My Two Cents: When People Look Like Idiots...

I recently had a conversation with a person who is a complete turkey.

We were discussing Kiss of Midnight by Lara Adrian which was sitting on my desk. The conversation went something like this:


*Reading the back cover* Her: Oh, this is like a complete rip-off of True Blood

Me: No it’s not.

Her: yes it is with the vampire war and everything.

Me: No its not, it is a little similar to another series I have read by JR Ward but I don’t find any similarities to True Blood. True Blood is a lot lighter and not as commitment based, it also incorporates other species and there isn’t a war in the first couple of books anyway.

Her: well I suppose it’s just how you see it...but from what I’ve read of true blood (the first 3 chapters) it’s pretty much the same thing.

Now if she had come up to me after reading the first book in its entirety and said that...I may have put some stock in her argument. But she’s watched the first couple of seasons of True Blood and read a bit of the first book. The series is way different to the book and the book is way different to Midnight Breeds.

This lady is also known for not taking being told she’s wrong very well. So she hasn’t been talking to me lately, but I stand by my statement of the books being completely different and after having read the entire Sookie Stackhouse series and nearly finishing Kiss of Midnight I think I would know what I’m talking about.

The vampire genre is a very hard one to write now because nearly everything has been done and authors need to try to make their story stand out in some way yes there are things that are similar between the stories like fangs and in the newer novels mates and the characters getting hot and heavy but just because a book has a vampire in it doesn’t mean it’s the same as Twilight or True Blood.

Although I congratulate Charlaine Harris immensely for her achievements in the writing and more recently entertainment world. It almost makes me feel sorry for other writers in the genre because everything will automatically get dumped under the one category if it has any aspect of her story like a vampire, a werewolf or a war. That is not her fault of course but I still feel bad for other writers who will in the future inevitably be compared to True Blood or Twilight just because the stories contain a vampire even if they are completely different. It’s already in the advertising of books “If you liked Twilight then you’ll love this!”

It also makes me feel sorry for the arrogant people out there that group these fantastic novels all under the one umbrella and foolishly pass most of them by. I’m sorry but that’s like saying to a tech-head that all phones are the same which from experience (because I have made that statement to one as a joke) is like ripping out their heart or putting an iPhone 4 in a blender.

And for the record, the book that comes to mind who's advertising is "If you liked Twilight then you'll love this"? If I Stay by Gayle Forman of all things. No vampires, no werewolves, just two teens falling in love was the only linking aspect.