Helpful Score: 28
It took me awhile to finish this. It has everything...except a decent plot. The cliches are fast and furious, with a molten lava lake, circles of hell, hybrid vampires, a sassy vampire slayer, and her forbidden love interest. It shamelessly rips off other vampire novels and Buffy. The writing is atrocious. There are glimpses of the U of Penn educated writer, i.e. her uneducated young huntress using terms like "carte blanche," and then the "from da hood" writing comes out, with silly conjugations such as, "Ima," as in, "Ima gonna kick some ass." I found the writing painful. It's not hip, it is ridiculous. The black and white characters change speech patterns as easily as clothes; I'm not sure who was a brother and who was a poseur. But then again, I don't care. This novel is dreadfully bad, both in plot and writing. I'd rather have my throat ripped out than read this author's work again, which is unfortunate, as I stupidly got the second in the series before reading the first. Do I dare read the second book, hoping it's better than the first? Probably not.
Helpful Score: 12
This particular book... kinda sucks. And I don't say that lightly.
Apart from the fact that the writing itself is unexceptional, apart from the fact that all the characters are flat and unsympathetic (in that I just don't care about any of them -- I don't even have a handle on who some of them are), not only does it almost immediately hit the "Vamp book, so there must be lots of sex, and if not sex, several pointless descriptions of masturbation! And hey, some graphic sexual violence just for kicks!" ...
My greatest complaint about this book is the simple fact that nothing happens. Really. There's one spontaneous difficult-to-follow and never ending fight scene near the beginning of the story, and that's basically all the action (and plot) you can expect. It's a talky-talky-talky-talky book with the extra added benefit of painfully dull dialog.
I wanted to like this book. It's written in a setting I'm unfamiliar with, and proposes a few interesting novelties that I haven't come across before in this genre, but it just doesn't do anything useful with either of those things.
I own the second book. I'll probably read it just for kicks, but I'm not holding my breath.
Apart from the fact that the writing itself is unexceptional, apart from the fact that all the characters are flat and unsympathetic (in that I just don't care about any of them -- I don't even have a handle on who some of them are), not only does it almost immediately hit the "Vamp book, so there must be lots of sex, and if not sex, several pointless descriptions of masturbation! And hey, some graphic sexual violence just for kicks!" ...
My greatest complaint about this book is the simple fact that nothing happens. Really. There's one spontaneous difficult-to-follow and never ending fight scene near the beginning of the story, and that's basically all the action (and plot) you can expect. It's a talky-talky-talky-talky book with the extra added benefit of painfully dull dialog.
I wanted to like this book. It's written in a setting I'm unfamiliar with, and proposes a few interesting novelties that I haven't come across before in this genre, but it just doesn't do anything useful with either of those things.
I own the second book. I'll probably read it just for kicks, but I'm not holding my breath.
Helpful Score: 12
I love vamp books but this one wasn't for me ~ I couldn't get into it at all. I found the characters uinlikeable. I understand that she has a big following but there are better vamp series out there.
Helpful Score: 7
This is the South Central version of Vampire Hunting. If you are not used to the slang of the area, this book is going to be a little hard to get through. The idea is really good. I like the fact that their are Guardians to protect the slayer while she matures to a full Hunter, but I just can't get into the ugliness of the vampires. I guess I am spoiled on the romantic version of LKH's Anita Blake series. If I had read this series, first, I would probably have enjoyed it more.
Helpful Score: 7
Can I say how disappointed I was with this book. I really wanted to like it but I hated the characters. I know their are alot of fans for this series but I just was not interested in this book.
