Review: The Island of Dr. Moreau meets Animal Farm
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 22, 2013
Let me first start by saying that I missed the summary indicating this book was for "mature young adults."  I liked the price and the concept and immediately hit "click to buy" (dang the EZ buy button!).  So, my review is for the adult who happens to like the price too...The author did an outstanding job by introducing a new take on the vampire mythology!  Loved it.  I even liked how (purposefully?) he created an island of creatures much like H.G. Wells' story of a fantastical island of genetic oddities -- and the idea that beasts must pretend to be human. Even the "The Law" that the creatures adhere to in Wells' story ("Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law"..etc.) kind of appears here (in a different fashion of course). I also felt something akin to what I felt when I read Orwell's "Animal Farm." Unfortunately, this is where my "likes" for this book ends.The author should have pushed the envelope and simply made this an ADULT novel, and ignored the impulse to make another remake of "Twilight".  One ugly similarity: Vampires attempting to be human teens while going to high school with regular kids.  The author even has the vamps sitting at the same lunch table people watching the humans (sound familiar?) while one vamp falls for a human.  It was all ridiculous.  The author wants to pander to the youth market, but has the power to create a novel that would make an adult want to buy all of his books if he would just recognize that the characters in his novel CANNOT BE IN HIGH SCHOOL!  The protagonist is a killer and the author wants the reader to be okay with him falling for a 17-year-old kid?  The protag is not an Edward (a dark romantic who tries to be good and eats only squirrels), but a stone cold killer (he eats a fellow soldier without a boo-hoo) so there is nothing romantic about him being with a human girl.  Just kind of freaky.I think this would have been a better book if the author had just said, "Hey, my protag is a killer, so let's put him in a setting that is more believable.  Like...um... a military unit and he falls for another soldier ... or heck corporate america and he falls for a lawyer (ha!)"  In my opinion, the whole book collapses under the weight of the author's idea that he needs to write something like "Twilight".  It doesn't help that the protag does not sound or think like a high school kid (the author gave this guy a voice of someone in college or an adult over the age of 25 .... no slang used; no bewildered ideas that only a teen could have; and what average high school kid uses a word like "repurposed" or doesn't question his knowledge of guns like a Sig716 or can even identify one on sight?).The author's concept is fresh and new and deserves a better setting!  I gave 3 stars just for the concept and writing (some minor writing errors, but nothing glaring), but the story line just does not work. Overall, I would recommend to anyone (YA or adult readers) for the new concept alone.