Book Review: Insatiable by Meg Cabot

So over the last couple of weeks I have been posting my book reviews on Wednesday. Mostly this has to do with my general lack of other things to do on Wednesday night. So from now on I am going to try and post a book review every Wednesday.

This week I am reviewing Insatiable by Meg Cabot. The book is Cabot's attempt at doing a "sequel" (according to her website) to Dracula. I am not really sure that is what the book ends up as. The story follows Meena Harper, a young woman who works as a dialogue writer for a popular soap opera. Meena also has the psychic ability to tell when and how people she meets are going to die and spend a good deal of time trying to warn off friends and family from possible doom.

Then there is Lucien, Dracula's son and charming vampire who is captivated by Meena and wants to run away with her. There is also Alaric Wolf who is a member of the Palatine Gaurd who is sworn to kill vampires and follows Meena to get to Lucien.

I still cant figure out if this book was sarcastic of serious. One scene she is clearly making fun of Twilight that its pretty much a case of copy right infringement. But then the first half of the book Meena spends the entire time talking about how stupid this obsession with vampires is and how stupid they are as a species. All of that I was on board for but then things switched up a bit. Suddenly I wanted to stab Meena for being exactly the kind of stupid woman she had made fun of earlier.


Spoiler Warning: If you are interested in reading this book stop now. If not this is a big part of the review.


The one thing that made the second half of the book tolerable at all is that Meena tells Lucien no. At the end of the book when he wants to sweep her away from everything she knows and loves and turn her into a vampire she says no to him and leaves. I liked that part a whole lot. As some one who has dropped everything to live with her man I can say that just dealing with that one person will make you crazy. Any real person would go nuts. So I respect Cabot for having Meena know that she needs to be a full person to be happy and that is not going to happen if she lets Lucien "take care of her." But everything before that was stupid.

Cabot is one of those writers you have to really love to enjoy this book at all. She isnt particularly original but her books are always funny. On the other hand she has two types of heroines that she writes, one is a kick ass take no shit kind of girl, and the other is wimpy and self doubting and loathing. Meena was mostly the second.

I got the book on tape and that might have been one of the big draw backs for me. I tend to skim pages about descriptions or when the female lead gets mushy (its the only way i was able to read Twilight without burning the damn thing) so the fact that i had to hear every word made me a bit crazy. I really didnt need to hear about Lucien's sad eyes as many times as I did.

Alaric Wolf was the only character I really liked because he was always who he was supposed to be. Lucien and Meena flip and flop as to who their character act but Alaric is pretty much hard headed and I love him for it.

Final rating: Don't read it, its not worth the time. Unless you are a die hard Cabot fan and want to see this for giggles. I would suggest picking up her Mediator series, its way better story telling and the characters are more believable.