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sreberko's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.5
This book is like a weird mixture between Hotel Transylvania, Swiss Army Man, and The Sorrows of Young Werther. With MM protagonists. ( I would add another movie to this mix, but this would be a big spoiler.)
And there is gaslighting - I won't say anything more, but I think it deserved a trigger warning.
🌙 The Dracula (I'm sorry, Jareth) is very sad. A tortured soul, really. Everything is painful, he hates his life, and everything that he tries to do turns out to be a comedic failure. He is a book version of Vlad from Hotel Transylvania; instead of a daughter in love with a human, he has strong feelings towards men.
Laiken is sun incorporated, but with weird quirks towards darkness and turpism. He is a good Chad, with not a lot of brain cells, but a big heart.
They are a weird pair.
🌙 The plot is pretty basic. There are two, maybe three sudden changes of pace and direction that we, as an audience, expected - but in the end, it falls in classical tropes. Only one thing surprised me (and I mean REALLY surprised), and one thing made me angry (REALLY angry, but at the situation, not the book itself).
🌙 The feels in this book were... I can't say positive. Yes, the story is pretty funny, the characters are written and explained well, and it's easy to feel angry or sorry for them. At the same time, I couldn't exactly connect with them - maybe because of the comedic story, or maybe because of pretty disturbing descriptions of our narrator (and one of the MCs).
⭐ The writing itself was good. Disturbing, definitely, sometimes a little bit weirdly paced, but good nonetheless.
🌙 So, about this turpism... I understand why the author went with the "classic" type of vampire, who is more dead, than anything else. It does add a lot of humorous subtones, and it could be seen even as refreshing after all the new-shiny-sparkly-almost-humans. However, there is a limit of descriptions of a lifeless body and explanations of how it works (no blood flow, no fluids other than blood) after which the reader starts asking questions. And not good ones, no. The creepy ones, for example: so is the sperm also bloody?
...
Sometimes, just sometimes, less is actually more.
It's a story that has some very good ideas and some very bad ideas. It's a different story, but also a well-known story. It's not MY type of story, nor these are not my type of vampires, but it is worth checking. Even if only for the first big reveal, which changes... everything that a reader can expect from that type of book.
I received an ARC of this book from the Gay Romance Reviews, and I am voluntarily leaving an unbiased review.
And there is gaslighting - I won't say anything more, but I think it deserved a trigger warning.
🌙 The Dracula (I'm sorry, Jareth) is very sad. A tortured soul, really. Everything is painful, he hates his life, and everything that he tries to do turns out to be a comedic failure. He is a book version of Vlad from Hotel Transylvania; instead of a daughter in love with a human, he has strong feelings towards men.
Laiken is sun incorporated, but with weird quirks towards darkness and turpism. He is a good Chad, with not a lot of brain cells, but a big heart.
They are a weird pair.
🌙 The plot is pretty basic. There are two, maybe three sudden changes of pace and direction that we, as an audience, expected - but in the end, it falls in classical tropes. Only one thing surprised me (and I mean REALLY surprised), and one thing made me angry (REALLY angry, but at the situation, not the book itself).
🌙 The feels in this book were... I can't say positive. Yes, the story is pretty funny, the characters are written and explained well, and it's easy to feel angry or sorry for them. At the same time, I couldn't exactly connect with them - maybe because of the comedic story, or maybe because of pretty disturbing descriptions of our narrator (and one of the MCs).
⭐ The writing itself was good. Disturbing, definitely, sometimes a little bit weirdly paced, but good nonetheless.
🌙 So, about this turpism... I understand why the author went with the "classic" type of vampire, who is more dead, than anything else. It does add a lot of humorous subtones, and it could be seen even as refreshing after all the new-shiny-sparkly-almost-humans. However, there is a limit of descriptions of a lifeless body and explanations of how it works (no blood flow, no fluids other than blood) after which the reader starts asking questions. And not good ones, no. The creepy ones, for example: so is the sperm also bloody?
...
Sometimes, just sometimes, less is actually more.
It's a story that has some very good ideas and some very bad ideas. It's a different story, but also a well-known story. It's not MY type of story, nor these are not my type of vampires, but it is worth checking. Even if only for the first big reveal, which changes... everything that a reader can expect from that type of book.
I received an ARC of this book from the Gay Romance Reviews, and I am voluntarily leaving an unbiased review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gaslighting, Death, and Emotional abuse
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