Review: sadly disappointed
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 14, 2013
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.Ugh. I was really looking forward to this book. I’m really bummed that it was such a disappointment because I know it could have gone better. The ideas were good and fresh. I liked the idea of a super-geek becoming a bad ass vampire guy. Any of us with nerd tendencies can appreciate what Charles O’Keefe was trying to do. Unfortunately it just fell flat.Every geek’s fantasy is to have some super hottie of the opposite sex suddenly take notice of us (in a good way for once) and make us awesome. That is what O’Keefe was attempting to do with Joseph. Joseph is your typical nerd/geek type guy. He’s a Sci-fi watching, Dungeons and Dragons playing, sword fighting, LARP loving kind of guy. He’s got his close knit group of friends that we only see once or twice throughout the whole book. His parents are conveniently in Florida for the entirety of the story. Joe meets Cassandra, a drop dead gorgeous woman, at the bar he sometimes pops into. Much to his surprise, she is all about him. Talking with him, hanging out with him, wanting to sword fight with him, even having sex with him, which is a totally new experience for him. What Cassandra doesn’t tell him, is that she is a 200 year old vampire with a psychopathic stalker for a husband. She also conveniently forgets to mention that her husband has killed every man she has ever turned into a vampire with the hope of helping her kill the psycho.So the story is essentially about Joe becoming a vampire, and trying to help his woman get free from her psychotic husband. That is really all it is. I did like the basic concept of the story, I just wish it had read a little bit differently. I understand that Joe was blinded by finally getting laid, that’s a man for you. I thought that at some point we would get a little bit more of Cassandra’s back story, but I felt like we only got a taste of it. I was very interested in seeing who she was underneath and before she became a vampire. I think O’Keefe could have fleshed each of his characters out a little bit more and that would have possibly made a difference in some ways to me. Of all the characters, Joe is the one we know the most about, but even then, I didn’t feel like I got enough of his story to really connect with his character in the way I was hoping I would.I think it was pretty rude of Cassandra to just trick him the way she did, but that was just how the story went, so that didn’t bother me too much. What did bother me was how quickly Joe got over it. But at the same time, it seems that the quick emotional turnaround seems to be a common theme in many recent vampire books, so in this case it pretty much just fit.I think O’Keefe could have done so much more with the climax as well. His writing style in and of itself is not bad, and his story idea was good. It just felt like I was reading maybe a 2nd draft or something. As if it weren’t finished being written and he was going to go back and add the extra details that would have really filled out the story.I can understand why this book would appeal to some; it just wasn’t enough for me. I was left wanting so much more! I’m not entirely sure to whom I would refer this book, but if someone asked, I would tell them it wasn’t quite for me, but to go ahead and read it and decide for themselves. It’s a short book, so whether they like it or not, at least it won’t take forever for them to finish it.There is another book in this series. I haven’t decided if I will read it or not. I have hopes that it is better than the first one, but I don’t necessarily have time to waste on another book that disappointed me as this one did. I guess I will have to read the reviews of it before I make that decision.