Lisa Jane Smith was born September 4, 1965 and she lives in California. She is an American author and her books are young-adult literature, horror, science fiction/fantasy and romance. She has written three trilogies, two series and two companion novels. Her books are popular and the characters are extraordinarily beautiful people, human and supernatural and most of them are young, or at least almost youthful. She is mostly known for The Vampire diaries series, which is now a TV show and it’s based on her book series.

Plot:

In the first book the The Awakening, we got to know that Elena, who is a popular high school student, falls in love with Stefan Salvatore. He is a vampire, and he has a brother named Damon Salvatore. They are not exactly friends, because about 500 years before they both loved a girl named Katherine. Stefan was hoping to marry her, but the romance was complicated because Katherine also was in love with Damon too. Katherine is a vampire, and she turned Stefan and Damon to vampires. Damon and Stefan hated each other, because they both loved Katherine. Elena finds out that she and Katherine looks exactly like each other, and she finds out that Stefan is a vampire. Later she also finds out that Damon is in love with her. The book ends with Elena who is desperately trying to find Stefan because he has disappeared.

The struggle starts with Elena trying to ask Damon about Stefan’s disappearance but Damon refuse to help her, because she rejects his love. Elena gets help from her friend, Bonnie McCullough. She is a witch, and she has powers to find Stefan. They finds out that Stefan is trapped in a well, and he is almost dying. He gets help by Elena and her friends, and survives from the blood Elena gave him from herself. Meanwhile, Caroline Forbes, who is Elena’s ex-best friend, stole her diary. The diary contains a lot of Elena’s secret and that Stefan is a vampire, but Elena later found out that Damon has taken the diary from Caroline, and he gave it to her. Elena thanks him, but then Damon finds out that Elena and Stefan are engaged.

Setting:

Mysticfalls, Virginia: The whole story happens in Mysticfalls. The time is our time, because the characters in the book use mobiles a lot and drives cars. They also don’t talk like people did in old time; they talk like peoples talk now in our time and the places seems to be modern. Like the high school they go on, they have allowed having cars on the school’s parking place.

Renaissance Florence, The late fifteenth century in Italy: It has a lot of effect on the content, because in the first book the whole story starts here, because Stefan and Damon fought over Katherine. Both hoped to merry her, and because of that they hate each other.

Genre:

The books genre is horror, fantasy, romance and young-adult fiction.

Point of view:

The narrator of the book is the author; she is what you call omniscient. Ex: “Yes,” Stefan said. She is in the head of the characters, and tells how the characters are feeling and what they are thinking.

Character analysis:

Elena Gilbert: She is seventeen years old, and has pale golden hair, also blond. She is slender and she has sky blue eyes. She is popular, and she is high school senior. She is described as a girl who is so beautiful that she can have any boy she wants, and every girl wants to be like her. She is confident and brave, because in the first book Stefan tells her that he is a vampire, but she was not scared at all and also because she gave Stefan blood from herself. She is a strong character in my opinion, because she isn’t like depending on Stefan, she doesn’t need someone to protect her and when she means something, she says it.

Stefan Salvatore: He is mysterious. He has a lean, flat-muscled body, and he has wavy and dark coloured hair. He is just average height. He is good vampire because he only drinks animal’s blood, but he is weaker than Damon because he only drinks animal’s blood, and Damon drinks human blood. Human blood makes vampires more “powerful”. He is “the good” brother.

Damon Salvatore: He is “sexy” and dangerous. He has dark eyes, dark beauty and elegance and he have sensuality that drew women to him. He wears clothes that are black, and he has an attractive smile. In my opinion he is very funny, because he always says something funny. He wants revenge against Stefan, and he falls in love with Elena, but he gets very angry because Elena rejects him. He is very strong because he drinks human blood, and he is very tough. His first love was Katherine, but she was also in love with his brother Stefan, and that makes him hate Stefan very much.

Theme:

First of all I think the author are trying to tell us that vampires aren’t always bad, and that they do not always drink or needs human’s blood.

I also think the theme is loyalty, because Elena is very loyal. She is popular and beautiful, and she can have any boy she wants but she never cheated Stefan, when he disappeared.

My opinion:

I really like this book series. It’s really exciting, there’s always happened something that makes you wants to read more and more. I also really liked the characters, especially Damon. He is extremely funny, and more interesting than Stefan, who in my opinion is boring. Even though the books are really good, I like the TV show best. I am obsessed with the TV show, and it has more action and mysterious.

Recommendation:

I would recommend this book or this book series mostly to girls but boys might like this too, because my brother likes it, especially the TV show. I don’t think boys will like the book as much as girls because it’s about love triangle and it’s really girly. I think teenagers would like this book series, 14-18 years old girls or maybe boys.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._J._Smith_%28author%29