Turned, Loved, Betrayed, Destined, Desired

Novels 1-5 in The Vampire Journals Series
By Morgan Rice


"In TURNED (Book #1 of the Vampire Journals series), eighteen year old Caitlin Paine finds herself uprooted from her nice suburb and forced to attend a dangerous New York City high school when her Mom moves again. The one ray of light in her new surroundings is Jonah, a new classmate who takes an instant liking to her.

But before their romance can blossom, Caitlin suddenly finds herself changing. She is overcome by a superhuman strength, a sensitivity to light, a desire to feed--by feelings she does not understand. She seeks answers to what’s happening to her, and her cravings lead her to the wrong place at the wrong time. Her eyes are opened to a hidden world, right beneath her feet, thriving underground in New York City. She finds herself caught between two dangerous covens, right in the middle of a vampire war.

It is at this moment that Caitlin meets Caleb, a mysterious and powerful vampire who rescues her from the dark forces. He needs her to help lead him to the legendary lost artifact. And she needs him for answers, and for protection. Together, they will need to answer one crucial question: who was her real father?

But Caitlin finds herself caught between two men as something else arises between them: a forbidden love. A love between the races that will risk both of their lives, and will force them to decide whether to risk it all for each other..."

The plot continues... with seven sequential books.  If there was ever a series written for no other reason than to make money, this is it.  I keep reading them, HOPING that things will get better, but I really don't think I can keep going.

 

First off, let's discuss the writing: It is horrendous.  If you're going to write a book... No, I'll even forgive the author... if you're going to PUBLISH a book, for the love of God, PLEASE PROOF READ IT!  If you're going to write a book, gift yourself a thesaurus. The writing is so frustrating.  It is redundant and stale and cheesy.  I find myself mentally rewriting it. 

However, even that is impossible, since the characters are under-developed and, frankly, dim witted. I don't think there is a single character, and there are a great many, that I even like.  Maybe that's the problem; there are too many people in this book. Rice is name dropping like you can't believe.  Between cities and countries spanning the globe, at least three villains at a time, a whole island of identifiable vampires, she's dragging in historical figures like Marie Antoinette and Napoleon. 

The books are harried and lack attention to detail. It's like watching a three year old play: one minute she's wrapped up in dolls, the next, she's watching Sesame Street, and before they even have time to announce the number of the day, she's all caught up with sidewalk chalk. There is absolutely no reasonable amount of time for the characters to be so wrapped up in each other. They spend two minutes together and suddenly they are best friends, worst enemies or soul mates.

The story is a mishmash of events and people and motivations.  I think the underlying journey for Caitlin to find her father is going to end up the ultimate point, but from a few reviews that I've read which contained spoilers, I honestly think that if I finish this series, I will roll my eyes and laugh out loud over the ridiculousness of it. Seriously, It's worse than the House of Night series, and I have definite issues with that one.

I really can't think of one redeeming quality of this series.  The reason I keep picking them up is because I have an OCD compulsion to finish what I start. I think The Vampire Journals series will lead to my imminent institutionalization, because I just don't think I can read one more sentence!

The Shape of Mercy

by Susan Meissner

“We understand what we want to understand.” Leaving a life of privilege to strike out on her own, Lauren Durough breaks with convention and her family’s expectations by choosing a state college over Stanford and earning her own income over accepting her ample monthly allowance. She takes a part-time job from 83-year-old librarian Abigail Boyles, who asks Lauren to transcribe the journal entries of her ancestor Mercy Hayworth, a victim of the Salem witch trials.

Almost immediately, Lauren finds herself drawn to this girl who lived and died four centuries ago. As the fervor around the witch accusations increases, Mercy becomes trapped in the worldview of the day, unable to fight the overwhelming influence of snap judgments and superstition, and Lauren realizes that the secrets of Mercy’s story extend beyond the pages of her diary, living on in the mysterious, embittered Abigail.

The strength of her affinity with Mercy forces Lauren to take a startling new look at her own life, including her relationships with Abigail, her college roommate, and a young man named Raul. But on the way to the truth, will Lauren find herself playing the helpless defendant or the misguided judge? Can she break free from her own perceptions and see who she really is?

I am incredibly remiss that it's taken me so long to get to this review. I obviously have a hard time remembering details unless I put my thoughts into words fairly quickly, and I really wanted to catch those subtleties in this book. Luckily, it is one that I could read again.

The Shape of Mercy is an interesting story with a myriad of themes. Although it is a powerful story told partly through the eyes of a woman accused of being a witch during the Salem trials, the story of Lauren, fighting against herself, is one that many of us could relate to. I thought it was interesting that Lauren continued to look down on people in her own upper-crust class, believing that she was nothing like them, while consistently displaying otherwise in the book. Unfortunately, she couldn't just accept herself and learn from her mistakes, she continued in abject denial. I thought the argument between Lauren and her roommate should have been pretty eye-opening for her, but she continued in her objections.

I liked the character Raul. Although I thought the love story was a little lacking and never really understood why Raul liked Lauren, other than the fact that he was obviously a much more self-aware and forgiving person than she was. He was a very sweet and likable character. Although I liked the balls that the roommate had (I can't remember her name) she was pretty immature and, unlike Raul, unwilling to forgive. Abigail was a pretty dynamic character and I enjoyed getting to the bottom of her motivations and relationships. As for Mercy, I was totally caught up in her world. Meissner did an excellent job in conveying the depth, pain and gravity of Mercy's story in the diary entries, which didn't leave me feeling like I'd missed anything. I adored the love story in Mercy's life; the innocence, the sacrifice. I also wanted to kick the crap out of those lying little girls that started that whole mess in Salem.

I really enjoyed this book. Meissner's writing was well thought out and the story was a great combination of history and fiction.

The Reluctant Heiress

by Eva Ibbotson

Once again, I was not disappointed by Eva Ibbotson. The one word that comes to mind each time I finish the last page of one of her books is 'beautiful'. The Reluctant Heiress was no exception.

Ibbotson is an immensely talented writer. She has found a recipe for success and, although her novels are strikingly similar, they work so well that I don't mind at all. I would not protest a slight departure from her idea of a hero, as I typically find it hard to really like her male protagonists. Similarly, although her heroines are all strong, determined and independent, somehow they each seem to have a very low opinion of herself, feeling that she doesn't deserve any better than she has.

A constant in Ibbotson's works is the unique way she gives a background to each minor character which is so fluid, woven so tightly into the story that you hardly notice it's there at first. The culture and history she wraps up in each story is interesting and relevant.

The Reluctant Heiress was a beautiful story with a wonderful antagonist and a clever, well turned out conclusion.

A Song For Summer

by Eva Ibbotson

Oh, I loved this book. It was beautiful; the story, the characters, the writing. It had adventure, politics, war, humor, friendship, culture, art, music, and romance. No, not romance, that's much to soppy a word; love. True love, the kind that waits and suffers and still clings tightly and truly, enduring through joy at its peak and misery at its depth.

A Song for Summer was not what I expected it to be- a common occurrence among my recent literary adventures. I read A Countess Below Stairs not long ago and expected this to be similar, but the author seemed to deviate wildly from the somewhat amateur tone, even while keeping her style consistent. This was a book I would expect from someone like Gene Stratton-Porter, not a contemporary author. Ibbotson's transitions from one character's point of view to another's is rare and seamless. It was extremely impressive to find that, with upwards of ten streams of consciousness trading off, I never got lost within the transitions or wandered upon a loose trail of thought. She tied together so many elements and, even though Part II is less than one fourth of the book, there was no rush to the end and no unanswered questions. I laughed out loud at times, I brushed the dewy ghosts of tears from my lids, my heart ached for Marek and Ellen, leaped for Isaac and I could scarcely keep from smiling at the sheer loveliness of language and the stark, green imagery.

This book is one that has a few things that may be conceived as taboo, but it is in no way graphic or offensive.