As some of you know, I recently finished a book called Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith. I read it because even after the failed endeavor that was Vampire Academy I still wanted to test the Twilight-knockoff waters. I just can't be satisfied knowing there are a bunch of super awful vampire books out there, I have to read them. One of them.
Anyway, so I found this book while I was shelving and did some more research on the handy dandy Internet. It look promising! The author was know for her realistic fiction, the premise sounded interesting-ish, and it wasn't part of a series. Yeah, the cover is dumb and completely uninformative, but I was willing to overlook that. After all, there was a hunky half-werewolf love interest involved.
Spoilers ahead. I don't think you'll care.
So yeah...this book was kind of weird. The basic idea is that the main character, Quincie, is renovating her dead parent's restaurant along with her uncle to give it a vampire theme. After their chef is murdered, Quincie has to find a new chef. She's also trying to get her werewolf hybrid best buddy to make out with her. So...in the end she's turned into a vampire by the chef, who is a vampire (as is her uncle, but his girlfriend is a Cat...a werecat) and he makes a lot of the restaurant guest vampires too by feeding them baby squirrels (in a honey cream sauce!). Oh, did I mention that the hunky werewolf hybrid (Kieren) is hardly in this book? In the end he has to leave to be with his wolf pack, and Quincie has to suck his blood to save his life from the chef.
The book takes place in Austin, Texas, but apparently there are were- animals all over the place. And not just cool animals, mind you! Oh no, Kieren/Hunky Werewolf Hybrid's best friends are a "werearmadillo" and a "werepossum." You never get any sense of the scope here though. You just have to infer everything, and that makes me crazy.
OK, almost done. This book also has details of the most random things. My favorite is how Quincie wears a dark blue lace dress. With "a beige thong." This thong is mentioned throughout the rest of the book. We are told repeatedly that it is "still in place."
To sum up, my favorite sentence.
"[Kieren] even knew when I started my period, and not just because he could smell it."
Wasn't 'Twilight' enough of a bad vampire book?! I still can't get over that you and Sarah, who have such lovely literary tastes, can put up with Stephenie Meyer non-sense. Bleh.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part of your review of this book on your book blog: "Kieren! I don't know what you look like! I only know that you're hot!"
ReplyDeleteI guess SM spoiled us by explaining--in detail--every thirty seconds--how wonderful Edward was.
Yikes! That's a nasty quote. Based on the thong thing, I can practically hear the author's English teacher in college: "Give your audience an anchor, a familiar object to hold on to, and remind them of it from time to time to keep them drawn into the story."
ReplyDeleteSo can I be a wereplatypus? Honeycream squirrels sound delicious, but how does that turn you into a vampire?
*blink* *blink* Whyyyyyyyy?...
ReplyDeleteThere is a LOT of bad literature in the world, it doesn't mean you have to participate in it! There are a billion HP knock-offs in the world, no way I'm going to be reading every one just to find one that isn't nearly as good.
Also, Quincie is a horrible name for a female character in a novel.
YIKES!!!! I had no idea it was this bad. Every time you've talked about reading this, or I've looked up something about it, it has just confused me. The plot is just so....I don't know...disjointed? Maybe that it's that I expect the focus to be on the murder and that doesn't seem to be the case. It's sounds horrible. Thanks for reading it and sharing.
ReplyDeleteShelley: I know, what can I say? I guess we all have our guilty pleasure books.
ReplyDeleteMarcue: Oo, I did like that sentence too. And it's totally true! And that rhymed.
Prof.: There was something in the baby squirrels...a kind of blood or something. It was kind of confusing at that point.
D-Rew: Well, in an effort to be hip librarian, I wanted to at least poke my head into the Twilight-knock off world. And I did really think this book might be good.
Ferskner: Yeah, it was a weird book. But it was kind of worth reading just to talk about it afterwards. The things I do to amuse you all!