DARK REUNION (L.J. Smith) - January 22/10

Wow, what an ordeal. This entirely needless chapter is made all-the-more pointless by Elena's absence throughout much of the story. (She's dead, for crying out loud!) Smith instead expects the reader to care about Meredith, Bonnie, and Vickie - even though these characters were hardly developed in the first three books. (Even by the time the book ended I was still a little shaky on who was who.) It's the relationship between Elena and Stefan that kept the first three books afloat, so without Elena around, Dark Reunion simply feels like a colossal waste of time. (The ending was pretty decent, though.) *1/2 out of ****