If you're a fan of the television series “The Vampire Diaries” on The CW channel on Thursdays at 8 p.m., you probably know that it originated from LJ Smith’s book series. What you may not know is though they have the same title and share the same concept, they are practically different stories. If you’re planning on reading the books to get more out of the story, you may be greatly disappointed.
To demonstrate some of these points, in the book, Elena is whiny and mean, whereas in the show she’s really sweet, caring, and tough! Like when she finds out she’s dating a vampire, she tells him to get out of her life, rather than being all accepting and swoony like Elena from the book. She stands up for herself and others. Plus she’s the adorable Nina Dobrev, who was Mia, the teen mom, on Degrassi.
In the books, the Salvatore brothers are from the Italian Renaissance. They become vampires, after they have ingested vampire blood by fighting to the death for their beloved Katherine and killing each other. Stefan is the classic, perfect gentlemen brother who still has his humanity. Damon is evil. Not cute, cool guy, sexy evil. Just cold, creeper, fiend evil.
In the show, the Salvatore brothers originate on a Virginia plantation in the 1800s. They become vampires after they have ingested vampire blood and are killed by their father, the ever-so-wonderful James Remar, clearing the town of the vampire scourge, even if they’re his own sons. Stefan is good (or is he?) and Damon is evil, (but was he always?) in that super-sexy evil way.
In the show, Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder’s hotness is NOT left up to your imagination.
In the books, the diaries are actually an important part of the plotline. They are called the Vampire Diaries after all. Caroline (one of the antagonists of the story) steals Elena’s diary, which conveniently outs Stefan as a vampire, and plans to read it to the entire town.
In the show, the first few episodes showed both Stefan and Elena doing some diary-writing, while some angsty alternasong played in the background. Then they kind of drift into the background, only showing back up when Elena’s kid brother of the eternally pouty face steals it and finds out all about the vampires, which, by then, he knew anyway, but it creates tension between Elena and her brother.
One of the reasons many young people loved these books was all of the crazy plot twists and turns! However, since there are many books, and only one season of the show is out so far, anything listed here might be a spoiler for those who haven’t read them.
The first half of season one meandered a bit. However, by the second half of the season, I couldn’t wait each week for the new episode to air. A large part of that was due, in fact, to the cast --not just the three leads, but cute blonde Caroline, the hunky history teacher with a mysterious past, and Sark from Alias, chewing up the scenery.
However, the plot did twist and turn, and even though everyone could see where it was heading a fair amount of the time, it was pleasantly surprising along the way, and the ride was thoroughly enjoyable. Where the show deviates from the books has made it really come into its own.