A review by whatsheread
Direwood by Catherine Yu

2.75

Direwood by Catherine Yu should be a book I adore. After all, it is a gothic horror story about vampires. Usually, that would be enough to earn an automatic A. Unfortunately, I could not get into the story enough to enjoy it. The vampires were too one-noted, and Aja is a bit too annoying in her inability to view the world in any way other than superficially. Add to it the weird, blood-sucking butterflies and caterpillars and the red rain that no one else seemed to notice, and it felt like Ms. Yu was trying too hard to make her vampire story different from the million others in existence. She doesn’t explain much of anything, so you slog through the story hoping that something will make sense soon. It doesn’t help that I could not keep awake while reading it. No matter what time of day, I found myself nodding off while reading even a few pages. All of this is to say that I was not a fan of Direwood. There are much better examples of gothic horror stories and way better vampire stories.