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xangemtheelibrarian's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I thought the story was a rarely used idea, one that harkens back to the movie The Lost Boys (1987). Except, instead of fighting to save themselves from being turned, these three girls are fighting to free themselves and save another girl in the process.
The plot itself is really fun. They have a bit of a heist moment trying to get all the ingredients for their plan. There's a romance element between Holly and Parker, and Elton is SO easy to hate. And the story does not lack those classic teen vampire romance elements. (i.e.: Parker biting her lip so hard it draws blood, Holly smelling that delicious blood and being very unsure if she's about to kiss Parker or kill her. But also, Parker!! ARE YOU OKAY? Cheezus! Chill on the lip biting!)
This book got surprisingly graphic as far as violence goes. I still shudder thinking about the part where Holly describes in great detail the sounds and feeling of having her ENTIRE ARM ripped from her body. Vampires really like tearing each other apart limb by limb. There is a single sex scene, but it doesn't get any more graphic than "we touched each other everywhere and chased our pleasure" or something to that effect.
Overall, I'm happy I read this! It was an enjoyable, quick read.
Graphic: Gore, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child abuse, Sexual content, Dementia, Death of parent, and Abandonment
arxchiell's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Death and Gore
Moderate: Abandonment
Minor: Animal cruelty
rsngphoenix's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal cruelty
nella_allen's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual content and Toxic relationship
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Torture, Dementia, Death of parent, and Alcohol
emmylux7's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Moderate: Body horror, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal cruelty, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Sexual content, Vomit, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
annamarie98's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Minor: Animal cruelty
mx_virg's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The world building is really lacking here. How can vampires just carelessly go through the world, killing people left and right, in this day and age? The number of people they kill to feed on isn't small, and yet it's never really a concern. Nothing really is, aside from the main villain. We're given just enough to understand why things have to happen the way they do, nothing more. The vampire thing feels more like a b-plot, we're not given enough info and I wasn't that invested or interested when vampiry stuff happened as a result.
The romance started out cute, but became bland from the half-way point. And even though I liked the ending, the twists felt unnecessary and created if not plot holes, at least more questions that we won't get answers to (because we're given so little info to begin with). The writing didn't help. It wasn't bad, but didn't pull me in either.
So yeah, it's a "meh" read for me, but one I still enjoyed. I'd love to read a book on how our heroines carve a life for themselves, together, from here on out.
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body horror, Physical abuse, Sexism, Grief, Gaslighting, and Abandonment
Minor: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Misogyny, Dementia, Grief, Death of parent, and Alcohol
longlost's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
the good: hartl's brand of dark humour used to tell this story made it feel very engaging to me, but that's very much personal taste. i liked the characters - the core vampire trio (later quartet) were easy to love for their quirks and i found what we did learn about their backstories and histories to be genuinely interesting and at times heartbreaking. holly's issues w/ her mother also really spoke to me when they did become front and centre, and i liked
the bad (and the Ugly): so. the entire premise of the book is the three girls who were coerced by the main villain - a vampire creep who preys on vulnerable, isolated teenagers - teaming up to kill him so he can't ensnare anymore victims. and then we spend the entire book developing a romance between holly and parker of which the inherent weirdness of it is never really acknowledged ? like yea, we know that holly genuinely cares because we're reading things from her point of view and there's a lot of emphasis on how being Turned pauses you at that point in time meaning that holly is Technically still 16 but. it is just, not that simple ? she's been existing for like 30 years and parker is. a teenager. maybe there could have been ways to approach it well but here it just felt.... extremely brushed over despite a major plot point of the story being how the villain did similar things to the main character & her friends. the romance felt kinda bland too but tbf i was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt until the out of nowhere underage sex scene which very nearly made the book a DNF for me but there wasnt much of the story left at that point and i wanted to keep to my rule about having read a book in full before writing an in-depth review like this and i felt like these issues were glaring enough that they needed to be discussed in context of the story which is. as explained, never really addressed by the author other than holly being like "oh no if we date parker will eventually grow old and die" which. doesn't even begin to address the juxtaposition between the entire revenge plot and holly and parker's relationship. the overall ending seems to be contentious from reading other reviews here but tbh at that point id disengaged emotionally so i dont have any real thoughts on that.
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Dementia, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Gun violence, and Mass/school shootings
mxajlikesbooks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
- short chapters, quick pacing, light and easy to read
- the friendship between Holly and Stacey
- emphasis on female friendship, found family and cameraderie
- some fun gore and fight scenes
- interesting take on/new version of vampire lore
- Holly and Parker were very cute together despite their relationship being a bit difficult to believe
- the teacher character
Things I didn't like:
- for a bunch of teen vampires that want to save others from their fate, they're very callous about killing (apart from Holly with her code), including eating teens
- Elton was a very one dimensional villain, Gwen even more so
- would've liked to have learned more about rose
- the romance with Parker felt based on very little and I didn't quite get how and why she fell for Holly in such a short space of time with so few interactions
Enjoyed it overall, would've liked it a lot more with some tweaks to the writing and characterisation and more depth in places but was a fun read for sure
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, and Gaslighting
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Dementia
trippalli's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Graphic: Gore, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Abandonment
Minor: Emotional abuse, Violence, and Murder