Evernight and Stargazer by Claudia Gray

[stephbg]

My faith in the teen vampire romance genre has been restored. Actually, I started with none, and went into heavy negative territory with Twilight. Unless you count Buffy/Angel/Spike. But I digress, the two Evernight Academy books Evernight and Stargazer by Claudia Gray are infintiely superior to that Twilight trash. I must thank leecetheartist for pressing them upon me, for although I value her opinion (which was that they were awesome), I was not really interested in going there.



I love the fact that there's not much you can say about these books without spoiling them. Yes, there are familiar elements: a Harry Potter-like school environment, sexy boys and girls, a shy heroine. I was delighted and surprised when the first reveal came, and all I can say is, stay pure as long as you can and read them without prejudice.

The writing was great; the characters, pacing, narrative, everything. These would make *great* movies. I found them page turners in a completely different way to my slog through Twilight in the vain hope that something would happen. Things happened in these books, and I was driven by curiosity to find out what happened next. I reached the end of the second book not with relief, but with anticipation. The third is due out about now, and I want to read it.

I can't wait to see if these cure my Twilight-afflicted niece. Thanks in advance L for the offer to loan them on to her.

Comments

[leecetheartist.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked them!

They came up as part of our booty at one of the Quiz Days, and ratfan recommended them to me, I'm very pleased she did!

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall mortonhall reviewing them positively...

[mortonhall.livejournal.com]

*trying to remember*

were they the ones where they had the silly reveal half way through the first book? That bit was silly but they were pretty good otherwise.

[leecetheartist.livejournal.com]

Non-spoilery review here, to assist you identifying.

http://myfavoriteauthor.blogspot.com/2009/02/review-evernight-series-by-claudia-gray.html

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

Maybe there's a lot of similarity in names:-) I _thought_ it sounded like the name of one of the vampire books you talked about in non-negative ways in your recent swag of vampir-ama:-)

Yes! Not precisely _glowing_... but positive of the second book.

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm responsible for Leece taking these books (g). I've read a lot of vampire fic in my time, but the recent trend to turn it into teen romance is just bizarre! Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampires series is also a good read to cure the Twilight-afflicted.