Customer Reviews

Cat the Vamp

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With the death of her grandmother, the parents of teenage Catherine Taylor explain her heritage that they concealed from her. They and Cat are vampires, a species that lives in secret amidst the humans.

Her parents take the stunned Cat to Blacklune Castle since she is old enough for initiation into the species. They leave, while she and others her age receive ethics training as well as use of their powers. Cat is shocked to meet Morgan, who has starred in her dreams. They become close but they also struggle with their formal education as each feels the glamour of their powers and a thirst to taste human blood. Cat and Morgan flout adult authority including admonitions from their instructor River while paying no heed to what their actions do to others especially their classmates. When they go too far and harm another, the pair finally learns what others had been telling them, but it may be too late.

This exciting urban fantasy places a wonderful conceptual twist on the vampire sub-genre by having the lead teenage pair behaving as juvenile delinquents. That fresh approach comes across as a two edged sword; the pair causes all sorts of rule breaking havoc which gets increasingly worse and nastier while teachers and administrators do little even when a major violation that borders on criminal activity of assaulting a human donor of their blood occurs. Still this brisk updating of Evan Hunter's Blackboard Jungle into an urban fantasy landscape makes for a brisk unique thriller.

Harriet Klausner

My thoughts...Cat the Vamp is not your typical young adult vampire novel. This book reaches beyond sparkly vampires and romantic blood exchanges. It is dark and dangerous. Catherine, affectionately known as Cat, is a new vampire. She learns at the young age of 18 that she is being sent off to receive special training so she can learn to about her new life. While there, she makes some new friends, including a very handsome young man named Morgan. Morgan and Cat instantly bond, in a very erotic ceremony, and quickly discover that they crave each other and the very thing that gives them vitality,blood. The desire for blood becomes an addiction and they have to find a way to control themselves and try not to hurt anyone in the process.

The characters in the story were interesting. The author, Christina Martine, did a great job of evolving them through the stages of dependency. The story line kept me interested and turning pages. I found myself gasping on occasion, in complete disbelief at the actions of the characters. While the plot is similar to other YA vampire tales, it had several very unique twists. I enjoyed the setting of the story. The majority of the book takes place in an old castle full of secret passage ways, dark corridors and mysterious rooms. One of my favorite scenes is an initiation ceremony which takes place in the ballroom. The author did a brilliant job of describing the candlelit room full of mysterious people dressed in black capes. The dark side of the story really set it apart from others that I have read.

The cons...I enjoyed the story, but I do believe it should come with a warning. The characters in the story do use some strong language and there is a large amount of drug and alcohol use. Also, there are several graphic sex scenes. Parents of younger readers may want to review this book first or use it as an opportunity to discuss the pressures and issues teens face.

Cat the Vamp was darker then your average YA vampire novel. Catherine and her friends (alex, kevin, morgan, etc..) are all vampires, going to Blacklune for training. They form a club called "Animal Kingdom" there they cut themselves and drink each others blood, drinking anothers blood is like a high, everything becomes sharper, more intense and this leads Cat and Morgan to do very reckless things. During Cat the Vamp (a short read by the way, about 224 pages) We see how one struggles with addiction (blood cravings) and love.
Cat The Vamp has a moderate amount of swearing and sexual content as well. Morgan and Cats relationship could get rather annoying after a while, Cat continuosly goes on about how she has Morgan so everything is alright, and it did not seem to be very real at points, it seemed almost too good to be true. This does not deter from the book however.
There will be a sequal to Cat the Vamp, when I dont know, but if you want to read a vampire novel that portrays vampires not as they are in myth (these vampires dont burst in sun, they can see thier reflections..) and deals with some aspects of teenage addictions then this is a good book for you.

I think 99% of the people who will own this book will either buy it because they are obsessed with vampires and don't care about the quality of the literature, or will receive it as an inappropriate gift from a distant grandma or aunt that thinks "Oh, 25 year-olds love this vampire stuff, don't they?" I'm the latter.

This book is unimaginative and poorly written - good luck getting through the first couple chapters without realizing that you might as well be reading a 7th grade girl's creative writing assignment. The author uses phrases like "her eyes swelled up with tears" rather than "welled up with tears" - compares milk dropping on cereal to "rain drops falling on a hill top" (what detailed imagery! Milk drops are TOTALLY like rain drops!). What's worse is that despite being written at an elementary school level, the book apparently contains graphic sex scenes and drug use.

I'll be honest, I didn't read the whole thing, so maybe out of some miracle the "author" turns it around, but my impression is that the author is trying to cash in on the vampire trend while putting in minimal effort. At just over 200 pages, it's difficult to imagine that anyone would actually consider this a novel.

Don't waste your money!