also took a long time to get going. About 65 pages into the book, and the only real significant thing that has happened is that a girl has been found dead. We’ve had a paragraph of description for every main character, and several dedicated to various locations around NYC. These did a pretty good job of painting the ritzy, upper-upper class culture that these characters live in, but they really didn’t create a mood, or add to the tension. And there were a lot of them.

Okay, and I know this is part of that subculture, but it irritates me when I have to hear all about the characters’ wardrobes every few pages. Also, the characters’ descriptions are never anything like how real people would describe themselves. They read like character bios from the inside cover of a manga. For example:

“Schuyler was startlingly pretty, with a sweet, heart-shaped face; a perfectly upturned nose; and soft, milky skin- but there was something almost insubstantial about her beauty. She looked like a Dresden doll in witch’s clothing. Kids at the Duchesne School thought she dressed like a bag lady. It didn’t help that she was painfully shy and kept to herself, because then they just thought she was stuck-up, which she wasn’t. She was just quiet.”

Just before this, we were in Schuyler’s head as she made a comment. Then we had a paragraph of description of what she was wearing. Followed by the above. Are we still in Schuyler’s head? I dunno, because I don’t think most people would describe themselves as “startlingly pretty”, call their own face “sweet”, and describe their own complexion as “milky”. (Unless, of course, they were completely stuck-up. But we’re told she isn’t). The last two sentences are the only ones that sound like they could have come out of Schuyler’s head…as a lot of teenagers see themselves as shy, and think that the world perceives them as stuck-up because they don’t talk to people. I believe that. I don’t buy the rest. Sorry.

And of course, it being a vampire book, we have to have the “big reveal” moment, when the main character discovers that 1) vampires are real and 2) she is one. (Actually, two of the main characters have to face this transition.) As far as reveals go, this one falls pretty flat. I mean, you the reader know that the two main girls are vampires long before they themselves figure it out. (If you’ve read the inside cover, you know before the story opens). So all of the shock, and disbelief, and denial that the characters go through when they figure it out rings false, or falls flat. This is one of the big problems with writing a vampire book right now, especially when the main characters of the story don’t know they are vampires. With so many vampire books on the market right now, it’s hard to believe that any intelligent youth embroiled in a vampire story would fail to realize that they are, in fact, in a vampire story. Such a reveal requires the characters to live in a world in which the current market of young adult vampire literature does not exist. Having the characters react with disbelief and shock makes them look idiotic instead of realistic. This is not the author’s fault, but it is something that could have been handled a little better.

Overall, I’m not all that enthused with this story…not enough to read the next book in the series. (Even the House of Night books were more interesting than this one, and I have enough issues with HoN to fill a whole other entry). I think, if I am going to explore any more current vampire books, I will pick either the Vampire Academy series or the Vampire Diaries series (which inspired Twilight, if I remember right).

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AFI - Love Like Winter 

warn your warmth to turn away,
here it’s December,
everyday

it’s in the blood
it’s in the blood
I met my love before I was born
he wanted love,
I taste of blood.
he bit my lip and drank my war,
from years before

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I chuckled for most of the movie, honestly. Partially because there were a lot of roll-your-eyes cheese moments, but also because of the people watching the movie. Seriously, when Jacob’s character pulled off his shirt for the first time, there was a collective “Oooh…” from half the female audience in the theater. It was hilarious. Teenagers. Oi.

Bella and Charlie had a few deadpan moments that were absolutely great, and there were a few other snarky moments I enjoyed. They nailed Jacob and the wolves, and not just because of the abundance of pectoral muscles (though, I must admit, those were pretty impressive). Overall, the movie stayed pretty true to the book; they might have left a few things out, but they didn’t add much and they really didn’t change anything major (that I noticed).

Okay, on to the things I didn’t like. Two words: Robert Pattinson. Maybe he’s the only one they found who could even remotely pull off Edward Cullen, but gods, he’s just not carrying that character at all. First problem: visually, he’s not all that attractive to me. He’s thin, kind of hairy, and he has that really square jaw that I’ve just never liked on guys. Not Edward Cullen beautiful at all. I may be biased, but if I’m not even remotely attracted to the guy, I have a hard time empathizing with Bella’s obsession with him. Really, there were points during the movie where I was thinking, “Dude, Bella, why are you pining over the freaky skinny guy who left you when you’ve got a very hot Indian right there who worships the ground you walk on??”

You know, on a similar note, I don’t think the actress playing Rosalie is nearly drop-dead gorgeous enough for the role, either. Maybe I just have a peculiar taste in people.

Edward Cullen has a sort of magnetic charisma in the books that Pattinson isn’t pulling off onscreen, IMO. His attempts to seem mysterious or sexy come off as either cheesy, dorky, or just plain pathetic. (I’m thinking the Shakespeare reciting scene here, for those who’ve seen the movie). You know, where they slow down his walk and try to make his entrances look all “whoa, hot guy coming through”…trust me, I wasn’t sighing; I was cringing. He’s not carrying the part, and every attempt to make him seem sexier than he is just falls flat. I’m almost embarrassed for the guy, but then all the girls are staring at him like he’s the most delectable thing they’ve ever seen. The contrast is so bad it completely breaks me out of the story. In fact, I think I cringed every time Pattinson came onscreen and opened his mouth.

Jacob…I could understand being attracted to him, although he’s a little buff for my personal taste, and his teeth were unnaturally white. Oh, and trust me, nobody in the theater moaned with delirium when Edward took his shirt off. It was a whole lot more like, “Eh…someone cover him up, now, please?”

Unfortunately for me, Cullen is the crux of the story, and the whole movie suffers when I can’t stand the hero.

Okay, what else. Bella’s nightmares were absurd. They didn’t look like nightmares at all, really; it looked more like someone was using the Cruciatus Curse on her. Really, screaming in pain just because your boyfriend ran off? That’s a little bit too over the top, even for teenaged angst.

Also, I wished they’d made the vampire eyes a little more subtle. I think it was worse, this movie. The Cullens’ yellow ones weren’t so bad (except Alice’s, sometimes), but the Volturi were just like, how do they move around in normal human society at all? It wasn’t the red irises, really; it was the way they kind of seemed to pop out of the sockets, like all vampires are slightly bug-eyed or something. And there was none of the shading to indicate thirst level. On an amusing note, the hubby did not recognize Dakota Fanning as Jane. I wonder if I would have, had I not known in advance to expect her in that role?

Overall, not a bad movie. Any plot fails or character flaws are probably the result of the source material, not the moviemakers. Except for Pattinson. Epic fail on getting Edward Cullen right.

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I also finished:

Hidden Currents: by Christine Feehan

This seems to be part of a series of unrelated books all dealing with the same characters: the Drake sisters. All the sisters are varying degrees of psychic. This story was about the youngest one, seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, who gets to carry on the legacy and have seven (!) girls of her own.

General thoughts: The conceit was interesting, but I think this particular story failed on several levels. It begins with the girl getting captured by this really depraved mega-millionaire, who trades sex slaves on the black market. She is badly abused by this guy, sexually, physically, psychically (oh yeah, the guy’s a psychic, too). Okay, now I understand this sort of abuse really happens, and I think I’m a reasonably sympathetic person who gets appropriately outraged when I hear about it. However, it’s just not something I want to see in a romance novel. Stories like this are supposed to be, first and foremost, entertainment. Abuse does not entertain me. I don’t want to read about it in my free time, thank you.

So then, the girl, Elle, is rescued about three or four chapters into the story (which, by the way, makes the entire back cover blurb completely misleading), by the love of her life (whom she’d given up on) and her sisters’ boyfriends. The entire rest of the story is given over to her recovering from abuse, and rekindling her romance with her guy, Jackson. I hate to say it, but this author has obviously never read accounts or interviewed anyone who had actually been abused. Elle has little panic attacks, in the beginning. By the middle of the book, she’s happily having sex with Jackson and really shows little other sign of trauma other than being a little nervous in crowds. Bullshit. It should have been weeks, months, before she could bear another man to touch her. Hold her. Let alone have sex with her. You just don’t get over that kind of abuse that easily. Epic fail in the realistic catagory.

The story was just interesting enough to keep me reading, but really, not all that memorable. Everything the characters devised pretty much worked, which should never be the case. Elle’s setbacks are almost inconsequentially small, and are quickly fixed. Example: the climax. The sisters’ guys devise a way to defeat the millionaire villain. They execute said plan. Said plan goes over without a hitch. The villain is defeated. Boring, boring, boring! Most of the writing was given over to Jackson reassuring Elle that he really loved her, how he’d never leave, how he’d never let her abuser find her, etc. Elle also did a fair bit of that, too; she’s not going to give up, she believed in the two of them, blah blah blah. Yeah, characters need that, but it really did get old after the twentieth time or so.

Relationships: The book was too erotic for my taste, plain and simple. I finished it, but I did a lot of skimming, honestly. I guess people must like it, though, because there’s an awful lot of it on the market. I can read a sex scene, but seriously, 8 pages devoted to a blow job? *gagging noises* There were, again, a lot of body parts. I’m a grown married woman, so I’m quite familiar with what the parts do. I care more about the emotions of the characters. Also, and this is a personal peeve of mine, but I really hate it when a penis is referred to as a “cock”. It’s just…vulgar, to me. I cringe every time I read it. Let’s just say that I did a lot of cringing while reading this book. I suppose “member” or some other clever metaphor (spear? sword? let’s not go there) isn’t much better. I say, why name it at all? We know it’s there, we know what it’s doing. I’d rather read about how the characters feel inside.

Another problem was that the sex was too idealized for my liking. Even in the Gardella Vampire Chronicles, the author, along with describing the normal sensations, didn’t forget to mention when the heroine’s hair pins were digging into her head, or a bedpost poking her back, or the coldness of the floor. In this book, there’s none of that. The scenes have a setting, but the setting exists solely for atmosphere…it doesn’t actually interact with the characters at all (at least, not after they are getting it on). Even if I was having the greatest sex of my life, I think I’d still at least notice being bent back on a piano. In reality, I think that would be majorly uncomfortable.

And I guess there’s only so many ways to elaborate on “pleasure washed through his/her body” without getting redundant. Really, really redundant.

In other news, I’ve started a 1500 word short story that I might also submit to Writer’s Digest. This is a different contest than the one I sent the Smell of November to, and the possible cash prizes are higher. I had known about the contest, but wasn’t going to bother with it because I didn’t have any good ideas. I had read on Westerfeld’s blog about the concept of a “dialogue spine”, and how you can punch out the bare bones of a story using only two characters talking to each other. Then I remembered the hubby and I tossing around the idea of what it would be like to be a blind vampire. Then I listened to End Transmission by AFI, and I had my character: a blind vampire who is tired of what he is, and wants to die.

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Shades is coming along. Saeli has her Mantle now, and knows she’s a cleric. Trying to decide how to get her to that party without too many extraneous words.

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