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A review by readingrosie
The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks
3.0
I love Catherine Jinks. I got Evil Genius from my dad when I was around nine, and I've read it every other year since then, so about five times. It's a great book, everyone should read it. I've read the others in the series too, but since I don't own them, I've only read those once each. So I was pretty excited to read Support Group.
It starts off promising enough--a group of down-in-the-dumps vampires trying to solve the murder of their asshole sire or grand-sire. Then there's a burst of action in the first half of the book; a road-trip through Australia, a werewolf fighting ring, the bad guys who run said werewolf fighting ring.
Unfortunately, the werewolf is the hottest hottie to ever hot, which is just so annoying. Jinks might be mocking the hot-werewolf cliche, but it just comes off as a blind following of the formula, which is annoying because the book starts with a bunch of tropes subverted.
The book really goes downhill when the road-trip arrives back home in Sydney. In Jinks version of the vampire lore, vampires aren't even alive during daylight hours. They black out when the sun comes up and wake up when the sun goes up. It's interesting when it's used as an obstacle, but not so interesting when it leads to endless summaries of what happened when the narrator was knocked out. At least two chapters went like, "I wouldn't know this until I woke up, but at the very moment I was passing out, X was doing this, this, and this, and this happened, etc. etc. etc." So a lot of the book was summary, which could have been avoided.
There was also a forced romance, which was fun, like always. The bad guys were turned into vampires which meant they were automatically forgiven for forcing teenagers to fight to the death, which was ridiculous. And it just wasn't what I was hoping for.
Honestly, I was hoping for something with more plot, more excitement. The inside flap said Nina would learn what being a vampire really meant, but her turnaround in thinking came from nowhere. I was picturing her getting more shit done. Scaring a few people. Finding some excitement. Not sleeping through half the book and then summarizing what the non-vamps did during that time.
It's especially unfortunate because Evil Genius is just. So. Good. Maybe I'll go read that instead.
It starts off promising enough--a group of down-in-the-dumps vampires trying to solve the murder of their asshole sire or grand-sire. Then there's a burst of action in the first half of the book; a road-trip through Australia, a werewolf fighting ring, the bad guys who run said werewolf fighting ring.
Unfortunately, the werewolf is the hottest hottie to ever hot, which is just so annoying. Jinks might be mocking the hot-werewolf cliche, but it just comes off as a blind following of the formula, which is annoying because the book starts with a bunch of tropes subverted.
The book really goes downhill when the road-trip arrives back home in Sydney. In Jinks version of the vampire lore, vampires aren't even alive during daylight hours. They black out when the sun comes up and wake up when the sun goes up. It's interesting when it's used as an obstacle, but not so interesting when it leads to endless summaries of what happened when the narrator was knocked out. At least two chapters went like, "I wouldn't know this until I woke up, but at the very moment I was passing out, X was doing this, this, and this, and this happened, etc. etc. etc." So a lot of the book was summary, which could have been avoided.
There was also a forced romance, which was fun, like always. The bad guys were turned into vampires which meant they were automatically forgiven for forcing teenagers to fight to the death, which was ridiculous. And it just wasn't what I was hoping for.
Honestly, I was hoping for something with more plot, more excitement. The inside flap said Nina would learn what being a vampire really meant, but her turnaround in thinking came from nowhere. I was picturing her getting more shit done. Scaring a few people. Finding some excitement. Not sleeping through half the book and then summarizing what the non-vamps did during that time.
It's especially unfortunate because Evil Genius is just. So. Good. Maybe I'll go read that instead.