A review by lialeahlio
Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk

dark

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.0

The book is written from two different POVs, one from the vampire in the 1800s and one from the POV of a young mother in modern times. Throughout the book we learn about these two characters as their lives slowly converge. And oh boy.. it was slow. Having the story written in first person made it even more painful to read because it boiled the characters down to basic caricatures that only tells me instead of showing me who they are. It made the story lack believability and rawness from the emotions of the two characters. Their motivations didn't make sense either, I understand the yearning for something new and different, but the story was too bare and simple. I didn't really much care for any of these characters but at least the vampire POV was better than present day single mom.

The story is written in a repetitive and formulaic way made worse by the structure that can be described as whiplash. The marketing blurb promises the "exploration of feminist agency", "consuming power for desire", and "fragile vitality of an immortal" but by writing the story in first person only dampens these expectations. Whatever Thirst is trying to do it didn't meet up to my expectations.

It hurts me that it took 80% of reading to have these two characters to intersect. When they intersect it wasn't as satisfying either. Marketing the book with "echoes of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" is just misleading because it was a very small part of the story.
What made it worse is that their relationship happened out of the blue. Like, ma'am you left your child to be with a vampire you met two minutes ago?? Be fucking for real..