When I requested a sample of this novel for my Kindle and read the first couple of pages, I clicked "Buy Now" immediately and was amped to keep reading. Sadly, my hopes were dashed somewhere around chapter three when I realized that the "vapid Gina" act wasn't really an act, it was the real deal. To be perfectly frank, this novel is a train wreck and it's difficult to point a finger at one particular problem, so I tried my best to parse them out into list form (this was more for my own sanity than anything else) in the hopes that I could better isolate the larger issues.
**Spoilers**
1. There is absolutely no character development. Period. None. I have no idea why Gina (the protagonist) was turned into a vamp by her quasi-boyfriend Bobby. I know only that Gina had a boyfriend, not Bobby, until the night she sneaked off and made out with Bobby who subsequently bit her. There is little to no emotional connection between the characters, other than the author telling us there is, and I was left wondering why or how they ever came to be a couple in the first place.
2. Almost immediately, the reader is thrust into the midst of a war of sorts, where baddie Melli is creating and collecting newborn vamps in order to create an army. She is the cause of Bobby's vampirism and is none too happy that Bobby has turned Gina. So here's what doesn't work. There's no explanation of the purpose of this battle. I'm sorry, maybe I'm being picky, but I like to know why things are happening. Not knowing the motivations of characters I'm expected to love or hate or feel sorry for is a huge flaw.
3. Ugh, the over abundance of hip lingo and biting sarcasm from Gina. I get that the author is trying to portray Gina as this tough on the outside, squishy on the inside kind of character, but it doesn't resonate. Gina simply comes off as snarky and rude, not misunderstood.
4. Hero to zero to hero. In the beginning of the book Gina is popular and the "it" girl at school. As newborn vamp, she's shunned by her fellow newborns. Then, for no apparent reason, she's their hero after providing some much needed hairstyling for some underclassmen. Okay, perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but not by much. Things happen in this novel that make no sense at all. I adore the underdog story. I love to see a character find their footing and take on the world, but they have to earn their way to that place, they need to work for it. Gina simply shows up and poof, all her former haters are now lemmings. Huh?
5. Issues are eluded to yet never excavated. We're told Gina has a family who clearly has some issues, we're even briefly introduced to Gina's sister - literally less than a paragraph dedicated to this little run in - and that's it. This is only one example of a thread introduced and never explored, there are tons of them. If only the author took the time to delve a little deeper, this book could have been salvaged. If Gina was real, I could connect. If her motivations were clear, I could have overlooked some glaring problems, but nothing ever gelled because the reader is never given enough of anything to allow for a connection of any kind.
So those are the major flaws, as I noted there are quite a few niggling little flaws as well, I just don't have the energy to go on. Anyway, I was hoping for some really amusing, campy vampire fun and what I came away with was a lot of frustration and irritation. Needless to say, I won't be going on to the sequel.
