90 of 106 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
What?!? How could ANYONE give this five stars?!, June 15, 2010
I am a massive fan of Meg Cabot and her adult books... they're fantastic. I read "Boy Next Door" at least once a year, usually with a glass of wine and a bottle of nail polish. I am imploring you to take me seriously because I sincerely want to save you from reading this book, and lessening your opinion of Meg Cabot.
There are pop culture references that are dry and uninteresting. Mentioning characters like Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood and Edward from True Blood and Buffy doesn't lessen the painfully obvious rip-offs--Meg Cabot's characters are an awkward combination of those three. (And Jon, the funny, down on his luck brother? Jason Stackhouse, anybody?!?!)
Even worse, the plot gets SO RIDICULOUS--I won't spoil it, but please believe me! The plot starts promising and jumps off the deep end. Characters make massive personality changes without much explanation, and the main love interest, Lucien (arguably the only likeable character in the book, although it seems at times that he's BARELY IN IT--what kind of romance has an MIA hero?!) loses all of his appeal in the last few chapters.
Meg Cabot, I love your writing. I will continue to buy your books. Just don't sell out like this!! And if you do, please make the book not quite so stupid.
ALSO: if anyone is looking for a funny, romantic, guilty-pleasure romance writer...try Kerrelyn Sparks. She's wonderful and cheesy, but mostly wonderful.
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28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Meg Cabot joins the vampire bandwagon, April 19, 2010
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Best-selling young adult author Meg Cabot turns to vampires in this tongue-in-cheek romance novel, published for adults but suitable for her teenage fans as well. It might be a tiny bit racier than her YA novels, but not by much. The story revolves around New York resident and Soap-opera writer Meena Harper, who is sick of the vampire craze going on around us, and is not happy when the powers-that-be on her soap inform her that she's going to have to incorporate a plot line featuring vampires in order to jump-start their ratings. The character of Meena herself fits into the current craze for paranormal fiction, since she has a unique ability to see when people are going to die when she looks at them. This sometimes helps her warn her friends to escape danger, but sometimes nobody believes her warnings. Meena is content living a single life with her brother and her cute little dog, when who should visit her neighbors but a mysterious Romanian prince named Lucien, whom she falls in love with. He's the only one that she can't forsee when he's going to die, but she doesn't realize that it's because he's already dead! Not only is he a vampire, he is the son of the famous Dracula and is the leader of the vampire community--the supreme ruler of the vampires. Will she and Lucien live happily ever after? Cabot tells this story with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor; for example, when Meena discovers Lucien's true identity, she decides she will write a book to save other women from what she was going through: "Women are from Venus, Vampires are from Hell." The publisher calls it a "modern day sequel to Dracula," although I think it is a book much more for romance readers and Cabot's teenaged fan girls and certainly not for fans of real horror fiction. Recommended for a fun escape novel, perfect as a summer beach read.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fangy Fun, April 22, 2010
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I ordered this book thinking it was for teens, and it turns out to be for adults--although older teens might enjoy it, too. (There are a few racy passages.) Meg Cabot's books are always so cheery, whatever their genre, that I just get a kick out of them. Besides, I wanted to watch Cabot poke fun at Twilight and the current rage for vampire stories, which is what the book summary seemed to promise... And yep, Insatiable is pretty much "Buffy meets Bella," with some mind reading thrown in because why not? [Some spoilers below!]
Meena Harper writes for a daytime soap, and she is appalled when she is assigned to write a vampire storyline. "'Vampires,' Meena said. 'Real original, Metzenbaum.' Shoshona stood up, slinging her bag over her shoulder . 'Get over it, Harper. They're everywhere. You can't escape them.'"
Which just might explain why Cabot wrote this book! But Meena doesn't catch on for pages, not until a macho vampire slayer holds her hostage in her apartment, demanding the location of her new boyfriend's pad. That would be the gorgeous Romanian prince Meena thinks is just perfect--until she gets the scoop on his supernatural secret. It turns out Lucien is in New York because he's trying to track down the idiot who's been draining human girls and leaving their corpses around the city, stirring up trouble for the secretive vampire community.
Pretty soon Meena--another of Cabot's feisty heroines--is attracting a lot of vampire attention because of her own secret: when she meets someone, she knows when and how they're going to die. It seems odd to her that she doesn't know this about Lucien (who's already dead); think psychic Sookie Stackhouse and her attraction to seemingly blank-minded vampire Bill.
Of course, as in any Cabot book, we get a lot of humor, most of it clever enough to make readers smile. There's Meena's anxious dog, Jack Bauer, for example, who turns out to be more tuned in to vampires than his owner. Also characters like a vampire slayer with an anger management problem, a geeky boss, and a fondness for high-class hotels. Insatiable is a fairly predictable vampire romance/adventure story, which eventually leads to a love triangle and a big, climactic fight scene. There's definitely room for a sequel here.
You might get a sense, as I did, that the book starts out tongue-in-cheek, but ends up taking itself a little too seriously. After all, it's hard to tell the difference between spoof and non-spoof when the female lead is a super-magnet for every major hunk in sight. Exactly why is someone like Lucien so enthralled by a girl like Meena, who's not the deepest person you'll ever meet? (Eternal soulmates--again!) I realize this goes back to wish fulfillment for the Everywoman reader, but I would have liked to see a bit more richness to Meena's character just the same.
Still, Insatiable is a light romp through vampire territory, a nice beach book for anyone who's up for paranormal romance. Note that Meena, perhaps because she's a little older, does seem to have more common sense than Stephenie Meyer's Bella, at least in Book 1. Who knows what she'll do in Book 2?
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