Elena wakes up from where she has been pulled out of the
river – she’s not dead; or rather she is, but she’s a vampire. Which means she
has a whole new life to prepare for as a blood drinking creature of the night.
Further, she’s in Fells Church where everyone believes she is dead – an act
that is causing all kinds of drama and grief.
And then there’s Stefan and Damon – though betrothed to
Stefan she now looks at Damon and finds him unnaturally compelling because… I don’t
know, just run with it. As she gets closer to him as a vampire it becomes clear
that not all the evil acts they’ve been attributing to him may actually be his
fault.
Then the dogs lose their shit. Definitely not his fault.
There’s an Other Power in town and it’s targeting Elena. And it’s only a matter
of time before someone dies.
I think Elena has grown up a fair amount in this book to
some degree.
Her motives and goals are much less self-absorbed and self-centred and she’s
moved away from treating everyone around her as servants who exist only for her
whim (even though everyone around her are pretty much servants who exist only
for her whim). We even have some pretty good moments of self-reflection where
she realises what a selfish, manipulative person she was! An excellent start –
albeit somewhat deadened by the fact that everyone else assures her it wasn’t
so and it seems to exist largely to give Elena something to angst about.
Still, Elena is a much improved character. That’s not
entirely surprising considering how much room she had to improve, but it’s
still motion upwards.
I do not like the love triangle, not even slightly. Even
working on the fact that Damon isn’t quite as evil as everyone imagined, that
still leaves him pretty damn evil. Elena and Stefan have also had virtually no
real communication or contact with each other – especially non-antagonistic
where Elena hasn’t been furious or terrified. The insta-love she felt for
Stefan was bad enough – happening with virtually no foundation, very little
mutual communication and quickly careening down the path to becoming Stefan’s fiancée,
but this is several orders more ridiculous. Other than his physical appearance,
what about Damon has Elena fallen in love with? Give me one feature of his
personality, one element of his character, one action he has performed that
makes him a viable love interest for Elena?
