Book Review: Insatiable by Meg Cabot

Genre: Urban Fantasy

I have never read Meg Cabot's books. I have always wanted to though. Especially after such lush praise for her previous YA books especially Princess Diaries. The movie is one of my favorite feel-good movies and I really wanted to read some work of this popular author.

I picked up Insatiable because - it is Meg Cabot and it is about vampires. Also the fact that it is not a YA was helpful. I mean we non-YAs also have equal rights over vampires, isn't it? :)

So, here's what I thought about this book which has a great cover page, BTW.

What Works For The Book?

A unique story. It is still about vampires but the story line is fresh with never heard before twists to what a vampire is capable of (It's a spoiler and would be an absolute give-away to the readers who are looking forward to reading it). Also, the vampires in this story are from original Dracul and that some how got me interested.

It is not about teens. Our heroine is a strong character in her 20s who has a job, is smart and always saves people (because of her gift to predict death)  and that is a good change. Most of us, non-teenagers that is, can relate to this woman and her daily routine.  Also, she does not have a compulsive obsessive disorder (COD) of placing herself in danger irrationally. She uses her brain to save people in a more intelligent way. At least most of the time. And, our heroine hates vampires. She doesn't believe in them and thinks the obsession with vampires is spoiling the creative industry. I like that. :)

Finally, the book has a vampire slayer too. A cute one at that. I like that too! :)

What Doesn't Work For The Book?

The conflict was not very convincing. The story started out with bodies of dead European girls being discovered in NY. And finally when you get to know why, you wonder why they could not have got it done with any American girl. Why the hassle of getting them from all over from Europe?? Also, vampires taking over entertainment industry??

The build-up to mystery was not enough. I, for one could guess who was the culprit from the moment he was introduced in the book (May be I am too smart! :P). It wasn't hard to guess given the circumstances.

The characters.  Apart from the heroine and the vampire, I had a hard time warming up to others. Usually in a series like this, the reader should be cheering for one of the two heroes and who should the heroine end up with. Unfortunately that didn't happen. For an author who gave us memorable books like Princess Diaries, this was the least I expected.

Verdict

I would assume this is not the greatest of Meg Cabot's book. There are many things that I was not very happy with. Nevertheless, the major highlight is a unique vampire story that is NOT YA. And then,  a combination of an extremely powerful vampire, a death-predicting human and a super-handsome vampire slayer definitely makes it worth a try!