Review: Vampire Diaries-The Return: Nightfall by LJ Smith

The title of this one is a mouthful.
It's the 5th book of the Vampire Diaries series - written nearly 20 years after the first books were published.

If you haven't read any of them, this may give a lot away!

It picks up a few days after the last book ends. I thought it seemed kind of forced - the 4th book has a pretty reasonable ending, but she had to do something to make a dramatic enough start for this book. So, Elena is alive again, but has reverted to a baby-like state. It was a little odd. The major thing that bugged me about the book is that she had the characters using computers and cell phones suddenly. There was no mention of this technology in the first books of course. But suddenly Elena's diary is something she types on her computer, and they all are carrying cell phones.

I tried to get past that. The story-line was interesting...Damon is under the influence of some dark forces and doesn't realize it. So, sometimes he's good, and sometimes he isn't. Stefan is gone for most of the book, so Damon is supposed to be Elena's protector, but half the time he's the one hurting her.

I found some of it kind of confusing to keep up with. And a lot of the things that happened seemed to be pretty convenient (like Elena being able to magically do things when she needed to be able to do them, even though she had no idea she could).

I didn't realize the book would be left so wide open either...there will definitely be another one.

Overall, it was an ok book. Since I feel like I 'know' the characters, I had to keep reading to find out what happened. It could have been shorter, and I think she could have done without some parts of it. But, I'll probably get suckered into reading the next one, since I have to know how it turns out!

Rated: 3-3.5/5