Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Travel the World: Australia: The Reformed Vampire Support Group


Jinks, Catherine. 2009. The Reformed Vampire Support Group.

Interesting cover and premise. But only moderately pleasing (to me). Nina is a vampire. She's been a vampire since 1973. She's been trapped in a teenagers body for what seems like forever. Nina in her own words, "The plain fact is, I can't do anything much. That's part of the problem. Vampires are meant to be so glamorous and powerful, but I'm here to inform you that being a vampire is nothing like that. Not one bit. On the contrary, it's like being stuck indoors with the flu watching daytime television, forever and ever." (5) Nina and her vampire family don't sparkle, thank goodness, but they're also not fast or strong or powerful. These vampires are nothing like what you read about; instead we find them weak, sickly, powerless, resigned to their oh-so-boring lifestyles. But when one of their own ends up dead--turned to ash--the threat becomes a little too real and pushes them all out of their comfort zones and somewhat unwillingly into an adventure all their own. For what they find is that someone--a stranger--is onto them. Suspects that they are vampires. And is out to kill them "for the good" of mankind. Can they convince this unknown threat that they're no threat?

I was only moderately entertained by this one. The plot seemed a bit too flimsy for me. The storytelling too clumsy. At one point, the author interrupts the action sequence to spoil her own mystery. Something that I found a bit weird and definitely unnecessary. I mean why work up any suspense at all if you're just going to tell your readers the secrets before reaching what should be the climax and explain every little clue away before the "big reveal" that turned out to be mostly deflated by that point.

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6 comments:

JessicaLeigh said...

Sorry you were disappointed.

To be honest, I'm getting kind of sick of vampire novels. They're just overdone, in my opinion, and they're losing their charm.

Thanks for your review!

Zibilee said...

Sorry this one wasn't great. I do like the cover though.

Debi said...

Oh man, I'm sorry this one was a letdown...'cause I really, really do love that cover!!! It's one of those books I would have bought for the cover alone...guess I'm lucky to have been forewarned.

Anonymous said...

Hmm looks like this really didn't live up to the cover and premise. Sorry you didn't get much from it.

Alyson said...

I actually liked it. Yes, the plotting was a bit wonky, but I liked it better than "Twilight". It succeeded in making me like the main character as well as making believeable characters with actual flaws.

Megan Burke said...

Hi everyone!

Just letting you all know that I'm running a comp over on my blog, Literary Life, to win a Reformed Vampire bag!

Get over there and check it out!