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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Blood, Murder, Abandonment, Colonisation, Pandemic/Epidemic
I do not think this is a bad book by any measure, but it's not for me. After reading around 61 pages, I realized what I did not like about this book: Every book starts with characters who are strangers to you, but slowly you get to know them as you spend your days with the book and with these characters, slowly they start to mean something to you. As I read this book, I came to dislike the one of the character, who is well written and whose actions are completely valid as she is not really human but I started dreading whenever she found another innocent victim, who probably just wanted some sort of company and ended up dying by her hands after surviving their own hard lives. I don't think the author justifies the actions of that character in any way, but after a time, it gets boring, plus I do not care what happens to this character. Maybe me DNFing this book so prematurely was not a good thing and maybe this gets better, but I started to get weary while reading this. If only it had atleast a better commentary on the things of that time, it would have been more enjoyable but no, the commentary was slightly boring and of course, coming from a vampire who has no use of the politics and culture of people from time gone by, it was inadequate. Could have made it more interesting, would've like to read more about what she thought about religion (this was briefly touched upon but in a way that kind of made it worse, i.e she hunts another prey, who happens to be a priest, who was also kinda innocent and harmless and also the brother of the prey she was already seducing), women, sexuality and so on.
In short, not my cup of tea.
In short, not my cup of tea.
I really liked the Vampire's portion of the book. The way her desire and struggles were conveyed were fantastic. I think instead of featuring one character and then the other, this may have been better served by intertwining their stories. I think that would have helped build the tension in Alma's mystery-seeking and increased the amount of yearning between the women (they each have plenty of yearning in their own right, it just never really feels directed towards one another).
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
not much happened tbh there was so much buildup and i was disappointed. characters felt 2D and i never felt connected to either of the protagonists. BUT beautifulll descriptions of buenos aires!
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I loved the first half of this book. Moody, atmospheric, and immersed you in the city of Buenos Aires. Sadly didn’t really care of the second half. The story was less interesting, the characters less engaging, and I found the writing to be sort of juvenile (which it wasn’t in the first half). Also wish that the two main characters met earlier. It felt like we barely got to see the two interact.
dark
emotional
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was such an interesting read! Definitely a spiritual successor to Anne Rice, it was moody, dark and gothic, following a lonely Vampire murdering her way through the centuries. It races by, and I struggled to grasp the significance of the very few people she chooses to focus on in her hundreds of years of gleeful vampirism. The classic vampire issue with Christianity was explored, but there were also symbolic murders (and sparings) that went over my head. At one point she says "none of my actions make sense", and I decided to take that as gospel and just go with the flow of the story, rather than trying to impose logic on her actions. As others have said, there is a dramatic shift half-way through where we turn to Alma's POV in the 21st Century. Although a little abrupt, I actually loved it for the new angle it gave to a tension-building mystery. The reader knows that Alma is inevitably going to be drawn into the dark world of the Vampire, but she thinks she is just exploring a (creepy) family secret. I think the tension of waiting for the Vampire to show up was some of the most fun in the second half of the book. I also liked seeing the spell the Vampire cast over humans from a human point of view, her self-assuredness and stillness working as a kind of mesmerisiation.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Blood, Murder