Vampires and Werewolves and Angels, Oh My!

No. This is not going to be another post about how much I absolutely despise anything sparkly (except dinosaurs and unicorns) and werewolves are going to be the end of the world and angels suck and that they need to become more coordinated because why, why do they keep FALLING? *hyperventilates* But no, I'll resist. I'll even admit something:

I finished a book last night called "The Dark Divine" (review to come). It had werewolves in it. And I didn't like the book that much... but not because of the werewolves. Anyone who knows me is probably laughing at that funny joke I just made, but seriously - the werewolf part was good.

So now I'm rethinking my I-hate-sparklies philosophy. As my friends know, I've spent probably several lifetimes ranting about how unoriginal all vampire-werewolf-zombie-angel-demon stories are and how every one is a carbon copy of Twilight and Oh my God, isn't that the EXACT phrase ("I stood up") used in that other vampire book I was forced to read? THOSE UNORIGINAL JERKS!!!!!!!!! How is it that a hater like me enjoyed the werewolf part in "The Dark Divine"?

I don't think originality is much of an issue when it comes to sparklies (henceforth all commonly used paranormal creatures shall be known as sparklies), like I used to think. I mean, there are a crazy amount of books that are too similar to Twilight, and we all know that Twilight is a spin off from Vampire Diaries so someone call the cops right now, but is that really such a huge issue?

Consider the book "Speak". I like "Speak", and you (most likely) do too. It's a friggin' work of genius. But we've all read five hundred rape stories before "Speak", and we'll read five hundred more after, where the main character is raped and loses her friends and then recovers. So why was "Speak" so good? The story wasn't original, but the way the author chose to write the story was.

And so "The Dark Divine" approached werewolves differently than other books I read. It didn't try to give one of those cringe-worthy "scientific" explanations of lycanthropy (although I wasn't a fan of the religious one it did give), and it somehow made being a werewolf seem darker and sinister than Edward's sparkles. That's why the book was sorta-okay and kinda-good.

But still. I don't recommend you recommending me a sparkly book. Unless the book itself is sparkly. In which case, I WANT TO READ IT NAO K?

What are your thoughts on the sparklies? Have you read "The Dark Divine"? Do you know any paranormal romance that was actually pretty darn good?