Review: Interesting but could have been better.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 29, 2012
** spoiler alert ** 3.5 stars Warning possible spoilers.This book had a lot of potential and I was a bit disappointed because I had heard great things about this series. I don't rehash the blurb, fyi. It took me a while to read for there was no real direction for a long time in the story but it does have some awesome vampires and fight scenes. I am sad to say those were the good parts.The prologue was awesome; it pulls you in and wets your appetite for a mighty action filled read. Unfortunately, the story does not continue with this voice and completely leaves me baffled on how such an amazing, heart-stopping start makes the rest of the book not so uniform with it.What was wrong with the rest of it? I know a lot of readers like dialogue. I personally don't, unless it is done well. But, and that is a big `but', I was starting to cringe whenever the dialogue started yet again in this story. It is saturated with too much witty dialogue, teen slang and constant, repetitive arguments between the same characters over and over again. It was the main thing that turned me off about the story, yes, there was too much of a good thing.Otherwise, I enjoyed the characters. My favorite one was Uncle Joe. He was a tough as nails ex-military man, but did speak with some uncommon military language that did not seem to fit the scenes at times. Claire, the main protector of Daniel, seemed to be tagged the mother hen of the group and was fine when her sister Cassandra wasn't around. Then she would morph into an immature resentful brat alongside her sister and their constant bickering was exhausting. Sure Cassandra had a good reason to hate Claire, but when it's been centuries since the event, you'd think that they would act a bit less like teens and more like ancient vampires.Then there is Jerry (Daniel) or whatever it is at a particular moment. It goes back and forth between these names throughout the book and there is no good reason for the main character Daniel to call himself Jerry except it was a personal preference. It was a bit distracting. At the beginning, I thought he was two different people. Not good when the cast of characters is large to begin with. I thought Daniel's (or is it Jerry?) friends were pretty well written though I was kind of sad about what happened in the end to them. Jerry himself was not well written, more so annoying with his constant whining and heroic antics, which led him into trouble that he miraculously would conveniently live through. Roach was an intriguing guy but his role was almost nonexistent and could have been a lot more.I did not like that it seems everyone knew about the supernatural world around them except of course for Daniel and his friends. Funny how people in general seemed to be oblivious to all the killings, flying vampires in the middle of town and vampire fights in the middle of the high school and streets. It had some plot holes and tangents throughout that led nowhere but I did finish it, which says that it kept my interest.I did like the idea of his blood being special, (able to pump up a vampire's strength and blow them up too if ingested) and marking him as some kind of hybrid. Though otherwise, he seemed pretty frail for a special, supernatural guy.I don't think I will read the next book in the series. It's not the worst book with vampires but there are others I'd read before getting back to this series.I did not include editing or typos in my rating.This book was received free for an honest review via Basically Books ARR progam on goodreads.com