It's almost impossible for a book to live up to a title like that, but this one just about managed it. It wasn't an amazing book, but it was a refreshing take on vampires and the price you have to pay not to be a monster. In a genre normally populated by young, inhumanly strong vampires with the ability to go out in sunlight, vampires who are usually too weak to go out of their dark basements anyway were a wonderful and highly needed thing.
Plot:
The plot was not particularly... there. Looking back, I'm not actually sure if it was about Nina's journey to accepting herself as a vampire, freeing the abused werewolves, solving the murder, or... yeah, you get the picture. It's not that there was too much or too little plot, the book just didn't focus too much on any one thing. I didn't mind this, and there was certainly an overarching plot, but be prepared for several subplots. Most of the plots/ subplots are interesting and creative.
Writing:
Although the first chapter threw me with its rapid switching between Nina's book, Nina writing in third person, and then finally Nina writing in first person, which is where we stay for the rest of the book, the writing in general was pretty good. Not "that was the best book I ever read", but certainly acceptable, and in some places approaching good (but remember, this is by my standards.) A few bits reminded me strongly of Eoin Colfer, but that's probably just me. It's a little slow-paced at times, with a lot of sitting around and talking, but I don't remember ever being bored while reading this.
Characters:
The characters were not filled with depth, but they were acceptable. Nina's journey of self-discovery was not amazingly meaningful, but I cared enough about her to be happy that she was happy with herself in the end. Her struggles to retain her humanity at the price of being forever terminally ill led to some excellent character development. Other characters were mostly unimpressive, although Reuben does gain some depth in the sequel, The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group.
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| Quality is my fault; the cover is not all fuzzy like that. The first book does have a parallel cover to this, by the way.
I haven't actually finished the sequel, but allow me to just say that it led me into a fascinating journey of Googling, leading to the discovery that baby dingoes are some of the cutest animals in existence.
Can't you just see this adorable puppy taking down a full grown kangaroo?
Rating: I'm going to give this a 2.28. It could have gotten a 2.32, except for the many direct pokes at Twilgiht and Stephanie Meyer. It's okay to have opinions, and it's okay to publish them, but to publish them in your own book in the same genre? Really? It was immature and it was annoying.
Next week's review is tentatively a book called Parallel (blanking on the author right now), but I'm not promising anything.
Did you read this book? What did you think? Let me know in the comments section below!
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