A review by marpesea
Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez
This one didn't work for me and I stopped at 50 pages.
The premise is fun, but the descriptions of the female characters leave a lot to be desired. There's the fat, sexually-revolting waitress who manages the diner and the not-quite-legal, conniving teen who is doing her best to bring back the old ones. We get in-depth descriptions of their bodies, but everything else is haphazard and (I would argue) treated as less important.
It also suffered from a lack of narrative tension. I really didn't care about the town or the diner and I kept having to look up Earl and Duke (wait, which one is the vampire?).
Overall disappointing. I'll give it some time and try another book by A. Lee Martinez, but this one is off of my list. Does this premise sound fun to you? If so, I'd recommend that you skip it and read Monster (also by A. Lee Martinez).
The premise is fun, but the descriptions of the female characters leave a lot to be desired. There's the fat, sexually-revolting waitress who manages the diner and the not-quite-legal, conniving teen who is doing her best to bring back the old ones. We get in-depth descriptions of their bodies, but everything else is haphazard and (I would argue) treated as less important.
It also suffered from a lack of narrative tension. I really didn't care about the town or the diner and I kept having to look up Earl and Duke (wait, which one is the vampire?).
Overall disappointing. I'll give it some time and try another book by A. Lee Martinez, but this one is off of my list. Does this premise sound fun to you? If so, I'd recommend that you skip it and read Monster (also by A. Lee Martinez).