From Goodreads: "The story of a young heiress's initiation into the dark society of the Chicagoland Vampires continues...Ten months after vampires revealed their existence to the mortals of Chicago, they're enjoying a celebrity status usually reserved for the Hollywood elite. But should people learn about the Raves-mass feeding parties where vampires round up humans like cattle-the citizens will start sharpening their stakes.
So now it's up to the new vampire Merit to reconnect with her upper class family and act as liaison between humans and bloodsuckers, and keep the more unsavory aspects of the vampire lifestyle out of the media. But someone doesn't want peace between them-someone with an ancient grudge..."
I always find it a shame when a book that I love has a sequel and I don't find the sequel to be as good as the first. If you will recall I reviewed the first book in the series, "Good Girls Bite", and in my review I pretty much praised everything about it. I loved that Merit was so kick-butt, I loved all of the secondary characters (which I typically loath), and I just loved the world that Chloe Neill created. But this book? It wasn't the worst sequel I have read by any means (as you will see I did rate it 8.5/10), but it did fall flat for me.
I feel like Merit really lost herself in this book mainly because of a boy (I felt similarly about Dante Valentine in Lilith Saint Crow's Dante Valentine series). I would have been okay with Merit and the fact that she seemed to only have eyes for Ethan had she been honest about it. But she wasn't. Whenever anyone would ask her, "Do you have feelings for Ethan", she would automatically reply with "NO!" and then clam up. Or even when she would think something along those lines, she would convince herself that she was wrong or just being silly. Here is a secret Merit... You really, really, really like Ethan. Accept it. But because she was unable to accept this fact, she just was all confused throughout the book and really missed out on some great opportunities (ie. in the Morgan department and whatnot).
Also, the secondary characters that we were introduced to in "Good Girls Bite"? Anyone recall Mallory? Morgan? Jeff? Catcher? Her grandpa? Well, I just felt that they barely played a role in this book whatsoever. And I really missed them. I felt these characters really brought a lot of humor to the first book, but because they did not play all that large of a roll in this book, that humor that I had expected was pretty non-existent and I almost found the book to be too serious.
All in all, as mentioned, it wasn't terrible by any means. I just hope that in the next book in the series, "Twice Bitten", that Merit is a lot more honest with both herself and the secondary characters.
Rating: 8.5/10
Sometimes a second book does that, but is often rectified later on. I hope that is how these go for you. Oh, the rating is still high, so I think I still need these books. Stop it! You will make me want this series even more! ;)
ReplyDeleteHmmm this is my problem with series. There's like a sophomore slump or something where we lose book one, you know? Loved your positive take on it though, Avery! Fab review :)
ReplyDeleteIt gets better! =D
ReplyDeletexoxo