Plot Synopsis: Francesca is traveling Europe for the summer with her mom as part of GothFaire, a traveling show with magicians, psychics, and witches (like her mother). She just wants to be normal, which has been difficult since she inherited her mom’s weirdness and can read people’s minds by touching them. Anyway, her BFF (Imogen)’s brother, Benedikt, visits, and with her power she finds out he is a vampire. Her plan to stay away from him is thwarted when he tells her that he is her Beloved; the only person who can redeem his soul. (Also, he’s “open-your-mouth-and-let-the-drool-flow-out cute.”) Later, she accidently discovers that someone at the fair wants him dead, and she has to use her powers to find out who is stealing from the fair’s safe. Mystery ensues.
Vampire Lore: 4
I was actually pretty impressed. He gets burned by sunlight, drinks blood from humans, and dies if he gets staked in the heart. Maxwell makes a point to mention that Benedikt wears a cross around his neck, which was bizarre and random and I assume will come in later. However, he does get the crap beat out of him by a demon, and is injured like a regular person, and I wish he would have been more badass.
Love/Sex/Romance: 3
Well, there was no sex at all, for starters, so that’s out. But the whole book is based around the fact that Benedikt’s Movarian (means “vampire” in this book, not the Pennsylvania college) soul needs to be redeemed by being united with his Beloved, which, as luck would have it, is his sister’s best friend. The romantic interactions are FINALLY appropriate; she is wary of him and doesn’t automatically fall head over heels for him.
Fights: 1.5
This doesn’t get a 1 because it’s slightly better than this gem. You don’t actually see a fight, but you see what kind of shape he’s in afterwards, and that shape is pretty brutalized.
Entertainment Value: 3
I was entertained enough until about 30 pages from the end, where I guessed the ending. This annoyed me, mostly because I can never predict endings, which means it must have been pretty obvious. But I plugged through the rest, and I had guessed wrong. So for that, Katie Maxwell, a 3 for you.
Characters: 2
There were a lot of characters, but none of them were really given much depth, aside from Benedikt and Fran. Even the guy who turns out to be the bad guy never had much information revealed about him, except that he was skeevy and thought he was actually Elvis. I would care about if I didn’t think most of them needed to be developed a bit more, because I was sort of confused by their actions in the story because they just weren’t explained all that well. Also, cliche vampire dude with cliche outcast human girl. Of course.
Writing: 4
I’ll be honest, I actually hated the writing style. A lot. But I gave it a 4…what’s up with that? It was strangely written, but was, again, appropriate. It’s a first person point of view from Fran, so you’re in the mind of a sixteen-year-old girl. So all the dumb stuff that is written, is written because that’s how the mind of a sixteen-year-old works. Basically, all the awkward word and phrases to describe things are supposed to be there.
Overall…this actually wasn’t too bad. I got (and get) the impression that Katie Maxwell doesn’t take herself too seriously. Melissa de la Cruz tries to write meaningful novels with depth, Maxwell knows it’s pretty much fluff and has fun with it. Reading this book was an enjoyable two-day-long experience.
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