My rating: 3 of 5 stars
First, as always the cover. The cover doesn’t really do it for me. The moon is creepy looking, but the title being all lower case blends into the background, along with the series name. I did really enjoy the fact that the bloody crescent was on the beginning of each chapter of the e-book. Onto the novel, there was a certain Twilight-ism to it. This made it very predictable to me.(SPOILER ALERT)The second Taye was gone and the wolf showed up, I knew it was him. I knew instantly Lucard was a vampire. The reason this book was so much like Twilight was because the characters, and components of the vampires and werewolves. Now, if the elements had been traditional vampire/werewolf characteristics this wouldn’t have stood out, but Meyer’s vampires and werewolves broke all the rules, so the features that were so similar made it impossible for me to separate the two. For example Kade’s and Meyer’s vampires both:
1)Are cold and pale
2)Eyes that turn red when they feed on human blood
3)Have special talents that make them even more super
4)Have intoxicating features that are hard to ignore
5)Are complete possessive freaks
Onto the werewolves:
1)There is the Indian tribal connection
2)Are shape shifters not really werewolves
3)Are hot in temperature (which didn’t make sense to me when Meyer made it happen, so I don’t understand this inherent hotness in this book either)
4)Bad tempers make them “phase” (which is the exact word that Meyer uses to describe her wolves)
5)It’s a big deal that a girl is a werewolf
6)Are complete possessive freaks
These are only a few of the examples of the vampy/wolfy similarities, but it didn’t stop there.(END SPOILER) The characters are eerily similar, with the edition of a secondary creep/physco named Lucard. I found it almost impossible to like any of the characters. There was Amberlynn, naive, whiny, complainer, and SO weak. There was Tayelon, instantly possessive, overbearing, darkly hot and immature even though he’s a Senior in college, he acts like a Freshmen in high school. There was this Tristian character, who I don’t even know why he was there, other than for Amber to say was immature, even when she was acting like a complete toolbox herself. Then there was Lucard, the biggest toolbox of them all. This guy was creepy, crazy, possessive, always showing up at the oddest moments and saying odd things. I still don’t get why his butt was there, but he reminded me of Larant from Twilight. Then there was dream vampire, who Amber has never met, only in her dreams, and when he’s real she acts like a complete mush pile. He’s just as creepy with his quiet, supposedly caring, but totally possessive and phsyco-ness. There was one character I did like–Luna. She was funny, cute and a good friend. She seemed to have a brain, which made me even happier.(SPOILER ALERT)There were a lot of things that just didn’t make sense to me–like the fact that the wolves phase but don’t know who they are. They just change into killing beasts, but somehow Amber has the talent of making them not kill her…because she’s special. (END SPOILER)The ending was also kind of what the, but it saved the whole thing for me because now I have to know what happens in the next one. So I’ll pick it up because it ended so strangely.
As for the writing–I found it overly descriptive,describing things that I didn’t care about (like what she chooses to eat each time she eats). Then again, I am known to really live by and read by the “show don’t tell” tenant. The sentences were also at times choppy, and it caused the pacing to go from slow to fast, back to slow. Then there was the huge lecture that Taye gives about the wolves, which Amber just listens to without questioning for four pages. I understand that some things can’t be drawn out and shown through the length of the book, but I would have rather skipped the descriptions about food, looks and needless things and learned about the wolves slowly instead of all at once. Overall, this book held my attention and the ending makes it so I must read the next one. I highly suggest this book for those that loved Twilight and were on Team Jacob–this book is Twilight in reverse.
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