Reviewed by jesstheaudiobookworm on
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. ♣︎
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 30 September, 2016: Finished reading
- 30 September, 2016: Reviewed