I loved everything!My granddaughter loves this bookI love this bookI've loved this series since i was a child, l.j. smith's were the first books i picked up as a kid when buffy came out and i got into my vampire phase. this series is like mental comfort food for me even now. for a YA book, the characters are all remarkably well developed, and the atmosphere is wonderfully dark for a teen's book.many people are complaining that they had trouble relating to elena when the series starts, but the point of the book series is that elena starts out as a shallow, selfish teenage girl much like katherine had been several hundred years before her. but elena makes different choices and grows into a person who realizes what's really important during the course of the novel. in a way, other characters wind up struggling with similar issues... bonnie with what her newfound powers mean, matt with losing someone he loved, etc. stefan and damon are both sterotypes at first but manage to become slightly less so once we've gotten to know them. both are also struggling with various issues... and versions of those issues are what confront teens every day."i really want to do something, even though i know it's wrong." or "what's really important in life? clothes, popularity, and status? or something else?" "what's the point of continuing to do the right things and be a good person if bad things still happen in the world?" those are some of the things the characters struggle with in this series, and their answers and experiences change them. that's one of the things i like best about this series. no character is black or white, and none of them stay 100% the same throughout the novels. it makes them much more interesting than the characters in a certain other vampire series i could name.damon is absolutely my favorite character, and one of the more well developed villains in a YA series. he doesn't come off quite as awesome in the tv. series, although i think somerholder's doing a decent job. this story is very different from the TV series... the appearance of the main characters, the origin of the salvatore brothers, and even the name of the town have been changed. if you're looking for something exactly like the show, you'll be disappointed, but if you keep an open mind, it's a good series, and the personalities of most of the characters are the same, except what i mentioned before, that elena starts out selfish and grows up.Was just a little surprised and disappointed when the book arrived. The cover was not the cover picture used for this item. Upon closer inspection of the other pictures they have, that’s what I received. I feel like it’s a little misleading, I should have checked the other pictures but I felt like it was pretty cut and dry of what I was getting. Yes it’s the same book, now it just doesn’t match the rest of my series.I have watched the show and own the DVD's so I decided to give the books a try. I knew before I started that they are not much in common on some aspects between the show and books. These books are what gave life to the TV series. L.J. Smith brought Elena, Stefan, Damon, and the other characters to life. She created a depth to them that has me coming back for more. I read these two books in two days because I just had to see what happened next.Elena, the popular girl of school, who lost her parents three years ago in the book world. She still misses them both and for long time blamed them for their deaths. She lives with her Aunt Judith and four yr old sister Margaret. She has two best friends Meredith and Bonnie, it used to be three, but her and Caroline are on the outs now. Elena doesn't feel like she belongs though and soon looses the once popular status being shunned by her friends except Meredith, Bonnie, and Matt.Stefan comes to Fells Church at the beginning of The Awakening. He thinks that Elena looks like Katherine so much, but when he gets to know her he realizes she's nothing like Katherine. Stefan makes the football team and for a while he's accepted at the school. Then people start turning up dead and they blame him because he's new to town.Damon through-out the two books is doing things that lead everybody to believe that Stefan is behind the deaths. Their feud going back to Katherine still rages between them. He does everything to keep Elena and Stefan apart, but it doesn't work. Elena won't let him win because she loves Stefan.These two books offered into one book is a must for a vampire diaries fan. The characters are well written, it is hard to put down not wanting to miss what comes next. It is not extremely scary like some books or movies can be, but some parts make you jump. I enjoyed those parts the most and cannot wait to read the next two in this series.Got a completely different cover than the one shown in the picture with the flower. Bought this listing because the cover was so pretty. Complete let down!I've watched vampire diaries on TV and have them on dvd and recently I decided to read them. Now the whole book in my opinion is different from the TV programme but I like it. It took me a while to accept the book having watched it on TV but it's a good read just it's a shame that I read the book after I watched it on TV because I already have the TV version in my head when reading the books. But it's all good just a little hard to grasp the book afterwards.Ok, so, im 13 and I read this book and I thought I was gonna be something BETTER than twilight. I've read all the twilight books and they are quite good, a bit soppy but okay. Anyway back to vAmpire diaries.....this book was a disappointment. I had to stop halfway through its was so Boring. I started watching the tv series halfway through and prefer the tv series WAY more. The tv series is scarier than the book. I think when they started making the tv series, they took the names from the book and kind of based the series on the book, but the series goes a whole other way to the book. Anyway, thought it wasn't worth a read, and I'm not going to get the next ones...I bought the 2 books and was hoping for a good light read - what it ended up being is a dry, wooden story. The characters are pretty painful... as in no depth what so ever. Granted these books get better towards the end of the book but still had me flicking through pages impatiently.The heroine was just awful... really grated on me reading about her in the beginning. She got better and the two main male characters weren't that much more exciting but Damon being a little bit more complex and compelling against the back drop of the others. Stefan is just too weak to be interesting and the love confessions too early in the book.I know these books are compared to Twilight and I am a fan of Meyers books which had me ignoring the whole world around me. Sadly these books didn't do it for me. I still got to the end of these but couldn't wait to finish and wont be buying any more. Maybe the TV series will be better...?OK. Know this book series is for teenager's, however I just love the series. Just couldn't put it down. It is a easy read, well written. Didn't want to put it down.Elena Gilbert and her friends just want to get through the school year, but things seem to go a bit wrong for them when they meet Stefan Salvatore and his brother Damon. The brothers have a shadowy past which Elena gets tangled up in. For the brothers is the past going to repeat itself.I also started to watch the tv series before reading the books and have to say that I love both in their own way.I wanted to give the books a go and try not to go into them comparing them to the twilight series as so many people seem to do, for a start these books were written years before twilight came along and both have wonderful qualities and hold up in their own right.I am really glad that I did give them a chance, I am not a teenager by far but still am enjoying these books very much, it might take a little while to warm to the slightly more selfish (and blonde) Elena of the books but as I find with most books where they have been made into either a tv series or a film that the book is far more emotional and definitely more detailed.Give them a chance you won't be disappointed, but I would start reading them with an open mind and no pre-expectations and just enjoy them for the good read that they are.