You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
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
I’m a sucker for a vampire story, especially one that makes you feel empathy for both the vampire and their victims.
This one takes place in Buenos Aires and is split into two parts, one centers on a vampire living across centuries and the other features a present-day woman coping with the reality of her mother’s terminal illness. As you might have guessed, things take a turn when their lives converge.
I enjoyed this quick read. It didn’t blow my mind, but it obviously gets bonus points for featuring a bisexual vampire.
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really enjoyed this book, until the last few chapters. Yuszczuk spent the majority of this book developing the vampire and human women separately. Both portions of the book, first following the vampire and then the human, are captivating and contain an undercurrent of death as a driving force. Unfortunately, the time we get once the vampire and human's lives mix is disappointingly brief. There is an erotic tension between the human and the vampire that is cut short by the ending. I think if that had been explored more, the ending would not have felt so abrupt.
dark
reflective
There's so much in here I loved, specially in the first half. It's perfectly decadent and gothic, with the vampire living in 19 century Buenos Aires. I particularly loved the connection between the vampire and sickness, in the yellow fever epidemy. It's such a classic vampire theme. The second part was about a contemporary woman dealing with grief, amd while it was reflective and well written, the momentum was lost. I still liked the ending, it was pretty logical, but maybe I feel the merging of their stories should happened earlier....
((SPOILERS)) 3.5 I really enjoyed this story, but the way it was written felt a little uneven to me. I felt more interested at the beginning of the story and less interested later in the book. However, both characters are very interesting. I liked how María (whose true name is never provided, but she goes by María in some parts of the book, so that’s what I’m going to call her) is one of Dracula’s brides but she escapes him to South America. Of course it’s not explicitly stated that he is Dracula, but there are plenty of clues. There were some parts of María’s story that reminded me of A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson, however, I really liked how she is described as being more animalistic, having wild tendencies, and being overall more ferocious. Although, it feels like at the end when she’s with Alma, she becomes more human, or more empathetic towards them at least (even though she kinda goes on a crazy murder spree). I also loved how powerful María is as a predator and how she uses her assets to get what she wants, just like an animal. I think one of my favorite parts was everything that goes down with the priest, it was so sinister and it felt like a scene out of a horror movie! In fact, there were quite a few really good creepy horror-movie-type scenes in this book. María even kept trophies of her victims like a serial killer. Alma, on the other hand, is pretty much her complete opposite. She is a disabled, divorced mother of a five-year-old boy and she is dealing with the grief for her mother who is incredibly sick and had been slowly and painfully deteriorating for years. She is quiet and reserved, not having many friends and she often goes to bars by herself. However, she has a little bit of oddness to her. She takes her son to cemeteries and teaches him things he might be a little too young for. And when her elderly neighbor gives Alma her house-key to apartment-sit while she’s at her son’s, Alma, almost on a whim, decides to use that key to snoop around when her neighbor is away. Of course, her odd behavior can be blamed on her intense grief. I felt such immense sadness for Alma and for her mother who had been suffering for so long. It made me think of my mom and the eventual day she would be gone from my life and how empty I would feel without her. Anyway, ofc a relationship developed between María and Alma, and Alma helps her mom pass away and ultimately decides to be María’s companion for all eternity. Overall, I really liked the story. I think some of the translation threw me off here and there, but it was still well done.
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes