The Vampire Diaries: The Return: MidnightI pre-ordered this book in December of 2010 so that it would arrive on my Kindle the day it came out (March 15, 2011). I was excited though I had been disappointed with this arc, line of the Vampire Diaries, whatever you want to call it... The Return stuff... Still it was the Vampire Diaries and aspects of it were okay here and there. I'd still read them quickly. Give them the benefit of the doubt. I'd hope L.J. Smith would re-find her Vampire Diaries groove.
Nope. It's taken me until today (June 16, 2011) to finish it. That's bad, I never have that issue as I only buy books I think I'll at least like a little. I can't give this line within the series credit any longer. There were fewer and fewer clever aspects. More and more bad, unreadable aspects. There were story lines within it that seemed rushed and all over the place when they should have been slow and carefully explained and others that seemed to have a billion details for no reason as there was absolutely nothing going on.
I do really really hope L.J. Smith finds whatever is broken here before working on her other series. I was anxious to read the next Night World, even with how disappointed I'd been in the last few Vampire Diaries she'd written. After this one... Ugh, I'm way more nervous about that. I can only hope that she had gotten burnt out on this series / was being rushed due to the tv show causing a new interest in these books / something. I know she was "fired" from this series. As much as I hate to say this, being these were her babies, it's the best thing to have happened to them. The Stefan's Diaries series which was written by someone else is so much better - to the point I stopped reading this to read it and several other books before dragging myself back to this one as I felt I HAD to finish it just because I'd bought it and it was the Vampire Diaries.
If you're on the fence about this one - skip it. It will surely be recapped in the next book and that will be written by someone else.
The only reason I can even bring myself to give it the 2 stars is because somehow in this mess there are a few really good 5 star passages... mixed in with a mostly 1 star book. Had those rare sections not been included, this would be a very very rare 1 star for me. As it is 2 stars is rare for me and with how much I love this series I hate doing it. I just can't stretch the credit for L.J. any longer, sorry.
