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jedi_of_urthOkay, I made myself stick with it for 200 pages, I really did. I thought it might get better or at least more readable and I do hate to give up on books without giving them a fair chance so I made myself come this far. But I’m throwing in the towel, admitting defeat. The Return actually is that bad and I see no value in continuing.
As much as I disliked the first two books, they were ultimately fairly amusing and mostly harmless. I could enjoy a laugh at how much better the show was than the books, where things had changed and what they had tried to keep, etc. I may not have liked them but I didn’t feel like reading it was a chore.
This however? This is wading through slop and no promise of a reward at the end. It’s not like the first four books convinced me that LJS is a great writer and going to make her ending ultimately worth sticking with the story. And her writing is so much worse here.
I still hate all three lead characters, although until 20 or so pages ago I wasn’t even able to hate Elena for being Elena since she wasn’t. She was an absolutely disgusting mess, and not in the way Caroline (who on the show is all “lesbian friend type necklace?”) cared about. She’s just disgusting in her simpering pureness, no actual will but to please Stefan and wanting to be absolutely perfect for him. At least once she started being Elena again I could hate those last bits as actual character traits (and I do); basically it’s the difference between wanting to set the book on fire and slap some sense into the character, it’s not enough of a difference to keep me reading but it is an improvement.
However, right now I hate Stefan more than anything. I’m sorry if this was supposed to come off as romantic, but it came off as creepy and disgusting. The book explicitly states that blood sharing a basically sex for vampires which means Stefan is taking advantage of a girl with amnesia, no sense of self, and a childlike view of the world. The fact that he kept her away from anyone else during that (people who had known her their whole lives and knew her way better than Stefan) is disgusting enough but add in the “sex” stuff and it’s WRONG, ON ALL LEVELS WRONG. I want to sick Ripper-Stefan on him, because while I’m not sure which is more awful at least Ripper-Stef is...well he’s my kind of awful.
Make no mistake, I still hate book-Damon too and don’t get him at all, *but* if I ignore the fact that he makes no sense I might be halfway interested in what he’d do. Not enough to actually keep reading, especially since he’ll probably go on another ripper tear of his own before the book is over, but he has some...almost complexity to him. Not in a way that makes sense mind you; I still don’t get what beyond physical attraction he likes about Elena, I still don’t feel anything between him and Stefan, and I don’t quite buy that he’s starting to have affection for the rest of the gang, but at least in that case I’m not sure he buys it either and it’s presented as more of a passing whim. But I also think I may understand why people ship show Damon/Bonnie, because there do seem to be bits for that in this book that I’ve never seen on the show.
As usual, Matt, Meredith, and Bonnie are too good for these people. I may not care about these characters all that much, but compared to the big three I practically adore them. For that matter I’m probably more interested in Caroline’s development that I am with the big three, because the big three suck (and not just blood). Also I want Alaric back in the books, maybe he does come back for this one but I doubt that would be enough to make me keep reading at this point.
I just...don’t even get any fun LJS didn’t intend from this book, I actively hate the main characters, the plot is uninteresting (what there is), the setting has been turned into a generic hellmouth, there’s very little sign of what good development came out of the last couple books, and it’s just bad. And there’s really no excuse for it like there sorta kinda was for the first couple, the characters and setting are established, these were written several years later so you’d think LKS’s writing would have improved with time, it’s like twice as long so you’d think she’d tell a more involved story. Instead it just outright sucks, and not in a funny way like it did at first.
I think I’ll go back to reading the show tie in books now. How is it that the books based on the show are almost infinitely better than the books the show was based on?
As much as I disliked the first two books, they were ultimately fairly amusing and mostly harmless. I could enjoy a laugh at how much better the show was than the books, where things had changed and what they had tried to keep, etc. I may not have liked them but I didn’t feel like reading it was a chore.
This however? This is wading through slop and no promise of a reward at the end. It’s not like the first four books convinced me that LJS is a great writer and going to make her ending ultimately worth sticking with the story. And her writing is so much worse here.
I still hate all three lead characters, although until 20 or so pages ago I wasn’t even able to hate Elena for being Elena since she wasn’t. She was an absolutely disgusting mess, and not in the way Caroline (who on the show is all “lesbian friend type necklace?”) cared about. She’s just disgusting in her simpering pureness, no actual will but to please Stefan and wanting to be absolutely perfect for him. At least once she started being Elena again I could hate those last bits as actual character traits (and I do); basically it’s the difference between wanting to set the book on fire and slap some sense into the character, it’s not enough of a difference to keep me reading but it is an improvement.
However, right now I hate Stefan more than anything. I’m sorry if this was supposed to come off as romantic, but it came off as creepy and disgusting. The book explicitly states that blood sharing a basically sex for vampires which means Stefan is taking advantage of a girl with amnesia, no sense of self, and a childlike view of the world. The fact that he kept her away from anyone else during that (people who had known her their whole lives and knew her way better than Stefan) is disgusting enough but add in the “sex” stuff and it’s WRONG, ON ALL LEVELS WRONG. I want to sick Ripper-Stefan on him, because while I’m not sure which is more awful at least Ripper-Stef is...well he’s my kind of awful.
Make no mistake, I still hate book-Damon too and don’t get him at all, *but* if I ignore the fact that he makes no sense I might be halfway interested in what he’d do. Not enough to actually keep reading, especially since he’ll probably go on another ripper tear of his own before the book is over, but he has some...almost complexity to him. Not in a way that makes sense mind you; I still don’t get what beyond physical attraction he likes about Elena, I still don’t feel anything between him and Stefan, and I don’t quite buy that he’s starting to have affection for the rest of the gang, but at least in that case I’m not sure he buys it either and it’s presented as more of a passing whim. But I also think I may understand why people ship show Damon/Bonnie, because there do seem to be bits for that in this book that I’ve never seen on the show.
As usual, Matt, Meredith, and Bonnie are too good for these people. I may not care about these characters all that much, but compared to the big three I practically adore them. For that matter I’m probably more interested in Caroline’s development that I am with the big three, because the big three suck (and not just blood). Also I want Alaric back in the books, maybe he does come back for this one but I doubt that would be enough to make me keep reading at this point.
I just...don’t even get any fun LJS didn’t intend from this book, I actively hate the main characters, the plot is uninteresting (what there is), the setting has been turned into a generic hellmouth, there’s very little sign of what good development came out of the last couple books, and it’s just bad. And there’s really no excuse for it like there sorta kinda was for the first couple, the characters and setting are established, these were written several years later so you’d think LKS’s writing would have improved with time, it’s like twice as long so you’d think she’d tell a more involved story. Instead it just outright sucks, and not in a funny way like it did at first.
I think I’ll go back to reading the show tie in books now. How is it that the books based on the show are almost infinitely better than the books the show was based on?
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Date: 2012-06-22 10:31 pm (UTC)Told you so. Sorry to be amused at your pain, but OMG, worst book ever, right? I bought this book while I was on vacation and it ended up being all I had to read while I was in various places with no other form of entertainment, which is probably the only reason I kept reading it.
Did you get to the part where Elena has astral wings, yet?
Yeah, the original TVD books may be bad, but they're not OFFENSIVELY TERRIBLE the way the Return books are.
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Date: 2012-06-23 12:57 am (UTC)I think the astral wings bit was mentioned, but I may have blocked it out because this book was SO BAD. If I blocked out that bit it's only because there was enough other bad that I had to remember.
The original books were laughably bad, but not offensively awful yeah.