Book Chick City: All Hallow's Eve Book Review: The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks

All Hallow's Eve Book Review: The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 | Posted by Book Chick City |

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Title: The Reformed Vampire Support Group

Author: Catherine Jinks

Genre: Supernatural

Reading Age: Young Adult

Publisher: Quercus

Publication Date:

Paperback: 355 pages

Rating: 7/10

Summary (back cover)

Fifteen-year-old Nina has been a vampire since 1973, and she's hated every day of it. It has really cramped her style and social life - and it's boring. Plus, she has to wear wrap-around shades 24/7 and she can't get a decent hair-cut. But things take a turn for the worse when a member of her therapy group is killed by an unknown vampire slayer.

Threatened with extinction, she and her fellow vampires set out to hunt down the culprit - and soon find themselves caught up in a dangerous quest full of guns, thugs and a very sexy werewolf. Perhaps there's more to being a bona fide vampire after all...

Review:

This book is very different from the usual vampire novel in that the vampires are neither beautiful, sexy supernatural beings or complete monsters. Instead they are pasty, skinny, sickly vampires with no supernatural powers and who have to feed off Guinea Pigs and wear sunglasses so their eyes don't hemorrhage, even in artificial light.

I wasn't sure if I liked this take on the vampire or not. I usually enjoy reading about the sexy vamp or the cruel vamp. However, as I read through the chapters I began to like the characters and this original vampire story. It's quirky, humorous and quite witty. The characters are a completely odd bunch and argue with each other like a normal family. Of course, they're not family, but members of a therapy group that they all attend every Tuesday night. But you get the sense that they are close, even if they are mightily grumpy and think they hate each other.

This is definitely a fun read. It especially picks up when Nina, Dave and Father Ramon travel to cobar to find the slayer that killed a member of their therapy group. When they get there they find a lot more than they bargained for - enter the sexy young werewolf and two nasty thugs with guns...

Verdict:

I did find the structure of the book a little odd. It opens up with Nina narrating in the third person only to switch to the first person after a couple of pages. At the end of the book it leaves you with the notion that the entire story was written by Nina as a memoir but there was no indication of this at the beginning of the book. In fact at the start we were hearing Nina's thoughts on her novel (as she writes vampires novels). It wasn't confusing, just unnecessary. It felt as though the author didn't know how to begin or end the book. However, the middle section was great and I enjoyed it a lot.

Thank you to Quercus for sending me this book for review.

Labels: 7/10 Rating, All Hallow's Eve 2009, Authors I-L, Book Reviews, Catherine Jinks, Supernatural, Young Adult

7 comments:

Andrea [Buried In Books] said...: You have an award @ my blog! :]

http://ireadd.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-template-award-etc.html; 27 October 2009 10:19
elnice said...: Good review. I'm with you, I like my vamps alluring or bad.; 27 October 2009 12:23
Juju at Tales of Whimsy.com said...: Cool review. I hadn't heard of this title.; 27 October 2009 13:24
GMR said...: Interesting review! I haven't actually heard of this title to date, but it sounds fun. Another take on the whole hyped vampire genre going on right now, perfect for this time of year!; 27 October 2009 15:05
prophecygirl said...: Nice review, I really enjoyed this one!; 27 October 2009 18:06
Book Reviews Expert said...: I haven't heard about this book until I read your review. Good review, I'm just not sure the book is for me for I like my vampires to be more alluring then what you described.; 27 October 2009 19:58
Serena said...: Sounds like an interesting premise for a book. Thanks for the honest review.; 28 October 2009 16:18