In "The Rise" by Julie Plec, the three original siblings Rebekah, Elijah, and Niklaus find themselves fighting for the reign over New Orleans in 1722.
Werewolves and witches are ruling the city and the siblings choose the most inconvenient time possible to all fall in love.
Wait, haven't I seen this before?
While I do like the TV show, the novel is a very different thing. The characters do not feel true to the show and there is a lot of instant love involved.
Instead of the sanguinary, dangerous original hybrid Niklaus we get a love-struck doofus that is instantly falling in love with the first ~special~ girl he sees. Elijah's story line feels just like filler and we've seen him fall in love with witches before. Of course Rebecca is choosing another vampire hunter to fall in love with. It's all been done in the show before and it's extremely disappointing because I was hoping for additional content, not just a rewrite of things we've already heard and seen.
The story around the werewolves and witches fighting over New Orleans feels very repetitive if you've seen the show. In the book, the three siblings have arrived in New Orleans and are desperately looking for a place to stay in a city that's already crowded with supernatural creatures. Sound familiar? We have repetitive filler love interests, the same setting, and characters that are in no way comparable to the compelling and exciting characters from the show.
It's very hard to keep up
However, the main problem I have with this book is not the repetitive plot or the characters. If you look over all of that and just read it without actually thinking too hard about this being a novelization of the show, it's an okay read. It's well-written, but the writing is insanely dense, which just makes it super hard to keep up with everything that's happening and get invested in the characters.
We have three separate story lines for the siblings that play out at the same time. This is only a 400-page-book so there's not much time to develop the plot in much detail. All plot lines end up resolved very conveniently for the siblings to further the plot and it's just not exciting. The second they face an obstacle, you can be sure that it's going to get resolved in the next chapter.
Rating:
★★☆☆☆
Overall: Do I Recommend?
Well-written, but just not the same thing as the TV show. The plot is very similar but the characters feel off. I would have enjoyed this way more, had it only focused on one of the siblings. The story is interesting but is too dense to be crammed into a 400-page-novel. Stick to the show, this is only for super fans.
