About this title: The first book in a new trilogy. Elena Gilbert is alive--again. When Elena sacrificed herself to save the two vampire brothers who love her, she was consigned to a fate beyond death. Until a powerful supernatural force pulled her back. Now Elena is not "just" human. She has powers and gifts that were bestowed on her in the afterlife.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: Harpercollins Childrens Books
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061720772ISBN:0061720771
Description: Smith returns with a new trilogy in her "New York Times"-bestselling saga. Elena Gilbert is back from the dead--again. She's returns from the afterlife with superhuman powers, and continues to struggle with her feelings for Stefan and Damon Salvatore. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper Teen
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061720772ISBN:0061720771
Description: New. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 586 p. Vampire Diaries: The Return (Hardback), 1. Intended for a juvenile audience. Intended for a young adult/teenage audience. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harperteen
Date Published: 2009-02-10
ISBN-13:9780061720772ISBN:0061720771
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780061720772. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper Teen
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061720796ISBN:0061720798
Description: New. Library binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 586 p. Vampire Diaries: The Return (Library), 1. Intended for a juvenile audience. Intended for a young adult/teenage audience. read more
"Okay, so the four stars is generous - this is a quality-two, maaaaaybe two and a half, but my enjoyment was a solid four. Oh, L.J. Smith, never stop being so crazy! I mean, this book is almost comics-canon-esque in how it attempts to reconcile a book written today picking up a week after the plotline of the book written ten-ish years ago! The miraculous discovery of cell phones, which appear and disappear when plotually convenient! The slight name-dropping of shoes and bags and clothes so that we know these people are "with it"! D'awwww.
This book is ambitious, moreso than I think what Smith has attempted before, and I think it partially succeeds. It's pretty clear that this book is setting up a new take on the Vampire Diaries (wow, there's an awkward abbreviation) universe, especially with the SPN Pilot episode "we've got work to do"-style ending. She's setting up a caper! On the run! Or something.
This book feels like a hybrid of the early nineties Smith (the classic Vampire Diaries, Secret Circle, etc) with the new swathe of young adult horror novels (Cassie Clare, Holly Black, etc). I feel like Smith is retconning a lot of world-building onto her universe to make it wider and more complex (a la the new skool stuff), and it's handled relatively deftly, but it still feels, you know. Retconned. (See also: Damon's abuse of the Italian language. And have I mentioned the cell phone hilarity? Because the cell phones are hilarious.)
I will admit to missing the smaller world, a little bit. It was part of the original books' charm - that here was this crazy stuff happening in a relatively contained universe. Still, that doesn't leave you many options of where to go next. Let's hear it for expanding that universe, even if the Sunnydale = Fell's Church jokes are nigh on irresistible.
Also, I hope we get more than just kitsune in the next novel. Let's hear it for Smith and her already-almost-more-diverse-than-Supernatural use of multiple cultures' mythologies, but if we don't get more kinds of Big Bad, then the whole Japanese mythology is going to feel very slapped-on-because-convenient, as opposed to first-in-a-wider-world-of-things-that-go-bump-in-the-dark.
As for the characters, I felt a little shortchanged on the humans, and Stefan was in full-on Edward Cullen mode. "My little lovely love"? Are you kidding me? I still love Bonnie and Damon interacting, and the author's bias is hugely evident yet again: everyone is more interesting around Damon than Stefan. There's more to work with, rather than just noble and self-sacrificing and In Love With Elena.
Elena-with-her-mind-back grows on me. She's got more depth than I remember, and her Bella-esque devotion to Stefan is balanced by, you know, actual personality and skills. Elena-as-a-spirit-childe was mostly just amusing, but that assessment is wildly biased by her - ahahahaha, it still makes me laugh just thinking about it - Go-Go Gadget Wings of Plot Devices. Wings of Redemption (or whatever)? Seriously? Whoever said that wingfic was gonna be the next young adult trend is dead on.
I found Matt annoying, and I miss his mancrush on Stefan. Meredith and Bonnie were present but felt kind of irrelevant for much of the book. If we lose Meredith and Bonnie and up our Matt quotient in the next book? I will likely lose interest very, very quickly.
I remain, in a very seventh-grade-lingering sort of way, intrigued by Damon. Once again Smith fails to sell me on him actually being eeeeeevil, which makes the tension of will-he-won't-he (disembowel, crush, betray, etc) so much less, but I really liked the setup for the tension with does-he-or-doesn't-he-remember his whole Wings of Redemption experience.
So, yeah. An uneven effort but still a guilty pleasure favorite set of characters, and count me in for book two."
"I gave this book 3 1/2 stars. Why? Not because it was bad or I didn't like it or that it was good, because it was. But I was just threw off by how...random...the beginning was. Yes Elena is back, but what happens when she comes back was confusing until I realized what was happening. But everything about this book didn't seem to...fit...with the others. Also it got the 1/2 a star because I'm torn between plain liking it and really liking it.
Everything was different and it was almost like anything could happen. It was very interesting though because I NEVER EVER knew what to expect next. One thing I loved about this book was that I read about Damon alot. YAY!!!! Haha, I love Damon. I was almost glad that Stefan wasn't in the picture because he seemed to...bland..and...lovey dovey. But Damon was exciting and unpredictable.
Towards the end though, maybe the last 50 pages, I got bored. Because that part was predictable for the most part. The last few pages is Elena writing in her diary. That sort of threw me off. (One because at first, I thought it was Bonnie, haha) I'm not going to say why (not a triangle, a square) though. Once you read it you will see that Elena isn't as sure of herself as we thought. I know that the 'not a trianlge, a square' might confuse some of you but it was the only way I could think of to tell you without telling you. Like that made sense! But it does to me and why it sort of threw me off."
"So, I read the first four books (actually two books in four parts) and thought that they told a fairly entertaining story. And of course, it's likely to get a lot of comparisons to that other series but seeing as this series came first, I'll try not to draw comparisons. This is a continuation (almost literally) of the events that ended the fourth book. I think it picks up a few weeks after the fourth one ends. Anyway, it's interesting as it isn't solely focused on Elena and Stefan who are terribly in love and can be a bit much even for me. So, I enjoyed the bits where Damon takes over the narrative. He's fun because he's bad, yes, but also because he struggles with denying being good. He struggles really hard to keep being bad but Elena and all her friends (and oh yeah, even his brother) just keep dragging him kicking a screaming to the good side. And occassionally they misjudge his efforts which of course leads to him doing more bad things because well, he's bad. The plot more or less moves forward and Elena evolves a bit and Stefan is actually not in the second half of the book which leads to the ending and a set up for a continuation that I won't spoil. Fun and entertaining mostly because of Damon (I have to say that he's very inventive trying to remember Matt's name)."
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