Review: Insatiable by Meg Cabot

Book: Insatiable (Insatiable #1)
By: Meg Cabot
Published: William Morrow
Published by: June 8, 2010

Description: Sick of vampires? So is Meena Harper.

But her boss is making her write about them anyway, even though Meena doesn’t believe in them.

Not that Meena isn’t familiar with the supernatural. See, Meena Harper knows how you’re going to die (not that you’re going to believe her; no one ever does).

But not even Meena’s precognition can prepare her for what happens when she meets—then makes the mistake of falling in love with—Lucien Antonescu, a modern-day prince with a bit of a dark side . . . a dark side a lot of people, like an ancient society of vampire-hunters, would prefer to see him dead for.

The problem is, he already is dead. Maybe that’s why he’s the first guy Meena’s ever met that she could see herself having a future with. See, while Meena’s always been able to see everyone else’s future, she’s never been able look into her own.

And while Lucien seems like everything Meena has ever dreamed of in a boyfriend, he might turn out to be more like a nightmare.

Now might be a good time for Meena to start learning to predict her own future . . .

If she even has one

My Thoughts: Boy, am I glad to be finished reading this book. I got it in audiobook format, the format that, in my opinion, I can almost always listen to a book in and kind of like it. Unfortunately that wasn't the case with Insatiable.

I'll start by discussing my main issue with the audiobook format of this book. It was the part that made me want to rip the headphones from my ears and go to my bookshelf to pick up the actual book (yes I had the actual book format too. I couldn't find the urge to read it so I figured audiobook format was the way to go) The narrator seemed like she was too busy trying to make her voice sound cute to actually read it like a normal person. I found myself unable to connect. It also didn't help that the beginnng of the book absolutely sucked. I read a bunch of reviews and almost all of them hated the beginning of this book. The fact that they all said it picked up eventually was the only reason I was able to continue with it. Even still, my attempts to just get to the good part almost felt like I was pulling teeth or something. Luckily for me though, it finally made it there. Once the story really got going, it was pretty interesting, though not at all original.

This story follows Meena Harper, a girl who can see when people are going to die. She hates anything vampiric, until she falls in love with a vampire. As these stories normally go, the vampire is a powerful vampire and a war is brewing between vampires, and she's stuck in the middle. A bunch of stuff happens and people die and that's about it. The storyline was one that was tried and true, and for that reason, and a few others I will discuss, I feel a bit melancholy, if not downright annoyed with it.

First, almost all of the characters were annoying. Meena is self sacrificing with a hero complex, that instantly falls head over heels in love with Lucien, the vampire who is dangerous and wants to change his ways for Meena and all that crap. Meena often goes straight past hero and directly toward stupid girl in her attempts at protecting others. Lucien has creepy stalker tendencies, and breaks into buildings, and does most of the things he does "for her own good." I'm sure you know what that means. Meena's terrified of him, which makes me wonder why on earth she even loves him. It reminds me of those girls who make up excuses for why her boyfriend/husband beats on them, and there was even a section in the book that compared her to those women.

Meena's brother, Jon, is another character I hated. He's her brother and yet he doesn't protect her. He cares more about himself than her, and basically ruins her life. If I were Meena, I'd have put him out on the street long ago.  Even the bad guys were weak and sucky characters. The other supporting roles were pretty shallow. I hated almost everyone, except Alaric, the vampire hunter, who I barely liked. He was the only one who seemed kind of normal.

This book often took forever to get to the point. I would be waiting to hear the answer to the question, and it would go on and on in description of something else until I would finally scream at the book and ask it myself, hoping it would answer the freaking question. It passed anticipation and made its way over to annoyance. Told in multiple POV's with a definite love triangle, this book combines to become one of my worst books ever read.

This was my first read from Meg Cabot, and I must admit tha after reading it, I will probably never pick up another book by her. It had everything I disliked about books all packed into one unnecessary bundle of pages. I give it 1 1/2 stars. It did pick up, and I did eventually find myself looking toward reading the ending, but it definitely wasn't one of my better reads. If it wasn't an audiobook, it would have been a DNF.