Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First of all, apologies to all of you who are huge fans of this series of books. I'm sure you'll hate this review, but remember, this is just one person's opinion. I was drawn to this series due to all of the press it's been receiving lately, and also because I'm up for a good, escapist vampire novel now and then. I actually bought the whole box set when it came out recently, but am putting my review here (instead of with the boxed set) because I didn't even get past this first book. The book did not hold my interest at all, and believe me, I tried to like it. I've been attempting to figure out what the problem is. It's not the setting; I was born in Louisiana, so the setting was one of the attractions of the book. It's not the overall, view-from-30,000-feet story; that was fine. So what was it? I'd have to say it was more structural than anything else, for lack of a better word. I found Ms. Harris' writing to be on par with what an average ninth grader might produce. The characters, even the main ones, were a bit on the superficial side and weren't really fully developed. The plot details were quite boring, not engaging at all. The love scenes were a bit cringe-worthy, reminiscent of scenes from poorly executed smut novels (i.e. just as with smut novels, these parts struck me as nothing more than a fantasy on the part of the author). Overall, the simple fact that I found the book disappointing *IS* the most disappointing part. That is, if I hadn't had such high hopes, it wouldn't be such a let down. The story and characters had oodles of potential.