Monday, August 09, 2010

INSATIABLE by Meg Cabot (2010)


Cabot has famously penned the Young Adult THE PRINCESS DIARIES series, but she also writes contemporary adult fiction like INSATIABLE (her new novel), which I requested from The Toronto Public Library once I began following Cabot on Twitter (@megcabot, if you're interested).

Publishers Weekly calls Cabot "the master of her genre," and I have to say that if that praise means her plucky protagonist Meena Harper would outvamp, outsmart and outdress the Twilight-series vampire-obsessed Bella, then that is enough for me.

Had my closest friends suggested that I read a book set in NYC, rife with social satire,featuring a psychic protagonist who writes dialogue for a soap opera, has a mutt named Jack Bauer and just happens to fall for the prince of darkness, a real vampire, centuries dead, I might well have scoffed at the idea.

However, Cabot's breezy narrative voice and ability to make me want to believe that Lucien Antonescu has more than a self-serving impulse for do-gooding while he's feasting on Meena or metamorphosing into a dragon, kept me flipping pages even as I found myself held captive in the heart of a real storm. For pyrotechnic entertainment and for everything you ever imagined vampires capable of (eventhough you're half-sick of the vampire craze), you just can't beat this rolicking read.

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