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dhwani's review
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
literally drafted all of this in my notes app so i wouldn't miss anything and made so many changes to add EVERYTHING that is wrong with this book. i still feel like i'm missing some of the stuff, though.
i absolutely HATED this book
like totally.
so our dear superwoke white MC Kat who is an ally because she asks pronouns okay,, her favourite hobby is to be an ally is all fine in her life except she's like really poor and has to do something to get out of that situation. she's also made to stay away from all the other vampires by her mom and now she longs to hang out with them so, she sends an application to this elitist vampire-only highschool and gets in with financial aid,, literally all her expenses paid
okay, it was fine till this point. her mom still doesn't want her to go and then Kat dearest is a rebel of course so she goes anyway.
there, she is coincidentally roommates with her ex?? bestfriend Taylor, then she tries to hard to fit in with the popular girls and catches the eye of the bad boy.
just like every other annoying “i'm not like other girls” girl.
then miss superwoke MC is also SO CONCERNED about the lack of “diversity” in the vampire school and then Taylor explains it by mentioning how no one would want to be at such a place where people are still crying about how they lost it all in the Civil War.
next, there's this one Chinese character, Lucy.
The author did such a terrible job with her character. she's shown as an evil person who is super rich and throws parties and then glamours humans to suck their blood when it is prohibited. like this one character had so much potential and it was ruined, just like that??
then comes our hot?? bad boy Galen.
who's half Indian.
as an Indian person, this part was so weird to read.
“My dad was involved with the British East India Company back in the day, so that's where they (his mom and dad) met.”
“You mean the British East India Company that colonised India?”
“He winced. “It's not as messed up as it sounds.” My mom doesn't talk about it much, but she's from a wealthy merchant family in Gujarat, and he spent years pursuing her until she agreed. He didn't just make off with a helpless girl from some village. Anyway, it was a long time ago.”
this is weird on literally so many levels. why is it “not as messed up??” the EIC colonised my country and looted it, made life hell for my ancestors, and it is not as messed up as it sounds?? they committed so many atrocities against Indian women. this is so wrong.
i also found a lot of parts that were anti-semitic but i would recommend reading Jewish own voices reviews for that.
i also hate it sm when the author makes discrimination an entire plot when they can display an inclusive community and still keep the plot going?? THE DISCRIMINATION WASN'T NEEDED IN THE WORST PLACE. harcote could be a queer-friendly school and the plot would've still held??
later, when MC is questioning her sexuality, she wonders how her friend told her “see? straight people always assume it's something you have to discover, but I was born this way”
EXCUSE ME??
there are SO MANY queer people in this world (including me) who spent YEARS questioning their sexuality to arrive at a conclusion and feel confident about who we are. sexuality is fluid and not everyone is "born that way" or whatever it is. this overtly discourages questioning people because it looks like why are they even questioning they should just know if they're gay
LITERALLY HATE IT.
ALSO, UNNECESSARY HP REFERENCE.
moreover, the writing is BAD because wtf is
“the realisation burst over me like shit from a flock of seagulls”
and the characters were SO ANNOYING like making HORRIFYING decisions literally having no common sense also Kat was making up for her lack of father figure by making this billionaire her godfather daddy and trying to make him proud AND THE PLOT WAS SO PREDICTABLE UGHH i felt like a mastermind knowing exactly how this book went
spoilers??
also Taylor lost someone so close to her and THIS GIRL KAT IS THINKING OF TAYLOR HOOKING UP WITH ANOTHER GIRL AND GETTING JEALOUS LIKE MANNN LET HER GRIEVE WTF
she's grieving and miss girl goes
“(not that i noticed what her lips were doing)”
LIKE GIRL SHE'S CRYING SHE JUST LOST SOMEONE TF IS WRONG WITH YOU????
in conclusion, a bad book which is extremely problematic with so much racism and homophobia.
i absolutely HATED this book
like totally.
so our dear superwoke white MC Kat who is an ally because she asks pronouns okay,, her favourite hobby is to be an ally is all fine in her life except she's like really poor and has to do something to get out of that situation. she's also made to stay away from all the other vampires by her mom and now she longs to hang out with them so, she sends an application to this elitist vampire-only highschool and gets in with financial aid,, literally all her expenses paid
okay, it was fine till this point. her mom still doesn't want her to go and then Kat dearest is a rebel of course so she goes anyway.
there, she is coincidentally roommates with her ex?? bestfriend Taylor, then she tries to hard to fit in with the popular girls and catches the eye of the bad boy.
just like every other annoying “i'm not like other girls” girl.
then miss superwoke MC is also SO CONCERNED about the lack of “diversity” in the vampire school and then Taylor explains it by mentioning how no one would want to be at such a place where people are still crying about how they lost it all in the Civil War.
next, there's this one Chinese character, Lucy.
The author did such a terrible job with her character. she's shown as an evil person who is super rich and throws parties and then glamours humans to suck their blood when it is prohibited. like this one character had so much potential and it was ruined, just like that??
then comes our hot?? bad boy Galen.
who's half Indian.
as an Indian person, this part was so weird to read.
“My dad was involved with the British East India Company back in the day, so that's where they (his mom and dad) met.”
“You mean the British East India Company that colonised India?”
“He winced. “It's not as messed up as it sounds.” My mom doesn't talk about it much, but she's from a wealthy merchant family in Gujarat, and he spent years pursuing her until she agreed. He didn't just make off with a helpless girl from some village. Anyway, it was a long time ago.”
this is weird on literally so many levels. why is it “not as messed up??” the EIC colonised my country and looted it, made life hell for my ancestors, and it is not as messed up as it sounds?? they committed so many atrocities against Indian women. this is so wrong.
i also found a lot of parts that were anti-semitic but i would recommend reading Jewish own voices reviews for that.
i also hate it sm when the author makes discrimination an entire plot when they can display an inclusive community and still keep the plot going?? THE DISCRIMINATION WASN'T NEEDED IN THE WORST PLACE. harcote could be a queer-friendly school and the plot would've still held??
later, when MC is questioning her sexuality, she wonders how her friend told her “see? straight people always assume it's something you have to discover, but I was born this way”
EXCUSE ME??
there are SO MANY queer people in this world (including me) who spent YEARS questioning their sexuality to arrive at a conclusion and feel confident about who we are. sexuality is fluid and not everyone is "born that way" or whatever it is. this overtly discourages questioning people because it looks like why are they even questioning they should just know if they're gay
LITERALLY HATE IT.
ALSO, UNNECESSARY HP REFERENCE.
moreover, the writing is BAD because wtf is
“the realisation burst over me like shit from a flock of seagulls”
and the characters were SO ANNOYING like making HORRIFYING decisions literally having no common sense also Kat was making up for her lack of father figure by making this billionaire her godfather daddy and trying to make him proud AND THE PLOT WAS SO PREDICTABLE UGHH i felt like a mastermind knowing exactly how this book went
spoilers??
also Taylor lost someone so close to her and THIS GIRL KAT IS THINKING OF TAYLOR HOOKING UP WITH ANOTHER GIRL AND GETTING JEALOUS LIKE MANNN LET HER GRIEVE WTF
she's grieving and miss girl goes
“(not that i noticed what her lips were doing)”
LIKE GIRL SHE'S CRYING SHE JUST LOST SOMEONE TF IS WRONG WITH YOU????
in conclusion, a bad book which is extremely problematic with so much racism and homophobia.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Murder, Violence, Blood, Death, Death of parent, and Medical content
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, Vomit, Panic attacks/disorders, Gaslighting, and Lesbophobia
bookstagramrepresent's review
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
0.25
I don’t even know what I just read but it was not good.
Kat, the Poor woke white girl MC - constantly mentions or shows off how much better she is than everyone else in the Vampire school, a lot of the racism and homophobia scenes are used just to show how much better she is than the other characters which is a huge problem. When she asks about why there aren’t more students of color one character doesn't know why and can list all of them for her because there are so few POC student and another asks her if she really thinks they would want to be at Harcote given the elitist racist vampire offspring - it is NEVER discussed that even if these other students of color wanted to go to Harcote they are not even granted an opportunity because of the racist school headmaster (a lot like what we see in real life with higher education institutions and academia circles). The racism in this book is so insidious.
There is a part where she's struggling to figure out her sexuality/queer identity while still dating a boy from school and those scenes are odd. She remembers her two queer human friends from home and their isn't anything really mentioned other than " just knowing" you're queer. I was hoping for more acceptance with this struggle but she magically figures herself out after berating herself for even questioning and this too comes across harmful. It's OKAY to not know who you are or where you might be in the queer spectrum. For someone who is supposed to be a 2022 teen coming from such an open and woke community in California this doesn't match with how she is in the other parts of the book. She's also not inclusive at all with the language she uses for someone who is supposed to be so woke.
Taylor is the other mc with a POV in the book and she faces a lot of lesbophobia which is not handled well or just used to make Kat look better or Taylor look like even more of a loaner. It's weird because while she is the only out queer person at the school she never once considers there could be other queer students until the absolute end of the book. She also comes across absolutely obsessed with Kat while engaging in a very toxic and secret relationship with another character. She's honestly so selfish in her POV scenes.
Kat, the Poor woke white girl MC - constantly mentions or shows off how much better she is than everyone else in the Vampire school, a lot of the racism and homophobia scenes are used just to show how much better she is than the other characters which is a huge problem. When she asks about why there aren’t more students of color one character doesn't know why and can list all of them for her because there are so few POC student and another asks her if she really thinks they would want to be at Harcote given the elitist racist vampire offspring - it is NEVER discussed that even if these other students of color wanted to go to Harcote they are not even granted an opportunity because of the racist school headmaster (a lot like what we see in real life with higher education institutions and academia circles). The racism in this book is so insidious.
There is a part where she's struggling to figure out her sexuality/queer identity while still dating a boy from school and those scenes are odd. She remembers her two queer human friends from home and their isn't anything really mentioned other than " just knowing" you're queer. I was hoping for more acceptance with this struggle but she magically figures herself out after berating herself for even questioning and this too comes across harmful. It's OKAY to not know who you are or where you might be in the queer spectrum. For someone who is supposed to be a 2022 teen coming from such an open and woke community in California this doesn't match with how she is in the other parts of the book. She's also not inclusive at all with the language she uses for someone who is supposed to be so woke.
Taylor is the other mc with a POV in the book and she faces a lot of lesbophobia which is not handled well or just used to make Kat look better or Taylor look like even more of a loaner. It's weird because while she is the only out queer person at the school she never once considers there could be other queer students until the absolute end of the book. She also comes across absolutely obsessed with Kat while engaging in a very toxic and secret relationship with another character. She's honestly so selfish in her POV scenes.
There are two Asian characters in this book. One is LucyK who is specifically mentioned as being Chinese when we first meet her (page 37 - I guess the white mc can just tell what kind of asian everyone is) and she is written as the mean girl's bff/sidekick. LucyK is a social media influencer and later holds an off campus vamp party in NYC SOHO and a really violent scene happens. Lucy tricked 4 winners of her social media contest to come party with her in the city and they are used as feeders for the vamp party. It's all completely nonconsenual and the other characters talk about how Lucy always throws these parties. Just Lucy. I shouldn’t have to explain why this is so harmful to link the ONLY visible Chinese character to violence against people who cannot defend themselves.
The other Asian character is the love interest king of the school type Galen. He is British and Indian. There is a whole scene (page 146) where he talks about how his white British father worked for the British East India company and that's how he met his mother in India, (who came from a wealthy merchant family so it's okay because "He didn't just make off with a helpless girl from some village" I cannot with this apologist colonizer bs. Racist apologist white colonizer passage shouldn’t have been in here PERIOD *screams* IDK why the woke mc didn’t call this out after she constantly comments on everything else. Kat asks him why he's not in the Students of Color Caucus and he basically replies that he's too busy and it's not for him which comes across as being beneath him and his status. I’m tired of white authors making their characters biracial for flavor and then disrespecting the nonwhite half! Galen is an odd character, his one dimensional even when his character goes from supporting the status quo to trying to make things better. He also constantly forces himself on Kat, she even has a panic attack and a few other terrible physical reactions to him that he completely doesn't notice and just does what he wants anyway. She doesn't even process this trauma but we see the effect it has on her throughout their time together.
The other Asian character is the love interest king of the school type Galen. He is British and Indian. There is a whole scene (page 146) where he talks about how his white British father worked for the British East India company and that's how he met his mother in India, (who came from a wealthy merchant family so it's okay because "He didn't just make off with a helpless girl from some village" I cannot with this apologist colonizer bs. Racist apologist white colonizer passage shouldn’t have been in here PERIOD *screams* IDK why the woke mc didn’t call this out after she constantly comments on everything else. Kat asks him why he's not in the Students of Color Caucus and he basically replies that he's too busy and it's not for him which comes across as being beneath him and his status. I’m tired of white authors making their characters biracial for flavor and then disrespecting the nonwhite half! Galen is an odd character, his one dimensional even when his character goes from supporting the status quo to trying to make things better. He also constantly forces himself on Kat, she even has a panic attack and a few other terrible physical reactions to him that he completely doesn't notice and just does what he wants anyway. She doesn't even process this trauma but we see the effect it has on her throughout their time together.
Unnecessary HP reference in the arc WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Replaced with a Stars Wars reference which still comes off as ableist. Funny how that did not make it better.
There is a lot of ableist language (like the use of lame no one says this anymore please just stop) and the way things related with the disease in the book was just not handled well. The disease was created by one of the bad guys and put into BATS to spread into humanity. After everything we have endured with Asian Hate this pandemic that should NOT have been a plot point. The history of the disease in the book plays out almost like the HIV/AIDS epidemic and this does not sit right with me. The disease is also used to murder a character in the middle of the storyline and the way it's used as a threat is just wrong.
I've seen several other reviewers on bookstagram call out the Antisemitism in this book as well. There are a lot of Antisemitic vampire tropes in this book and it's worth reading up on that.
I've seen several other reviewers on bookstagram call out the Antisemitism in this book as well. There are a lot of Antisemitic vampire tropes in this book and it's worth reading up on that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Ableism, Blood, Classism, Death of parent, Genocide, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence
Moderate: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Racism, Toxic friendship, Bullying, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Cursing
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