I must confess, I failed to locate Evernight, book 1 of Miss Claudia Gray's vampire YA series, so I have to make do with reading Stargazer, book 2 of the series first. *plot spoiler warning* I also learned that the true identity of Evernight Academy's students as vampires is supposed to be a major plot twist for us, but too bad I found out who they really are by simply looking at the book introduction on the back cover of Hourglass, book 3 of the series.*end of spoiler
So to me, the major plot twist isn't such a big surprise at all.
Each book of the Evernight series has pretty cover art, and judging from the introduction at the back cover, it seems to also have an interesting story to tell.I think Stargazer is far from being a Twilight rip-off, nor does it focus entirely on the romance between the leading characters. The author addressed issues such as how the undeads deal with the change of time, how they struggled to fit into the modern society, the conflict between vampires and vampire hunters, etc. There're some nice writing, descent plots, tension and fight scenes to back the story up. The concept of Bianca being a 'born' vampire instead being turned is also a refreshing one (though it's not an unique idea, I must point out) Plus the vampires actually drink blood and attack humans instead of being a bunch of goody-two-shoes.
Though, as a whole Stargazer needs more explaining and world building to make the story shin. still I found the book being a bit dim. I also failed to find anything unique in the book: most of the settings and plots had already been done before. I don't hate the characters but I'm not interested in them. For most of time those characters look like they were there so the story can go forward, and nothing more.
The female lead, Bianca is also a dim character, from start to end I still can't grip how she is as a person. She was being described as a fan of astrology, but I can't see how can this detail help us to understand her better. We are also told that Bianca loves Lucas, a teenage vampire hunter, who was exiled from Evernight after his cover as a mere human student was blown. Still I don't care about their romance much, said romance gives me nothing other than some uninteresting teenage dramas and "I love you, but I can't be with you! It's so tragic!" mumbo jumbo.
Of course, there's another boy who is interested in Bianca, a vampire boy whose name I fail to remember--- he is not so bad as a character but there's hardly anything worth memorizing about this vampire boy anyway. Bianca's parents wanted their daughter to date that vampire boy but of course the girl loved Lucas and went on meeting the latter in secret anyway...*sighs* everything is just so typical.
At the beginning of the story, Bianca tried breaking into the school's principal home in order to help Lucas finding out why Evernight was taking human students in. We are told that Bianca is a first timer in breaking and entering, but I found despite of the fist person viewpoint, Bianca barely seems to even feel nervous when she was trying to break into the supposedly cold, scary, badass principal's house. There's no cold-sweat, no rapid heartbeat, no nothing. Bianca went on like she's just having a picnic. It looks really unrealistic to me.
Then Bianca met Charity, a girl whom she identified as a vampire, who looked outwardly like a 14 years old fragile, lost little girl. Instantly Bianca took pity on Charity and believed she's as innocent, harmless and confused as she appeared to be. WHAT? Is Bianca stupid or something? Such amount of trusting is so over the top.
In the middle of the mess, Bianca started to see ghosts appearing in the school, it's later revealed that those ghosts were in fact wraiths, who had some bad blood with the vampires, what did those wraiths want? The introduction of the wraiths is a nice part of the story, though I was a bit disappointed when their reason for attacking the school is revealed. The revealing of this mystery leaves me quite underwhelmed. Plus I found it really strange when everyone in Evernight Academy, including the human students, talked about ghosts openly and matter-of-factly like it's just business as usual. No one freaked out, no one was in denial, hardly anyone even try to avoid talking about ghosts, that's really strange.
(Okay, I know there's a reason why the students act like this, but I won't mention it here because it'll be a plot spoiler, still......I want to point out it doesn't look natural for people to handle ghosts like those characters did in the book)
Bianca also met with Lucas's vampire hunting family, who believed Bianca was a victimized human girl being forced to live with vampires, instead of a fledgling vampire. Bianca's interaction with Lucas's family and some of those vampire hunters are interesting to read about. I'll look forward to see more of them.
It's mentioned that Evernight Academy is set up as a sanctuary and place of learning for the immortals, including those who were a few hundreds or thousands years old. The idea that 1000 years old vampires still going to highschool sends a wave of desperation across my being. So even if you were an immortal and had lived for centuries/millenniums you can't still freaking escape highschool. Fxxk it, just fxxk it!
Who figured out this brilliant idea of trapping a bunch of immortals in a private school so they can learn things about the modern age and society!? Goodness! Highschool is a perfect place to learn how low humanity can sink into and how utterly stupid, embarrassing and immature teenage humans can act. It's not a good place to seriously learn new knowledge. It's not a good place to learn how to deal with the society and with your life. If you want to put young-looking immortals to study, why don't put them into college!? At least they can take different causes and learn something useful and meaningful, also they can meet a much larger group of people, for crying out loud!
It's obvious that Miss Gray has some interesting ideas with her, but as a whole Stargazer looks really juvenile to me, especially the love triangle and the characters' behaviors, plus the concept of immortals going to highschool annoys me greatly. Although the book addresses issues such as family bond, love and loyalty, immortality and the prices of being an undead; all of these topics do have a lot of potential still Miss Gray failed to give us much insight. If you are looking for some quick read and entertainment, Stargazer will work for you, but if you are looking for something more meaningful and insightful, you may look elsewhere.