This is my first experience reading a Meg Cabot book. But as we all know, Meg Cabot is well known for her lovable young adult stories (i.e. The Princess Diaries series which let’s be honest is almost every little kid’s childhood).

Insatiable is a modern-day twist on Bram Stoker’s iconic gothic story of Dracula.

As a huge fan of vampires (for like half my life), I extremely enjoyed the jokes and references to the popular vampire shows and books during the height of the trend back in the 2010s sprinkled throughout Insatiable. Cracks me up! Reads like a satire to any vampire- or supernatural-lover who was caught up in that trend as we can absolutely relate to the ridiculous obsession with the sexy, brooding vampires pursuing forbidden loves romanticized on scene and in books. Nostalgic reflection of teenage me – and how ridiculous I was loving them. Still kind of love them now as an adult.

Thoroughly entertaining story! Laugh out loud scenes, especially it gets meta – which is really cool!

Plot – Based Off Some Real Historical Facts

The Good

The tie-in to Dracula and the historical myth/lore of vampires is amazing!! I loved it so much! More than I enjoyed the Twilight series, Vampire Diaries, or True Blood.

Cabot takes from Dracula, Vlad Tepes, Vatican, St. George and Joan of Arc history to build the world and origins of Insatiable’s vampires. The fact that there was a historical and literary basis that Cabot used as the foundation to her vampires made the story that much more intriguing! Love me a story that was researched well.

One of the most interesting parts for me is that the book gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the soap opera and TV writing world. We think this part of the book only serves to describe Meena’s professional life, but ohhh does it all connect to the villain’s overall plan!! I was too busy laughing at the absurdity and melodramatic colleagues in Meena’s job that I never thought the soap opera would have any connection to the villain so that took me by surprise!

I loved that Meena’s real life was starting to unfold like the Insatiable soap opera that she wrote for work because this book was kind of like a soap opera. Dramatic. Emotional. And a little over-the-top sometimes. Thrown in some dramatic “twists” for the hell of it. I thought it was so entertaining! I love soap operas and I thought Insatiable was a hilarious and realistic ode to that. Also the title of this book and of the soap opera within the book draws attention to the audience’s obsession with vampires. We romanticize them. We see them everywhere. And we still thirst for more. We can’t get enough of books/shows like Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood because we, as an audience, are insatiable. AKA no better than the thirsty vamps we read about. Telling ya, this book gets meta.

Constructive Criticism

Mystery/murder plot was interesting but a little predictable. I was hoping the villain wasn’t exactly who we’d expect it to be but it was. And overall, the writing was long-winded (ha ha, speak for myself, right?). I think the page time could have been dedicated more to crafting a complex mystery and building up the romance rather than filling the pages with wordiness. I was getting kind of bored at some points. Felt like the scenes dragged a little longer than necessary.

Romance – And a happy ending…?

Let’s start with the love triangle. Our girl, Meena, is caught up in a love triangle with prince of darkness, Lucien Antonescu, and vampire/demon-hunter, Alaric Wulf.

Having Alaric be another love interest for Meena…seemed to come out of left field for me. I was not expecting, nor hoping for, a love triangle. But alas, there was one. Though his name is Wulf, thankfully he wasn’t a werewolf (that trope has been replayed too much). It was weird. Alaric steps onto the page as this all-business, all-serious, macho swagger vampire hunter hell-bent on finding the prince of darkness. Really only focused on his job. He realizes that to get to his target, he can use Meena as bait. But randomly…starts to feel attraction towards her as well…

Alaric seemed to like Meena out of the blue. Cabot set up the story to have this blossoming romance between Lucien and Meena and when Alaric comes in, revealing Lucien’s secret as prince of darkness, Meena was quick show prejudice for his kind – well she already did hate vampires to begin with, finding out they were real kind of made her hate them more. So midway through the story, it felt like the development of Meena and Lucien’s relationship was stunted in favor for progressing a relationship between her and Alaric. Like what?!? We picked up this book to read about her and Lucien.

Granted I can understand Meena’s dislike towards vampires, considering they were the ones hurting strangers in her city of New York and also harassing her loved ones. But her prejudice extended to Lucien, which didn’t make sense to me. In his defense, he hasn’t done anything directly to harm her – it was his people who disobeyed his orders and began hurting humans.

Lucien is far from perfect. And some may even say he plays into the abusive, controlling, manipulative boyfriend stereotype that is very common with vampire love interests in these types of stories. I’ll say it now, I didn’t feel Lucien was a toxic love interest. He admits to faults of his past (even some present ones) but he does actively try to be a good person.

Is this my foolishly excusing his not-so-great-behavior like the way girls in love with vampires often do in these books? Could be. I don’t think I am.

Meg Cabot does make interesting points about these girls excusing the behaviors of their abusive vampire boyfriends (to the point that they were literally dying because they continued to stay with them). I liked this commentary as it discusses important issues of the romanticized vampire stereotype – we love ‘em, they’re cute and hot, but honey it’s not okay to stay in a toxic relationship (ahem, looking at you, Bella Swan). I wish more young adult books bring up this issue. Am I ruining the romance by pointing out that these hunky vamp boyfriends/girlfriends are crap people? I hope not. I hope readers understand that sometimes the romance written on the pages isn’t a healthy romance – so let fiction be fiction and remember to have a healthy romance in your real life!

If anything, Alaric isn’t all peaches and cream either. So really, Meena kind of has two shitty love interest options. Don’t get me wrong, they are interesting in the book! But damn…poor girl. Alaric probably comes across more as toxic masculinity than Lucien. He was more of and bossy towards Meena all under the guise of protecting her.

Towards the end of the book, I felt Meena was blaming and judging Lucien when they should have tried to have a real conversation. Maybe it was just me but she seemed to change her feelings towards him real fast after she finds out vampires are real and were the ones behind the murdered girls in her town.

Lucien clearly loves her, indicative when he acknowledges that his sadness and loneliness began to recede when he spent time with Meena. There’s more depth to their relationship since there was time for it to grow a little. Whereas Alaric’s attraction to her feels more like the initial stages of lust and intrigue (because she keeps surprising him and their love-hate banter is appealing) and I feel will fizzle out fast.

Points I love about Lucien:

• He asks for consent
• He respects her space
• He tries to take care of her and protect her
• They match more maturely, intellectually, emotionally
• They had intimate time to learn about each other’s pasts, secrets and darkness

The end hit even harder because Meena flat out rejects Lucien and decides to accept Alaric’s offer to work for the organization that wants to eliminate Lucien and his kind. *grab your tissues*

I was heartbroken when she didn’t choose Lucien in the end. Though he kept trying to prove that he was trying to be a good person/boyfriend to her. Here’s the kicker that made Lucien lose his chance (this time) to be with Meena and why she decided to accept Alaric’s offer instead. Lucien was doing great trying to convince her he’s the better option until she finds out he’s been subtly trying to turn her into a vampire because he’s so afraid to lose his fated mate. He admits to it when she confronts him. Though the damage is done. Lucien let his fears of losing her to old age and eventual death to actually losing her in the present. Big whoops! They both need to figure themselves out before they could progress this relationship. I respect this ending.

I liked that Meena didn’t trap herself to being a vampire’s lover. Good girl! So sick and tired of these girls giving up everything for their lover. NO! That’s not a healthy relationship. I actually really respected her for standing her ground and saying that she has important things established in her life she couldn’t just throw all away so she can run away with Lucien. I’m glad she rejected Lucien’s offer at this time in order to try to live a healthy, normal life. I was biting my nails at how Lucien would respond to this rejection. Would he force her to be with him? Mind-control her? Bite her then and there? Meena waited with bated breath as well. Then Lucien does the unthinkable – or maybe just the unexpected: he let her go. He respected her need for space and for their relationship to have its break, even if it meant she was joining his nemesis’ organization. Don’t be fooled though! Lucien’s not going to give up that easily on his beloved Meena – excited for the sequel!