The Fury

The third entry in L.J. Smith's Vampire Diaries series, The Fury picks up (like The Struggle before it) just where the previous title left off: as Elena prepares to step into the forest clearing, and intervene between the struggling Stefan and Damon. After the events of the previous two books, Elena is now a vampire herself, and following some dramatic contretemps, the three eventually put aside their love-triangle conflict, in order to investigate and battle the mysterious "Other Power" that seems to be wreaking havoc in Fells Church...

There's a lot going on here, from Elena's conflicted feelings about her new "life" - which has separated her from her family - to the involvement of her friends Bonnie, Meredith and Matt in the struggle show more against the "Other Power." Bonnie's psychic abilities continue to play an important role, revealing a surprising supernatural influence that is tied up in the history of Fells Church, and substitute teacher Alaric Saltzman plays an unexpected part as well. Most important of all, Damon's character is fleshed out, and the reader discovers that he is less of a villain than they were led to believe.

It is my understanding that this title was originally intended as a conclusion to the trilogy, and that Smith only decided to continue with the fourth volume (Dark Reunion) afterward, which would explain the fact that The Fury feels like more of a complete story than the previous titles. The teenage melodrama continues, but the reader who has persevered to this point won't care: the narrative is fast-paced and exciting, and the characters more complex. After the conclusion, I'm now wondering how the sequel will play out... show less

Personalmente sono rimasta molto sorpresa, anzi, piacevolmente sorpresa dal livello raggiunto da queesto terzo libro. finalmente la storia ha preso corpo ed i colpi di scena non mancano, allo stesso tempo i personaggi si delineano, chiariscono ed evolvono nella loro umana complessità. Il colpo di scena finale sinceramente non me lo aspettavo, nonostante avessi sospettato qualcosa pensavo che il centro nevralgico di tutte quelle 'sciagure' fosse Elena... in realtà no! Erano proprio Stefan e Demon i punti focali di quell'ira. Bello, incalzante ma allo stesso tempo umile. Un libro che vale la pena leggere. Consigliato agli amanti del mondo vampiresco e di tutti coloro che non necessitano sempre di letture pesanti.

Title: The Fury (The Vampire Diaries, #3)
Author: L.J. Smith
Format: Audiobook

Quick Take: Tired of being caught in the middle of a love triangle between two vampire brothers, Elena sacrifices an immortal love to end the brothers' constant strife.

Thoughts: Having been a fan of the TV show and its spinoffs, I've decided to read the books from which the show is based. First of all, book Elena is much more likeable than TV Elena. Second, going further into the series, I wish we had a live action version of Meridith because she would have been bad-ass. Though I guess we kind of did get Meridth in TV Bonnie because TV Bonnie carried that show and book Bonnie was a bit of a ditz. I absolutely love how TV & book Katherine were very similar in show more personalities lol! Now off to finish this series and start on the spinoff book series.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars show less

Elena wakes up from where she has been pulled out of the river – she’s not dead; or rather she is, but she’s a vampire. Which means she has a whole new life to prepare for as a blood drinking creature of the night. Further, she’s in Fells Church where everyone believes she is dead – an act that is causing all kinds of drama and grief.

And then there’s Stefan and Damon – though betrothed to Stefan she now looks at Damon and finds him unnaturally compelling because… I don’t know, just run with it. As she gets closer to him as a vampire it becomes clear that not all the evil acts they’ve been attributing to him may actually be his fault.

Then the dogs lose their shit. Definitely not his fault. There’s an Other Power in show more town and it’s targeting Elena. And it’s only a matter of time before someone dies.



I think Elena has grown up a fair amount in this book to some degree. Her motives and goals are much less self-absorbed and self-centred and she’s moved away from treating everyone around her as servants who exist only for her whim (even though everyone around her are pretty much servants who exist only for her whim). We even have some pretty good moments of self-reflection where she realises what a selfish, manipulative person she was! An excellent start – albeit somewhat deadened by the fact that everyone else assures her it wasn’t so and it seems to exist largely to give Elena something to angst about.

Still, Elena is a much improved character. That’s not entirely surprising considering how much room she had to improve, but it’s still motion upwards.

I do not like the love triangle, not even slightly. Even working on the fact that Damon isn’t quite as evil as everyone imagined, that still leaves him pretty damn evil. Elena and Stefan have also had virtually no real communication or contact with each other – especially non-antagonistic where Elena hasn’t been furious or terrified. The insta-love she felt for Stefan was bad enough – happening with virtually no foundation, very little mutual communication and quickly careening down the path to becoming Stefan’s fiancée, but this is several orders more ridiculous. Other than his physical appearance, what about Damon has Elena fallen in love with? Give me one feature of his personality, one element of his character, one action he has performed that makes him a viable love interest for Elena?


There’s nothing – this romance has no foundation. But now she finds the idea of choosing between Damon and Stefan so damn hard? Now Damon is a competing love interest? Now we have a love triangle? It makes no sense to me, not even slightly and makes her previous, already dodgy love interest with Stefan seem even more dubious. And it was already pretty dubious.

But there are 2 main elements of this book that really break it for me.

Firstly the melodrama! The awful, over the top, emotion laden, drawn out angsty monologues and hugely flowery, purple descriptions get on my last nerve. It’s a short book, yet so much of it consists of drawn out rambles of what people are feeling and really really over-wrought writing. I just can’t get into it.

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I'm not sure why I'm continuing with this series; I think I keep believing that maybe the next book will be better, and yet it never is.

This yawn-inducing installment introduces Katherine, who isn't nearly as deliciously evil as she is in the television show. She's dispatched with relatively quickly, once her presence is known. Also, she killed Klaus centuries ago, which makes me very sad, because Klaus is one of my favorite characters from the television show - although, let's be honest, if he DID make an appearance in the books, I'm sure he'd be hilariously bad too. It was a rather lackluster reveal. Hell, everything about these books are lackluster. I think I'd honestly rather re-read the Twilight series again, just because those show more books are hilarious (without intending to be...I think...either that, or Stephenie Meyer is the biggest troll out there).

Also, the author keeps saying how clever and smart Damon is, and yet he never figured out that Katherine probably wasn't dead in 500 years? Give me a break. At least the whole "exposed to sun" thing is much more deadly here than it is in the television show; even though Elena was only in the sun for a brief moment without her daylight ring, she died. Katherine also died. I felt nothing for either of their deaths. Meh.

Like a glutton for punishment, I will probably read the rest of the books in the series, because, well, I am obviously a masochist. show less

I liked the unexpected start and outcome of this book, but I simply don't believe in the everlasting love between Elena and Stefan, let alone the fact that she is willing to die for him and his brother.

Sigh. When people talk about paranormal YA these days, there's a lot to choose from in the genre and even if I haven't read it all, I get the sneaking suspicion that most of it isn't brilliant. When it comes to The Vampire Diaries, however, I knew that LJ Smith and her series had been around before Twilight and that claims were made about how it seemed hard to believe that Meyer hadn't read Smith's series, given certain similarities. So while fishing about for something to read in the wake of the Vampire Academy books, I remembered The Vampire Diaries and now I rather wish that I'd just Netflixed the DVDs.

If you've read Twilight, you will, indeed, be able to see some suspicious parallels... but not so spot-on that it's inconceivable the show more two works could have been produced without any influence. That said, there are a few details that make The Vampire Diaries a little better... and yet I actually prefer Twilight. I'm not sure I ever thought that Meyer's writing style would be the thing that came out as the number one thing in her favor -- btw, have you visited http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com yet? you really should -- but I actually think I disliked Smith's style even more. It felt as though she was impatient to get through everything, wishing for wit and passion yet only producing a quick account, interspersed with teenage tantrums.

The Awakening sets us up with a basic plotline. Elena is queen bee at the small town high school and has never really been refused anything she ever wanted, though all of that isn't enough. With a tragic background (parents killed, she and her baby sister left to be raised by her aunt), Elena still manages to shine as a cold beauty with perfect high school gentleman and football star Matt on her arm... and yet she's supposed to be sensitive enough to know that she doesn't really feel that way towards Matt and so after a summer of traveling, it's time to officially end it. Matt, being a good guy, takes it in stride. Then, Elena meets the new kid in school -- Stefan -- and she wants to claim him as her own. The trouble is, Stefan doesn't seem to want anything to do with her... but just give it time. Meanwhile, Elena and her two bffs have been encountering some strange things in town. A bird that looks too knowingly at her. A strange presence in the graveyard that chases them until they cross the safety of running water, an attack on a girl in their class who doesn't seem to mentally recover. We've also got the emergence of a rival love interest other than too-nice Matt and in case you were wondering, it's not a werewolf... it's another vampire named Damon and he also happens to be Stefan's brother. It's a small vampire world after all.

The Struggle continues in the same vein (Get it? Vampires? Blood? Veins? Sorry.) except things are getting even more dangerous for Elena and her vampire boyfriend and... is there a romantic equivalent of "frenemy"? The book literally starts right off where The Awakening left off. Damon is even more interested in Elena now, though Elena is loyal to Stefan. I'm not sure if this wasn't an issue in the early 90s when this was published (but seriously, when has this ever not been an issue?) but why aren't they having sex? I mean, I think we get one scene where Stefan silences Elena with a kiss and I laughed out loud at its ridiculousness as there's a complete and utter lack of passion/chemistry with those two normally. They just kind of cling to each other with no other interaction that suggests two characters who are interested in the other as people. At least in Twilight you get blind and ridiculous devotion but that's accompanied with a stated interest in the other, whether that's believably demonstrated or not. In any case, the scene is getting desperate and Stefan is driven to great lengths to try and save Elena from his brother... but is it Damon that Elena needs saving from?

Well, surprise surprise. The Fury opens up with Elena as a vampire, having been killed by some mysterious force that wasn't Damon, even if Stefan thinks that Damon killed her. With the blood of both brothers in her (that tramp!), Elena "survives"/morphs into vampire mode (funny how everyone else accepts that she's dead even though there's no body) and awakens with a total devotion to Damon as the one who kind of turned her. This fades when Elena sleeps off the whole transformation thing and attends her own funeral, which ends badly when all the dogs of the town seem to gather and turn on the humans. Hm. Not your normal vampy behavior, so Stefan and Damon come to a reluctant truce to figure out what the heck is going on and continue to protect Elena. Naturally, Elena revealing herself to select people can be complicated, but we apparently need the whole cast of secondary characters along for the rest of the ride. The ending is PAINFULLY obvious to anyone who has read the rest of the books and I judge you if you didn't see it coming.

Here's the thing. I picked up The Vampire Diaries series with the full knowledge that if I read one, I'd read them all, but it wouldn't be that hard to manage, as they were each fairly quick reads. This remains true if you do not put the book aside to do something else, but once you do that... well, it's very easy to leave the book aside. I read the first two quite quickly (and honestly, when the last line of the first book is the same as the first line of the second, you know it's one of those things where you just need to keep reading, as the first has no closure whatsoever) and then put down the third at some point... and didn't care much to pick it up again until I decided I just wanted to write this review and be done with them. Sadly, there's a fourth book written after audiences clamored for more (seriously?!) called Dark Reunion which I'll have to read because apparently I hate myself but at least follow through on things. This is not admirable when taken to such extremes as this.

So if you want my recommendation, here it is. If you want real vampires, go watch True Blood and start reading Charlaine Harris. No, the aren't in high school, but that means they can have sex without panning away and it's a much more interesting choice that Sookie has between two vampires than Elena does. If you really want the teenage vampy thing, go to Twilight, then Netflix the first season of The Vampire Diaries (though I haven't seen this, so I can't offer an opinion), or try reading Vampire Academy, but be aware that it's a very different world and you're dealing with very different vampires. After reading LJ Smith's books, though, I am mighty suspicious of Stephenie Meyer (but hey, rest assured that all the freaky stuff from book four must have come direct from her crazy Mormon mind, as Smith doesn't deal in werewolves or vampire babies of any kind). Meyer's world goes far beyond the small town that Smith explores, but they have many things in common. It just seemed like very little happened in this series, and yet everything was written as though we were in a rush. I never felt like the characters were sitting still or getting to know each other (heck, I didn't even know why any of these people were friends with each other except out of habit and convenience). It doesn't help that I don't particularly like any of these characters to start with. So I can't say I endorse the series, but perhaps you'll find something you enjoy about them as many other readers have. As for me, I'll be impatiently waiting for the last Vampire Academy installment and hoping that Charlaine Harris starts laying off the fairies. show less