review: love you to death by crissy calhoun

As she previously did with another CW show, Gossip Girl, Crissy Calhoun goes in depth into the first season of The Vampire Diaries. Taking things beyond the standard episode synopsis, Calhoun points out “Foggy Moments” (inconsistencies or continuity errors) and “Compelling Moments” (things Calhoun believes stand out). Reading Love You to Death while watching the currently airing second season provides a lot of insight one might not otherwise have. For example, I’d completely forgotten about Damon’s crow and what happened to it! (Turns out shooting with a crow was proving too complicated.) Also providing tremendous insight are the write-ups on author L.J. Smith and the show’s creators Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec as well as an interview with the actress who played Anna.

Since I last read The Vampire Diaries books when they originally came out in the 1990s, I truly enjoyed the “Meanwhile in Fell’s Church” section. Although the show has made changes (Elena’s not blond!), Calhoun points out just how much of the show’s storylines are inspired by what Smith originally plotted.

One small nitpick: Calhoun makes a mistake on the Dark Shadows page (throughout the book are comparisons to other vampire series—another bit I enjoyed). She states, “…its first six months featured no supernatural elements at all.” Not quite true. The six month mark is when Laura Collins arrives on scene; she is The Phoenix. This is when Dark Shadows made a decided turn, though it is not the first instance of the supernatural. Very early on the ghost of Josette Collins appears; around the three month mark the ghost of Bill Malloy appears to Vicki Winters.

With Love You to Death, Calhoun once again proves how well she knows the show she writes about (see her blog for more on both The Vampire Diaries and Gossip Girl).
5/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, ECW Press.