Vampire Diaries #2: The Struggle [Mass Market Paperback]

In volume #2 "The Struggle" the heat intensifies as Damon and Stefen continue the struggle for Elena, one who looks very much like a woman they both loved long ago. Will she turn to either vampire or is there something sinister keeping watch to stop all three? It continues on to volume #3

The premise is hopelessly melodramatic: the beautiful blonde Elena (what, you expected an L. J. Smith heroine that *wasn't* stunning?!) is caught between two vampire brothers, the angelic Stefan and the demonic Damon. Though she loves Stefan she is equally attracted to Damon, and I'm wincing whilst writing this, such is the corniness of the situation. Elena reminds the brothers of a girl they both sought after whilst they were human: the vampiric Katherine who Turned them both, but then killed herself when they wouldn't cease their feud. Now the triangle is replaying itself out once more in contemporary Fell's Church, but with a few differences, namely the presence of another Power wrecking havoc upon the citizens. At first Elena and Stefan think Damon is responsible for the attacks and other strange occurences, but mounting evidence leads them to believe otherwise...

The love-story is simply painful to behold, and I'm not sure what's worse: the love-lorn wide-eyed declarations of love between Stefan and Elena ("you've stolen my soul") or Damon's painful attempts at seducing her ("You can become a queen of shadows"). Smith is usually quite good at capturing every-day speech, but the dialogue of this book is abysmal.

But in the face of the awful love-story, there are other little plot strands to consider that keep "Vampire Diaries" from being a complete waste of time. Even though "The Struggle" isn't that important in the context of the entire series, the more mundane occurances hold one's interest. In the previous book, Elena's diary is stolen, which contained several crucial passages about Stefan's involvement in the attacks at Fell's Church. Now little notes are popping up, posting on notice boards, slipped into her bag, that quote Elena's own words back at her. Elena and her two closet friends Bonnie and Meredith suspect their ex-friend Caroline, and dread the fact that she's planning on reading out the diary at the Founding Day celebration.

In between hatching a plan to steal back the diary, there is a whole range of other problems that need to be dealt with: the previously attacked Vickie is now acting very strangely at school, a new teacher Alaric Saltzman is asking a lot of suspicious questions, Bonnie's prophesies continue to get more and more ominous and class bully Tyler Smallwood is also causing trouble amongst the students. To top it all off, Damon is prowling around, inviting himself to class functions and even Elena's house in the attempts to stir up trouble between the brothers.

It ends, of course, on a big cliffhanger, and I think it's fair to say that on the whole "The Vampire Diaries" are not L. J. Smith's best work (not that any of her work is high literature). For me personally, I like my vampires evil and dark - but Smith's vampires are technically the good guys, and have no sense of the massive weight of vampiric lore that surrounds the legend; instead they act too much like teenagers. Though the books are backed up by reasonably interesting sub-plots, and one can clearly see from the other reviews that pre-teens swoon over the books and characters, it's only a matter of time before they're looking back and wondering "what was I *thinking*?!" They're good books to take on holiday - quick, easy, entertaining reads that don't need too much brain-power to read, and are no big loss if they are misplaced.