Sparkle for Twilight: Blog Update! I know a lot of people have been buzzing about The Vampire Diaries but I've been avoiding those posts because I hadn't had time to see it yet. I was going to let the topic go, but after viewing--really, tell me there isn't weird a resemblance?

My first encounter with The Vampire Diaries was back in April when I'd just finished Twilight and I was curious to see what else was popular in the YA Fiction section at Borders. I'm past my teens but I'll never seem to outgrow YA reads.

I was quite surprised when I saw that the YA Bestsellers shelf at Borders was filled with the titles of Vampire Kisses, Night World, City of Bones, Blue Bloods, and Vampire Academy. When was this back in '98 when Buffy was all the hit? The only books on the shelf that weren't vampire-related was Maximum Ride, Crank, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

As I stood there for almost an hour lingering and reading the synopses of all of these vampire reads, nothing seemed as tempting as the love story found in Stephenie Meyer's work, except The Vampire Diaries, which did stand out to me. And it stood out because of this one line in the back cover of the first book of a subsesquent trilogy:

What's more, [Elena's] blood pulses with an overwhelming and unique force that makes her irresistible to any vampire.

I thought, oh of course, another ordinary girl out of all ordinary girls who has vampires lusting after her. Ring a bell? I thought this L.J. Smith woman wrote her main character Elena like Bella. So I skipped that book, and instead picked up Wings by Aprilynne Pike, which had come out earlier that week and had a line from Stephenie Meyer right on its cover (this book is a whole other story so I won't even get into that now).

I forgot all about The Vampire Diaries till I went to my library recently and saw they had a copy of it and I decided take a second gander. It was the first book of the first trilogy (there are a few trilogies in the series now), and I was surprised when I pulled it out from the shelf and the cover art was so old school--like Lois Duncan old school. (I wonder how many of you actually get that reference?)

Well, turns out the dated cover is because it was first published in 1991. I bet a lot of the younger Twilight fans weren't born yet. Kristen Stewart wasn't even a toddler then. So, not only is it unfair, but it is incorrect to say The Vampire Diaries is a rip-off of Twilight.

I'd like to think I don't have an affinity for vampires but I was still tempted to check out The Vampire Diaries hit the CW this season cause part of me yearns for the days of Buffy.

I was talking about The Vampire Diaries with my supervisor at work while we were discussing the CW lineup (I gave a big thumbs down to Melrose, she was disappointed in the Gossip Girl premiere). She'd watched The Vampire Diaries and thought it was great, while I still had the first two episodes beckoning me from my DVR so I couldn't give an opinion yet.

Wow. What's better than a Saturday afternoon with my DVR and sexy vampires? Not much. I finally just caught up on The Vampire Diaries and had to immediately text my thought to to Westie (aka my west coast bestie): Vampire Diaries officially hot.

I was sold from the time I saw Stefan's steely gaze on Elena. What is it about these smoldry vampires that get me?

Good heavens, that Paul Wesley! Bestie and I were looking forward to seeing Ian Somerhalder (our Lost guy), but once we saw Paul Wesley (former bad boy from The O.C.), Ian's character, Damon, had nothing on Stefan. I think I have a thing for perpetually angry-looking and tortured vampires--Angel, Edward, and now add Stefan to the list.

I didn't expect that much from The Vampire Diaries, I actually thought it would be a touch lame, but I don't know, there's something about it that I like so far. Please, please just don't get cheesy...

Anyway, back to topic. While it's clear that The Vampire Diaries is not a Twilight copy cat, there IS one thing that may be Twilight influenced and that is the portrayal of Elena's character on the show.

In the books (and noticeably on the earlier cover art), Elena is described as a super blonde with blue eyes. Yet they casted Nina Dobrev, who now plays Elena as a brunette with brown eyes. This teensy switcheroo has stirred a lot of disapproval from original readers of the books.

Apparently Elena's blonde hair is mentioned so often in the books that it's an unremovable characteristic to her personality. It's like, how many times did Stephenie Meyer mention Edward's bronze hair? How many different ways did she mention the color of his eyes--"butterscotch" being my personal favorite of her analogies. Now imagine if they had cast a blonde actor played Edward for Twilight. Madness right?

My immediate thought about Elena being a brunette for the show was that it had something to do with Twilight. Even though they chose Nina Dobrev to play the role, they could have dyed her hair to match the character since it was a pretty significant characteristic. They did just that for Nikki Reed to play Rosalie.

But since something as simple as a box of L'Oreal Féria No. 93 didn't make the to-do list, that brunette thing had to have been deliberate.

And I wonder if it's because they wanted to draw from the plain appeal that we love about Bella. Don't we love that Bella is an "ordinary" brown-eyed brunette in school? She's not super popular, but she's quiet, has deep thoughts, and speaks up when it counts.

Book Elena is portrayed as mega popular in school, but in the TV show they downplay that a bit too.

I think marketing execs might have had something to do with making that choice for TV Elena. Maybe they wanted The Vampire Diaries viewers (who they knew would be Twilight fans too) to think of Elena as their new Bella.

What do you think? Either way, I am liking the whole cast so far. Nothing beats Twilight, but thank you, CW, for giving me a vampire fix whilst I count down days to New Moon.