Sign in with Facebook
Kimberly's Reviews > The Dark Divine
The Dark Divine (The Dark Divine, #1)
by
by
This is such a cheap rip-off of the Twilight series. I won't even begin to go into all of the similarities; it's not worth my time. Suffice it to say, I was consistently rolling my eyes throughout the entire story. The only difference between this and Twilight is that Despain adds a clear Biblical take. It's sad that that is really the only original part of the whole story. This one has officially made my "no-dice" bookshelf on GR. I am so thankful this was a library book and I didn't spend any money to read it!
UPDATE: My friend Nikki asked me about this book in a round-about-way and I think it's worth posting what I told her:
[This] is the worst YA book I've ever read! It was such a piece of uncreative trash--all Despain did was take the Twilight story and tweak it so that the 'bad boy' was a ***SPOILER ALERT***hell hound rather than a vamp. There was even a piggy-back ride scene through the woods for crying out loud! (For the record, that also happens in Twilight.) I would rather read a poorly written original story than one with pretty packaging that's a total rip-off. I'm a Christian, but I also got completely fed-up with Despain's overbearing religious slant in the novel (and I've read several Christian novels that were nothing like hers). The main girl's name is Grace Divine and her dad is a preacher and we got to hear over and over and over again about how she needs to live up to her name. Puhlease! The books just drips with it's own self importance.
UPDATE: My friend Nikki asked me about this book in a round-about-way and I think it's worth posting what I told her:
[This] is the worst YA book I've ever read! It was such a piece of uncreative trash--all Despain did was take the Twilight story and tweak it so that the 'bad boy' was a ***SPOILER ALERT***hell hound rather than a vamp. There was even a piggy-back ride scene through the woods for crying out loud! (For the record, that also happens in Twilight.) I would rather read a poorly written original story than one with pretty packaging that's a total rip-off. I'm a Christian, but I also got completely fed-up with Despain's overbearing religious slant in the novel (and I've read several Christian novels that were nothing like hers). The main girl's name is Grace Divine and her dad is a preacher and we got to hear over and over and over again about how she needs to live up to her name. Puhlease! The books just drips with it's own self importance.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
The Dark Divine.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
January 12, 2010
– Shelved
May 20, 2010
–
Started Reading
May 21, 2010
–
26.88%
"So far this seems like a low-rent version of Twilight with some values. Hope it picks up..."
page
100
May 21, 2010
– Shelved as:
2010
May 21, 2010
– Shelved as:
ya
May 21, 2010
– Shelved as:
paranormal-uf
May 21, 2010
– Shelved as:
no-dice
May 22, 2010
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-9 of 9 (9 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Victoria
(new)
-
rated it 5 stars
Nov 07, 2010 01:08AM
Then it's a hell of a lot better than the embarrassment to literature named "Twilight". This kicks Twilight's butt! Saying this is a "cheap copy is like saying "Harry Potter" is a "cheap Copy" of "Lord of the Rings"! Except "Twilight" isn't anywhere near as good a “Lord of the Rings”! The successor reign supreme! Mrs. Meyers should take notes from Mrs. Despain! If you like "Twilight" at all, sorry to say this, but you have no taste in literature, whatsoever! Try reading “The Vampire Kisses” Novels, they are actually consistent with the legend of the vampire, and an amazingly fantastic series! Stop slandering good books and get to insulting the bad ones! "Twilight" isn't even worth of being used as tissue paper! I use its pages to keep my fireplace going. "The Dark Divine" is my favorite book! Go to a Twilight forum, twitard!
reply
|
flag
Gee, aren't you full of venom and exclamations (!). If you actually read my review, you would have seen that no where in it do I gush about the wonderfulness of Twilight or the writing prowess of Stephanie Meyer. The Dark Divine was published four years after Twilight and based upon the numerous plot similarities between the books, there is no way that the Twilight series didn't influence Despain's writing. I also didn't say that Despain was a poor writer, just an unoriginal one. Telling me to, "Go to a Twilight forum, twitard!" is just immature. You should be able to challenge someone's review without making disparaging remarks about them. Enjoy your book.
I was just stating comparing any book to "Twilight" is an insult. This is my favorite book as i said, and Stephanie Meyers stole a lot of her plots from other earlier books;. Stephanie flat-out ruined the ones she copycatted. Meyers clearly wouldn't know what a vampire or werewolf were even if they bitten her on her butt; good thing they don't exist. The Twitard comment was not immature; that is what you call a fan of Twilight who compares every vampire and/or werewolf book with it, even if the similarities are few to none. I'm sick of everyone implying every young adult book uses the "Twilight Formula"; which is ridiculous because the formula was invented/ developed way before Meyer was born. If you liked Twilight more, go read it again. If she did steal Meyers' ideal, which she did not, she wrote a heck of a better book. I’ll what my exclamation next time; but I can't take someone seriously who presents Twilight is a good reference/example of a well written piece of literature. Like I said, if you want a story actually about vampire, not Alaskan Huskies, and woodland fairies, read the "Vampire Kisses" novels by Ellen Schreiber. Give books actually worth your time and effort the good reviews. I have said this is nicely as i can, without completely lying. Enjoy you future readings.
I can't help but compare a book to Twilight that has A LOT of similarities to it, not "few to none" as you say. I'm not saying that Meyer invented the vampire/werewolf YA genre (obviously she didn't) but, love Twilight or hate it, the market has become flooded with paranormal/fantasy YA books since Twilight's success and some of those are clearly ripoffs of the series. That's great that The Dark Divine is your favorite book, clearly a lot of people enjoyed it judging by all of the favorable ratings on here. I'm just not one of them. There is a lot better literature out there than either book in my opinion.
Um, the market has Always been flooded with popular paranormal/fantasy, it’s Always been hot in the market, YA or not, it’s been hot in the market way before Twilight. And um, by the way any book can be a ‘ripped off of’ as you say, by any another book. Every single work of art ever conceived has been created as a response to works of art that have been already in existence. Shall we compare?
Cassandra Clare (The Mortal Instruments) was obviously greatly influenced by Harry Potter. People say she ripped off of JK Rowling. Harry Potter is not completely original either when you compare it to Lord of The Rings. So did JK rip off of Tolkien too? LOTRings wasn’t completely original either. And Twilight, do you know how many popular vampire books were out there before it came out? Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, L.J. Smith, Darren Shan. And don’t forget Buffy the Vampire series. Meyer obviously didn’t get her ideas from nowhere, though hers are more subtle. Vampire falling for a Human, yeah, it’s already been way done. Only this time, they’re a bunch of teenagers. What we create is Always going to be influenced by every other work of art we experience whether conscious of it or not.
Of course Meyer used some vampire/werewolf characteristics in her novels that are typical of the mythos of those beings. I never claimed, nor would I, that Meyer is solely responsible for the paranormal YA genre or that every vampire/werewolf book out there is a rip-off of hers. You are overgeneralizing. I'm saying that Despain specifically, not Mead, Clare, Harris or any other author, is unoriginal due to the numerous similarities between her book and Meyer's. The Dark Divine reads like a Mad Libs version of Twilight.
Honestly I’d like to hear some of these plausible similarities you see in The Dark Divine that caused you to compare it to Twilight, if you don’t mind, do you? ‘Cause I don’t really see it. Like when you commented on the whole ‘piggy-back’ idea—just b/c there is piggy-back ride in the book, doesn’t mean Despain stole the idea from Meyer, like you say, it sounds like you’re acting as if no other book can have one b/c it was in Twilight. (And) It’s a hellhound instead of a vampire; well obviously because the book is about werewolves. What is it? Is it because Daniel came back and so did the Cullen’s after a long absence? Yeah, well in Twilight the Cullen’s were new to Forks (obviously Forks wasn’t new to them), in The DDivine everyone already knew Daniel when he came back. Or was it b/c Bella was the one who came back after long absence too and people already knew her? You really want to go that specific? What’s the big deal? I’d really like to know.
You’re Christian, obviously you pointed it out you were, but are you Protestant too? Because then I could understand why the overbearing religious slant, as you say, is annoying. I found it a little annoying myself and I’m not even Christian. And I’m sure it was annoying to others too. But I could understand the emphasis in the book, because if you read it, you would know that Grace and her family are Protestant. I just wanted to point that out.
Its been a long time, you probably won't read this, but I thought of what you said when I read this book. If you want a mad libs of twilight, this book called Carrier of the Mark, is just way to similar...
A.Ivzir wrote: "Its been a long time, you probably won't read this, but I thought of what you said when I read this book. If you want a mad libs of twilight, this book called Carrier of the Mark, is just way to si..."For whatever reason, I didn't see your post from July. TBH, it's been so long since I read The DDivine I can't really answer your specific questions (lame I know, but it's true). I just remember while reading it that there seemed to be Twilight-ism after Twilight-ism. I would flip back through it to jog my memory, but it was a library books so I don't have a copy. I can tell you that aside from my perceived Twilight-isms, I just really didn't like Despain's writing. As I said in my initial review, I found her overbearing and I do remember that much about it.
Anyway...So, Carrier of the Mark came off as a Mad Libs of Twilight to you? There are some rather scathing reviews about the lack of originality.
