Overbite [Hardcover]

As soon as I was finished with this book, my first thought was: "I have to return this." It was so short compared to Insatiable, which I love, and it seemed rushed. I really took no interest in any of the characters and the Lucien I had grown to love by the end of Insatiable was gone.
This book just seemed to be missing all of the pizzazz of it's predecessor and there was so much potential for this book to be amazing. Insatiable had amazing character development and really gave the reader a chance to invest in the characters. I felt that there was barely any scenes with any other characters other than Meena and Lucien.
Also I thought the ending was awful, not because of what happened, but for the simple fact that there was no set up for it to end the way it did. There wasn't enough character interaction for it to end that way.
If Insatiable was smoking hot, Overbite is freezing cold. This is the first Meg Cabot book I have read that I did not absolutely love (and I have read a lot of Meg Cabot novels).

No doubt someone will like this book. It's just...not me.

I love Meg Cabot's books because of their sly humor, their underdog heroines, and their zany take on paranormal anything. I came to Meg's writing via her teen novels when I was working as a teen librarian.

However, THIS book lacks humor, fun characters, witty dialog - in short, it lacks anything that is fun about Meg and gains nothing good from the vampire genre. It's really like Meg was asked (forced?) to write a vampire novel and just gave up halfway through.

The main character, Meena, truly falls into the 'too stupid to live' category. She's boring, whiny, cries all the time, and has none of the kick-butt attitude of Suzanna from the Mediator series or the clever, plan-ahead smarts of Jean from Jinx. The vampire, Lucien, is dull as the dirt he lives in and the only character I found even remotely interesting was the socially awkward Wulf, who is about as much a stereotype as you can imagine.

The REAL problem, I think, is that this is the first book I've read from Meg that is written in 3rd person ("he drank blood," "she cried," "it was awkward"), rather than told from the 1st person point of view ("I found her earlier books were better.") It's like Meg doesn't know HOW to write in the 3rd person. Her 1st-person books are hilarious - the heroine tells the story of her adventures (and run-ins with the requisite male hottie) in an engaging way. We root for her because we see her insecurities and her struggles through her eyes. The heroine's humor also shines through. This book, however, is just cold when told from the outside. Also, Meg doesn't transition well between whose head we're 'in' at any given time. It takes a moment to figure out if we're being treated to the world through Meena's eyes, Wulf's eyes, the narrator's eyes, or what.

For example, there was a sentence that read "Dental hygenie was clearly not a big part of [this vampire's] priorities anymore."

Now, normally, that would be said BY the heroine of the novel, in that wry, off-the-cuff way that would make her out to be this Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer type, cracking jokes in the face of danger. But the way it's written, it DOESN'T come off that this is Meena speaking. Instead, Meena cries all the time. This doesn't seem like something she'd say. So is it another character talking? Well...no. It's sort of like it's the narrator talking - or...Meg talking? It just comes out of nowhere, this moment of humor in an otherwise overly serious book, so the whole line just comes off as very insensitive. It didn't come off as funny at all.

Basically, the narrative voice - the strongest part of so many Cabot novels - is totally off.

As for the vampire stuff? Totally derivative. The slayer is blonde, the vamp is dark haired, the girl is caught in the middle. I swear I saw this once before and it was a vampire manga from Japan for teenagers (Vampire Knight). I thought the story was a little stale THEN and it, at least, had this boarding-school plot to jazz it up.

With the craze for all things vamp, I'm sure this will find an audience. And it was something I read for a breezy afternoon. But truly, Meg, you can do (and HAVE DONE) much better.

I absolutely loved the first book in this series, Insatiable. It was a fantastic new take on the whole Dracula legend and I devoured every word. I was beyond thrilled to see that Meg was writing a follow up to it and downloaded it to my Kindle as soon as it released. Now that I am finished with the book and digesting all the information, my overall feeling is disappointment. I was not a fan of where Meg took the story and how the characters developed along the way.

Let's start off talking about Meena. It has been six months since her break-up with Lucien and she has tried to move on with her life. She is working for the Palatine Guard now, hunting vampires and trying to keep the city safe. She has not been dating and when she runs into Lucien again all her old feelings for him come flooding to the surface. However, those feelings are never really given a chance to develop in the book. Actually no one's feelings are given a chance to develop because every time Meena starts to get close to Lucien or Alaric they are interrupted. With either some strange plot twist or Meena crying, the girl was constantly crying. As for Alaric, I know that Meena and he shared a few moments in Insatiable, but I never thought there was any real spark there. In Overbite however, Meena is always thinking about both men and not sure where her true feelings really lie. I did not like the back and forth inner struggle and found it very distracting while reading. If Meena was going to start dating Alaric it is a development that should have at least started before Lucien came back into the picture and not be a sudden development with the arrival of the prince of darkness.

This brings me to my next point, Lucien. Talk about a Debbie downer, all his thoughts in the book were so dark and filled with self-hatred it was a chore reading his point of view as the plot progressed. He was so witty and charming in Insatiable and in Overbite he is just sullen and moody. Lucian has been fighting his dark side for centuries and now all of a sudden he is embracing it? This just did not sit right with me, I did not think he would go off the deep end but he most certainly did. It was so sad to see him this way and it put a damper on the whole book.

I also did not like that one of the main conflicts in the book was resolved off stage. Meaning, the problem was solved, but we did not get to see it happen. We just heard about it through someone after the fact and that was not enough for me. I wanted to be in the heat of the battle with the characters and watch as they triumphed, not hear a watered down version of it after the fact.

The last major problem I had with this book was the ending. I cannot believe that after everything these characters have been through this is the way Meg chose to end it. I cannot say what it is without major spoilers, but I know that I am so let down with this finale. I know there are no more books to come in this world and that is the only solace I now have from this series. If you liked Insatiable, I would still read Overbite so you have some resolution because you might end up enjoying it more than me. My only advice would be to see if you can check it out from the library or borrow from a friend before you commit to buying your own copy.

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