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sallytiffany's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Death, Blood, Cannibalism, and Alcohol
Moderate: Drug use, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
sharron_joy_reads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
This was the YA Book Club 2023 book for April.
This is an excellent vampire book, it is YA but at the older end of that bracket so there are some elements of horror and gore in this. It has such an interesting take on vampire law and actually completely reverses a few of the myths. The characters are complex, mesmeric and deadly but angst ridden. There is a lot of humour amongst the carnage too and I was rooting for the girls to win. This is a story of lost girls breaking free of their bondage, finding a family and a reason to live forever, loved it !
Moderate: Body horror, Death, Misogyny, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Abandonment
sjones08's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
emmylux7's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Moderate: Body horror, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal cruelty, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Sexual content, Vomit, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
mx_virg's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The world building is really lacking here. How can vampires just carelessly go through the world, killing people left and right, in this day and age? The number of people they kill to feed on isn't small, and yet it's never really a concern. Nothing really is, aside from the main villain. We're given just enough to understand why things have to happen the way they do, nothing more. The vampire thing feels more like a b-plot, we're not given enough info and I wasn't that invested or interested when vampiry stuff happened as a result.
The romance started out cute, but became bland from the half-way point. And even though I liked the ending, the twists felt unnecessary and created if not plot holes, at least more questions that we won't get answers to (because we're given so little info to begin with). The writing didn't help. It wasn't bad, but didn't pull me in either.
So yeah, it's a "meh" read for me, but one I still enjoyed. I'd love to read a book on how our heroines carve a life for themselves, together, from here on out.
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body horror, Physical abuse, Sexism, Grief, Gaslighting, and Abandonment
Minor: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Misogyny, Dementia, Grief, Death of parent, and Alcohol
longlost's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
the good: hartl's brand of dark humour used to tell this story made it feel very engaging to me, but that's very much personal taste. i liked the characters - the core vampire trio (later quartet) were easy to love for their quirks and i found what we did learn about their backstories and histories to be genuinely interesting and at times heartbreaking. holly's issues w/ her mother also really spoke to me when they did become front and centre, and i liked
the bad (and the Ugly): so. the entire premise of the book is the three girls who were coerced by the main villain - a vampire creep who preys on vulnerable, isolated teenagers - teaming up to kill him so he can't ensnare anymore victims. and then we spend the entire book developing a romance between holly and parker of which the inherent weirdness of it is never really acknowledged ? like yea, we know that holly genuinely cares because we're reading things from her point of view and there's a lot of emphasis on how being Turned pauses you at that point in time meaning that holly is Technically still 16 but. it is just, not that simple ? she's been existing for like 30 years and parker is. a teenager. maybe there could have been ways to approach it well but here it just felt.... extremely brushed over despite a major plot point of the story being how the villain did similar things to the main character & her friends. the romance felt kinda bland too but tbf i was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt until the out of nowhere underage sex scene which very nearly made the book a DNF for me but there wasnt much of the story left at that point and i wanted to keep to my rule about having read a book in full before writing an in-depth review like this and i felt like these issues were glaring enough that they needed to be discussed in context of the story which is. as explained, never really addressed by the author other than holly being like "oh no if we date parker will eventually grow old and die" which. doesn't even begin to address the juxtaposition between the entire revenge plot and holly and parker's relationship. the overall ending seems to be contentious from reading other reviews here but tbh at that point id disengaged emotionally so i dont have any real thoughts on that.
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Dementia, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Gun violence, and Mass/school shootings
cottageivy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
also !! loved the revenge story line. elton was so hateable. i also love how they never had the characters shame parker for falling for his lies and facade, and despite the clock ticking, were sympathetic to her taking a bit to truly get it. it was really well done i liked that :)
i will say the lore is well thought out and makes sense, however there isn’t much explanation given for how they know it other than that rose and ida having studied ways to do it for a long ass time since they’re older, and we go into it with rose and ida already having a very well backed theory about how to kill elton. you just kinda have to believe them, which is fine for me, and benefits the plot by not taking up pages of just them researching, especially since we’re in hollys pov and she is apart of none of the discover that they do, even when she knows them. i think it’s a bonus for the pacing, but if you like that part and want more detailed lore, that might be a turn off. this story is here to just show them gathering supplies and then figuring out plans, and it does that well!
i will say the mental aging thing was a lil confusing the way it was described, but i think it meant like. they were 16/the age they were mentally and didn’t grow mentally, but still grew as people and picked up slang and shit. like their life experiences impacted them while staying mentally 16 still. but i get that’s such a tricky thing to make sense and i think the way they showed it made more sense than the bit they tried to explain it in. i was good with it tho
i also love how they didn’t have the vampires too human-y? like there was a distance between humans and vampires and it was felt, and their morals were different. even tho holly was more connected to her humanity the way we see it bc she killed only sleazy guys
overall such a fun book, i LOVED the ending
it was such a nice starter to my spooky season book list, i read it in one sitting, highly recommend for a fun read with a cool message about memories and time :)
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, and Blood
bookworm513's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, and Blood
mxajlikesbooks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
- short chapters, quick pacing, light and easy to read
- the friendship between Holly and Stacey
- emphasis on female friendship, found family and cameraderie
- some fun gore and fight scenes
- interesting take on/new version of vampire lore
- Holly and Parker were very cute together despite their relationship being a bit difficult to believe
- the teacher character
Things I didn't like:
- for a bunch of teen vampires that want to save others from their fate, they're very callous about killing (apart from Holly with her code), including eating teens
- Elton was a very one dimensional villain, Gwen even more so
- would've liked to have learned more about rose
- the romance with Parker felt based on very little and I didn't quite get how and why she fell for Holly in such a short space of time with so few interactions
Enjoyed it overall, would've liked it a lot more with some tweaks to the writing and characterisation and more depth in places but was a fun read for sure
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, and Gaslighting
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Dementia
kt2e56's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
Each character spoke exactly the same despite their age/time period differences. Like the entire book felt like one person arguing with themself.
The book was told from Holly’s point of view but she had no real personality to her.
Rose’s personality was just the author describing her outfits (and she was the only character who ever got such devoted details when it came to clothing. Everyone else might have been naked based on the lack of description they received).
Ida’s personality was that she was supposed to be the dark, edgy one who makes “quirky” art projects using the bodies of her victims but like that’s literally it. Just that one note played over and over and over again.
Parker was beautiful. That’s it. Beautiful (no other character had the same level of description when it came to physical appearance) and unbelievably foolish because
Side characters were also given just one personality trait per person.
It’s a shame this book was as bad as it was because the premise sounded great and I
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Dementia, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment