Reading Teen

I've seen this on the shelves for years now, and have always thought about picking it up, but I could never make myself do it. Probably because there are thirty thousand of them, and honestly a lot of series like this, especially vamp series are just too vapid to waste my time on. However, with the release of the latest in the series, Awakened, I thought I would give it a try. So, I did what I do for all books I can't get motivated to read, and checked it out on audiobook from the library.Let me start with the reader. Wow, she was awful! Now, this is my own personal opinion, so you don't have to agree, but I've listened to a LOT of audiobooks, and this was one of the worst. The voice of Zoey-Bird was so dreary and depressing it almost made me want to jump off a building. Then there were her friends. The reader used a valley-girl-slash-southern hick-slash-old woman voice for most of them. The mentor's voice was all soft and slurred, half the time she sounded like she was high or something. It was....not good. Usually if the reader isn't great, I can get past it, and still enjoy the story, if it's good. However, this story.....was NOT. Normally when I do a negative review, I still try to be nice and talk about what I liked, but honestly, this book just pissed me off. The main character came off very superior, insulting every possible group of people. She talked bad about goths, people who live in trailer parks, southerners (countrified folk), loser girls with black eyeliner, Christians, celebrities (Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Simpson, Tom Cruise, Pamela Anderson), Abercrombie, and on and on. It was SO incredibly annoying. And when she wasn't bashing things, she was like an advertisement for them. Talk about product placement!Then there was the story...if there was one. Hardly anything happened in the entire book. I feel like if you're going to start a series, the first one needs to be awesome, with it's own story arc. I just didn't think this book had much of anything going for it. And Zoey certainly didn't help matters. She was about as dumb as a rock. Andyehttp://ReadingTeen.net/Example: The Dark Daughters performed a ritual where they mixed the blood of a willing "fledgeling" with wine and drank it. They called the donor of the blood "the refrigerator" or "snack bar" and he had bandages over his wrist. Zoey says, "Wait a minute. I don't get it. Refrigerator? Snack Bar?" Ummm....Zoey.....aren't you at school because you're becoming a VAMPIRE?? I wouldn't think that would be too hard to figure out. Maybe the author thought that we were dumb, so she had to make Zoey dumb, so she could explain things to us that she didn't think we'd "get," I don't know. Of course she's "inexplicably drawn to" a boy who's "inexplicably drawn to" her, without any rhyme or reason. Making out with each other after their first conversation. But he did have some totally amazing pickup lines like, "Don't you think baby corn is scary?" Luckily there's just enough smuttiness to keep some interested. I don't think I've read so much about BJs in my life. Wait, I know I haven't....and have NO desire to. It was just trashy. So, if you haven't guessed, I hated this book. I definitely will not be reading any more of them, and I'm dying to know how they are so popular. Oh, Eric, you had me at "baby corn!" Uh...no.