One of the latest books I've finished reading is Insatiable by Meg Cabot. In this particular novel, the main character Meena is a soap opera writer who lives in New York City. For that reason, I am going to talk about it on this blog. This entry has book spoilers, though I do not mention some major elements, but don't read any further if you don't want to know.
Meena Harper grew up watching soaps and her favorite was a show named Insatiable. Getting to work there is a dream come true, as she is a scriptwriter. One of the other scriptwriters, Shoshona got a promotion to head writer, and she’s lazy and incompetent. The reason she got the job was her aunt and uncle were owners of the soap. Unfortunately as in our real world, soaps are being cancelled and people are losing their jobs. They even mention how a show was forced to move to LA to shoot to save money…and to survive their show needs to pull a younger demographic. Kids don’t care about soaps, but about reality shows. Reading that section made me nod sadly, but that is pretty accurate.
In an effort to copy another soap opera called Lust, Meena's show decides to do a vampire story. The irony is that vampires are already part of her life, and she hates them. Throughout the novel we meet the actors who play the heroine of their soap Cheryl Trent who played Victoria Worthington Stone, and the actress who plays her daughter Tabitha, Taylor McKenzie. What is funny is that the character of Victoria in 30 years had ten marriages, four miscarriages, one abortion, two murders, six kidnappings and an evil twin…and the actress never won a Daytime Emmy.
Meena falls for a man named Lucien Antonescu. They meet after he saves her from bats, while she is walking her dog, named Jack Bauer after the character on 24. Oddly enough he is the cousin of her neighbors. Unknown to her, these neighbors (Emil and Mary Lou) are also vampires. Emil and Mary Lou are great people and don’t go around killing humans. They use the blood bank to be able to survive.
Meena though isn’t without a power. She has the ability to see when people she knows will die unless they change their behavior. For example in high school she told her friend Leisha to not go to a concert, and the person who went in her place ended up dead.
Later in the story she meets another man named Alaric Wulf. He works for the Vatican as part of the Palatine Guard and killing vampires is part of his job description. If it wasn’t for Alaric, Meena would have died and Meena saves his life as well. For a short time, Alaric and Lucien are on the same side as people are being murdered in NYC by vampires.
In the end, Meena chooses humanity over Lucien. She quits her job in the soap world, to work with Alaric. Since she can tell when people will die, she can help keep the Palatine Guard members safe.
The weird or perhaps sick thing is the head writer, and the creators of her soap opera all become vampires. The soap Lust’s new male star is a vampire and not for television.
This book was a lot of fun to read, and in there will be a second novel coming out later this year. I doubt there will be anything soap opera related in it, due to the ending of this story. A chick lit novel, which has a vampire premise and a soap opera subplot, hit the right notes for me. And if one likes those genres they may enjoy it too.
No comments:
Post a Comment