I couldn’t figure out why I identified so much with her when I was younger. Elena is incredibly selfish and manipulative. I found it very difficult to like most of the characters. My response this time around was less favorable than when I was twelve. It having been such a long time since I’d read the first four books, before starting Nightfall, I hauled out my first edition paperbacks and re-read the entire series to refresh my memory. I can only evaluate it as a grown woman and long time fan that still possesses a great deal of love for the series. As a result, I don’t really know what appeals to the YA audience these days, and can’t even guess at how a reader in the appropriate age demographic would respond to this novel. Coincidentally, I outgrew YA fiction around about the same time Smith stopped writing it. It must be noted from the get go that I have not picked up a YA novel since I was sixteen. Though Nightfall is the first book in The Return trilogy, the series picks up right where Dark Reunion left off, making them the continuation of a series rather than a stand alone trilogy. Twelve years after the publication of her last novel and eighteen years after the publication of the last volume of The Vampire Diaries, Smith is back with the fifth installment, The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall. Smith went on to write three more YA trilogies with a supernatural slant, as well as the successful Night World series, before withdrawing from the writing world one book short of completing the Night World series. When I wrote my senior thesis during my final year as an undergraduate Creative Writing major, I listed Smith as one of my primary influences as a writer. I also found her ability to make the simplest physical interactions between characters sensual without becoming sexually explicit, very admirable. I found Smith’s deliberate and well paced prose incredibly appealing. Reading The Vampire Diaries was a transformative experience for me.

I was immediately taken with the pretty, popular, and strong-willed Elena Gilbert, as well as her two vampire suitors, the sensitive Stefan and his womanizing brother Damon, not to mention Elena’s loyal friends Meredith, Bonnie, and Matt. I was twelve when the first book in The Vampire Diaries tetralogy was released back in 1991. Maat 11:59 pm ( fantasy, fiction, novels, romance, vampires, young adult) The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall by L.J. Smith

Nightfall by lj smith