The Awakening: Book 1 (The Vampire Diaries, #1)

by L.J. Smith

Book 1 in L. J. Smith's incredible vampire series - in love with two vampire brothers, will Elena choose good or evil? Currently streaming on Netflix and ITV-X

Elena is the school beauty, but she's bored. Until a new boy turns up in her class. Stefan is dark and mysterious - and she's determined to get to know him better. But Stefan is just as determined to resist her ... until a series of attacks in the area terrify the town and Stefan is held responsible. Elena is the only one who offers to help and, falling in love with her, Stefan tells her his terrible story. He is a vampire, on the run from his evil brother, Damon, who doesn't share Stefan's qualms about drinking human blood. And Damon is the one Stefan suspects of really being behind the recent attacks ... Can Elena help prove his innocence - without revealing his secret?

• ISBN10: 034094501X
• ISBN13: 9780340945018
• Publish Date: 5 July 2007 (first published 1 September 1991)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 30 October 2009
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Hachette Children's Group
• Imprint: Hodder Children's Books
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 240
• Language: English

Reviews

[zooloo1983]

I thought I would give these audiobooks a go again because I remember when I first tried to listen to them and I spent 10 minutes just shouting at the audiobook because we just did not get on. I have read all the books before I watched the show that re-introduced us to Elena, Stefan and Damon, all completely different from the books. Meredith was cut and she was A HUGE part of the story, Caroline was bumped up and they changed the way everyone looked and sounded, even Elena’s brother was introduced and in the book, he is a she, and she is called Margaret. There are probably a lot more changes but I can’t remember now and I will try not to go on too much about them.

If you ignore the changes and forget the show (hard though) and listen to the book, it is quite short and easy to blitz through. I still imagine the characters as they are in the tv show, it’s hard not to now even if Elena is blonde in the book! I will have to say, not a huge fan of Elena (book) she doesn’t treat Matt very well and becomes obsessed with Stefan, refusing to let anyone get their mitts on him and is insanely jealous when Caroline rocks up with him at the dance.

The attraction is instant between Stefan and Elena but he needs to keep his distance from her because at the moment she does not know he is a vampire – dun dun dun. But if that was not enough, he has to stay away from her, not just for her safety but his, because she bears an uncanny resemblance to someone in his past, as in his human past.

If this was not enough drama, then we have to introduce Damon onto centre stage. Although not in the book that much at the moment, you feel his presence the dark cloud in the background, he too wants Elena for the same reasons but he is not afraid to go after what he wants.

I remember reading these the first time around some 21 years ago, god it was that long ago! I really enjoyed them the first time around, I don’t remember there being anything like them at that time and I had nothing to compare them to. This time around, they do at times feel bit stilted, Elena, not a fan and I feel like the love story was a bit rushed. I think I also switched off once or twice during the audiobook because I wasn’t aware it was finished. Oops! The ending is a cliff hanger and it does want to make you read on.

There has been a murder at the dance, and guess what, yeah you guessed it, blood has been spilt, Elena is nearly attacked by Tylor Smallwood (aka Lockwood in the show) and rescued by Stefan, not before Vicky is left wondering the woods. But by the end, well poof he has disappeared and we are left with Elena screaming in the woods.

A lot of teen angst, a lot of drama, backstabbing, everything you might enjoy in Young Adult books. I will carry on the series and FORGET the show and the annoyances, but I think it might be the first time where I might prefer the show to the books. – Did I just say that?!!

oh boy

[kiracanread]

The first book I've ever read where the television series is SERIOUSLY better than the book itself. I could barely make it to the end of this book, with the incredibly cheesy character names and plot lines. Really just a poor attempt at twilight and teen vampire fic.

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

3.5★ Audiobook⎮ My opinion of The Awakening steadily declined as the story progressed. I started out really excited to begin the series because I am a big fan of the television show. If you are reading this, you might be too. Let me save you six hours and 31 minutes by saying that The Awakening (this book) is nothing like the television series. I'd say it's at least 95% different from the show.

You're probably tired of hearing "The book was better", but that's true in most cases. If you've read my review of The 100, you know that sometimes stark differences between the original publications and television adaptations can be good things. However, I could not find a single thing in The Awakening that I liked better than The Vampire Diaries TV show.

Some of the differences weren't so bad. I didn't mind that the Salvatore brothers had an Italian history (and accents) instead of a Civil War history. Or that Elena was a "mean girl" with a random four-year-old little sister. Or that Bonnie was a redhead (I think) with ancestors who were Druids instead of witches from Salem. Or that Caroline was replaced with some girl named Meredith and Tyler Lockwood's name was Tyler Smallwood (that one was kind of funny). None of that majorly impacted the story. I could've taken those types of things in stride.

But the story itself was just so much of a turn off. The Vampire Diaries is apparently one of those rare instances in which a story is told better on screen than on paper. This story was so poorly told that if I didn't have my experience with the television show as a frame-of-reference, I would have absolutely hated it.

My problem isn't that the book and the show don't perfectly align. I didn't expect them to. Adaptations rarely match their source material enough to please fans. The storyline actually matched pretty well, maybe more than The 100. But that wasn't my issue. It was how the story was told that bothered me. The writing wasn't good enough to make me buy into the story or want to continue with it. If not for my standing interest in the TV show, I would have given up on this by the half-way point.

Comparisons aside, the way this story was told was just plain creepy. I don't mean creepy as in "spooky" or "eery". I mean it was everything bad about Twilight with none of the good. Insta-love? Check. Weird obsession with no logical foundation? Check. Voyeurism. Check. Love triangle? Check. Special snowflake? Check. I could continue but do I really need to?

And yes, I realize that most of those things are present in the TV show as well. But that's exactly my point. For some reason, they are better executed on screen (in my opinion) than in the book. Even if you argue that they aren't well executed onscreen either, I promise everything is still way worse in the book.

I'm still giving The Awakening 3.5 stars because I did semi-enjoy it up until just before the halfway point. That's when I realized that it wasn't going to improve. I finished it only because I'm a trooper... or a masochist. And I'm desperately trying to dig myself out of a whole where my 2016 challenge is concerned. But I definitely don't think I'll be continuing on with the series. I was already questioning continuation because it has so many installments (15 or 16 total). Even if this had blown me away, I'm too stingy with my credits to use over a year's worth on one series and its spinoffs.

No thanks, I'll stick with the TV show. It has Ian Somerhalder.

Narration review: Rebecca Mozo actually did a really great job narrating The Awakening. I loved the Italian accents she gave Damon and Stefan. Bless her, that accent didn't slip once. Mozo was a big part of the reason I enjoyed The Awakening enough to give it 3.5 stars. She provided great characterization and a pleasant listening experience. Her narration helped me make it through the last half of the book. ♣︎

I'm an uber-fan of The Vampire Diaries TV Series. I was excited to read about Elena and her life. I also wanted to see how closely the book and the TV series are related. The answer is: as close as chalk and cheese. I feel as though my judgement of this book is clouded by my extreme love for the TV series.

This book is loaded with bad cliche's and overdone YA tropes. I can't believe that all of this nonsense existed and was popular as early as 1999, when the novel was originally published...

This book revolves around the main character, Elena. Elena is the queen-bee. She's popular, selfish and shallow i.e. one's typical mean-girl. She's also perfect in every single way, just like all the other characters in this book. I was unable to understand what people see in her. Why do so many people like her? Matt, Meredith, Bonnie, Stefan and Damon all think that Elena's some type of goddess and it made me see red! The only positive thing that I have to say about Elena is that she's an ambitious and determined go-getter. Elena doesn't develop as a character in The Awakening, but in The Struggle, her character does seem to become stronger, fearless and tad bit more sympathetic.

The romance made me want to crawl into a cave. It was so cringe worthy!. Everybody loves Elena. Everybody wants to be her or date her because she's an amazing person. Stefan, who's dark, handsome, brooding and mysterious arrives at Elena's school. Stefan pays no attention to Elena and because she's the popular girl who everybody wants to be, she can't handle it. Elena decides to prove that she will get Stefan in her clutches, because she can't take the message that he's ignoring her for a very good reason. Elena's becomes unhealthy obsessed with gaining Stefan's affection, but apparently, this is what love is supposed to be.

"She'd have him, even if it killed her. If it killed both of them. She'd have him." (Elena Gilbert in The Awakening)

You can't have him if he's dead! Finally, after two make-out sessions meetings Elena is in love with Stefan. This is known as the dreaded, unrealistic insta-love. Gag me with a spoon!

When Damon, Stefan's sibling, shows up, things start to get interesting. I loved Damon. He's so dark, twisted and evil and he isn't afraid to be a villain. In fact, he embraces his evil side with charm and threats. (Yay for villainous characters!)

Unfortunately, he wants Elena. Why the hell is Elena so loved? What's so special about her? A second case of insta-love ensures when Damon declares that Elena is "his" after his second brief meeting with her. Thereafter a love triangle ensures, but it felt so one-sided, that I wondered what its purpose was. To create problems? Tension? A decent plot?

Apart from my love for Damon Salvatore, the vampire concept, even although it was traditional, was really cool. Vampires are supernatural, evil and bloodthirsty creatures and I was glad that they were mostly portrayed as such.

The ending of The Struggle novel is intriguing. It spells out a galore of twist and turns that will probably create a horde of issues in the third book.

Even although I had so many issues with this book, I didn't know how to put it down. It's one of those books that are annoying and addictive at the same time.

Rating 2015: 3 stars

Rating 2020: 1 star

Oh, I must have read this book a thousand times, but my rating must have come from my love for the tv show. I can’t explain otherwise why I would give it anything more than three stars. Sure, I enjoyed it, but objectively? It was so extremely bad. The characters are very one dimensional, the story is nothing special, the lore feels... too extreme. (Although the latter might be biased because I am used to the tv show). I want to finish reading these books to find all the differences that they’ve made for the tv show, but if it were another series, I wouldn’t have continued.

[angelarenea9]

Ok, so I started watching the Vampire Diaries TV series for a few friends and my sister, and I really liked it! So I got really excited when I found out that they were a book series before they were a TV show, and of course I hunted them down. I was pretty disappointed because this book was by far different from show and not in a good way. I found Elena irritating, self centered, selfish, and annoying. I couldn't get into the book.

[Mercy]

Qué cosa más rara. No debí leerlo, al menos es realmente pequeño, que si no ni lo hubiese dejado a la mitad.
Elena es de los personajes más tontos que me he encontrado ¿qué le ven? Demasiado superficial, es odiosa.
Personajes tópicos y aburridos, trama sin sentido y aggghhh, ya no sigo que despotricare mucho.
No me acercaré ni con un palo al resto.

[cornerfolds]

Perhaps this book would have been better had I never read another vampire romance. As it stands, this book left me wanting. A lot.

I picked up The Awakening after seeing The Vampire Diaries on Netflix. The show is amazing! Elena gets on my nerves from time to time, but compared to the Elena of the book, she's perfect. I had read that the book and the TV show had nothing at all in common, but that was all the more reason for me to try it out. I wish I hadn't.

Every character in this book is incredibly shallow. Elena goes home to cry and sulk after one boy doesn't stop everything to run after her and Caroline does everything she can to sabotage Elena's attempts to "get" Stefan. I don't think that Bonnie and Meredith have graduated elementary school.

My biggest problem with this book was the relationship between Elena and Stefan. What happened? He goes from not looking at her and barely speaking a word, to being madly in love and telling her his deepest, darkest secrets. It seemed very forced and completely unbelievable.

I wish I had liked this book. I'm sad to say, I won't be picking up the next installment.

[notajammiedodger]

It wasn't really good, but I have read much worse books. I enjoy the tv series a lot more. Although I will probably read the rest of them to see what happens.