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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
RATING: 1.5 stars.
Warning: Contains some Spoilers!
When I first heard about this book, I thought the premise looked interesting: somehow vampires have taken over and most of the world is under their rule. A group of hunters trained by the Church at an Academy in Salamanca, Spain are one of the last hopes of Humankind.
I was really curious as how the vampires had gained power, because although it makes for an intriguing plot, it needs to be written carefully, otherwise it will look unrealistic.
Unfortunately it seemed pretty unrealistic. I could have bought the whole part where the vampires announced their existence and claimed to be friendly; setting the trap and all. But I just didn't think the following war was believable. Apparently despite their supposed superiority in number and all our explosive and fire-related weapons Humankind... sort of lost.
The authors explain that this happened in part, because governments decided to make wild accusations against each other instead of uniting. Oh and that soldiers weren't prepared to fight vampires. I mean... soldiers weren't but a bunch of teens with some training in Krav-Maga were? Again, not buying it.
Still, if the only problem was that the basic storyline and the world-building didn't ring true I wouldn't have minded. But there were other things that bothered me.
Like the beginning of the book, for example. "The Cursed Ones" opens with a wild action scene where the Salamanca hunters are fighting fiercely for their lives against some vampires. The main character, Jenn is the one describing the scene and telling us how much in luuurve she is with her hunter partner Antonio. I must admit, it did cross my mind then that this might not be the first book in the series since the main character was already a trained hunter and had a love interest. As I continued reading though, I understood this was in fact, book 1 but that the authors had decided to skip the whole training part and the characters falling in love part and go right into the fighting. Everything you know about these two subjects comes later in the form of flashbacks, which was kind of annoying because they broke the flow of the narrative.
Another thing that annoyed me were the characters. The majority of them were uninteresting and one-dimensional despite all the little flashback chapters they had about themselves and their dark, dark pasts sprinkled through the book. And Jenn... she was the most uninteresting of all. Oh wait, I think Antonio may be even worse... he was just so stereotypical it was almost painful to read about him (every time he said "Ay, mi amor" I wanted to gag). Just call him Edward Cullen or Patch or whatever.
The only character I found mildly interesting was the priest.
Plus, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the hunter team in this book and Buffy's group of friends in the show "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer". There was a witch, a werewolf, a tortured vampire and his love interest (who was no slayer) and a couple of humans. Sounds familiar? Yeah, I thought so. Actually the entire plot would fit nicely into a Buffy episode, except the characters of the TV show are so much better.
Overall I didn't care much for this book. It had weak world-building, almost no character development (not to mention the characters themselves were really annoying most of the time) and the story was not that original or interesting. The flashbacks in the middle of the normal events were irritating and as I said before, cut the flow of the narrative. There were some really well written fight scenes, but other than that this book failed to surprise or interest me in any way as it brings nothing new to the genre and the basic premise is badly explored in my opinion. Recommended only if you're a big fan of vampire books.
Note: I have received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads, but this in no way influences my review.
Warning: Contains some Spoilers!
When I first heard about this book, I thought the premise looked interesting: somehow vampires have taken over and most of the world is under their rule. A group of hunters trained by the Church at an Academy in Salamanca, Spain are one of the last hopes of Humankind.
I was really curious as how the vampires had gained power, because although it makes for an intriguing plot, it needs to be written carefully, otherwise it will look unrealistic.
Unfortunately it seemed pretty unrealistic. I could have bought the whole part where the vampires announced their existence and claimed to be friendly; setting the trap and all. But I just didn't think the following war was believable. Apparently despite their supposed superiority in number and all our explosive and fire-related weapons Humankind... sort of lost.
The authors explain that this happened in part, because governments decided to make wild accusations against each other instead of uniting. Oh and that soldiers weren't prepared to fight vampires. I mean... soldiers weren't but a bunch of teens with some training in Krav-Maga were? Again, not buying it.
Still, if the only problem was that the basic storyline and the world-building didn't ring true I wouldn't have minded. But there were other things that bothered me.
Like the beginning of the book, for example. "The Cursed Ones" opens with a wild action scene where the Salamanca hunters are fighting fiercely for their lives against some vampires. The main character, Jenn is the one describing the scene and telling us how much in luuurve she is with her hunter partner Antonio. I must admit, it did cross my mind then that this might not be the first book in the series since the main character was already a trained hunter and had a love interest. As I continued reading though, I understood this was in fact, book 1 but that the authors had decided to skip the whole training part and the characters falling in love part and go right into the fighting. Everything you know about these two subjects comes later in the form of flashbacks, which was kind of annoying because they broke the flow of the narrative.
Another thing that annoyed me were the characters. The majority of them were uninteresting and one-dimensional despite all the little flashback chapters they had about themselves and their dark, dark pasts sprinkled through the book. And Jenn... she was the most uninteresting of all. Oh wait, I think Antonio may be even worse... he was just so stereotypical it was almost painful to read about him (every time he said "Ay, mi amor" I wanted to gag). Just call him Edward Cullen or Patch or whatever.
The only character I found mildly interesting was the priest.
Plus, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the hunter team in this book and Buffy's group of friends in the show "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer". There was a witch, a werewolf, a tortured vampire and his love interest (who was no slayer) and a couple of humans. Sounds familiar? Yeah, I thought so. Actually the entire plot would fit nicely into a Buffy episode, except the characters of the TV show are so much better.
Overall I didn't care much for this book. It had weak world-building, almost no character development (not to mention the characters themselves were really annoying most of the time) and the story was not that original or interesting. The flashbacks in the middle of the normal events were irritating and as I said before, cut the flow of the narrative. There were some really well written fight scenes, but other than that this book failed to surprise or interest me in any way as it brings nothing new to the genre and the basic premise is badly explored in my opinion. Recommended only if you're a big fan of vampire books.
Note: I have received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads, but this in no way influences my review.
True Blood for teens. Vampires, werewolves, witches, voodoo, New Orleans. Absolutely nothing new.
This book was rather... boring and dumb.
"JENN! YOU'RE SPECIAL BECAUSE YOU ARE A PLAIN, SELFISH, USELESS HUMAN BEING UNLIKE THE REST OF US!"
Yeah, what a great power to have.
"JENN! YOU'RE SPECIAL BECAUSE YOU ARE A PLAIN, SELFISH, USELESS HUMAN BEING UNLIKE THE REST OF US!"
Yeah, what a great power to have.
I went really sure about this book, I was nervous to read it because I had no idea if I would like it or not. Turns out I did like it! This book took a little while for me to get into, and sometimes it would drag out a little. This book didn't capture me and hold me until I read it all. It would grab me for a little bit and then leave me not wanting to keep going. That's why it only got a 4. I did like this book and I thought it was pretty neat, and it was a complete new take on vampires that was pretty exciting. It was pretty good, though I'm a little disappointed because as I was reading I could see a million ways to make this book so much better and still keep it unique. But I did still like it, the story was pretty well-written and the characters were funny and interesting. Hopefully this book will pick it up in the next one, and if the ending said anything, it said the next one is gonna be good!
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Bullet Review:
DNF at 14%.
Yet another cliched ridden attempt at cashing in on the Young Adult Vampire phenomenon. Part Buffy, part Twilight, part OC, the book focuses on a Captain Planet and the Planeteers type team dynamic, only all the characters are cliched and/or boring. Eriko is the worst leader; Skye is defined by her job as a witch; Jaime is an ass (because all Irish are asses); Antonio is your standard "I'm a vampire, but I am in love!"; Holgar is a complete cypher. Oh, yeah, and there's Jenn, this nothing girl who needs to be saved and yet somehow graduated from Teh Best Supernatural School Evah.
The ONLY positive I can give this book is that there are numerous female characters and while Jenn is a complete incompetent fool, at least Eriko and Skye are more than capable of defending themselves and standing on their own two feet. Also, in the portion I read, there was no slut-shaming, and Jenn and Antonio didn't have any weird purity dynamics going on (it was just your standard, "I'm a vampire and want to drink your blood, but I also kinda love you too" bit).
I am 100% done with this genre; I would have quit sooner, but until today, I had nothing else to listen to.
Full Review:
"Crusade" is yet another in a long line of Young Adult cash-ins to the then-vampire phenomenon. While on one hand, it fairs much better than the Twilights and the Hush, Hush's of the genre, on the other hand, there really isn't much of anything to make it stand out from the rest of the crowd.
Jenn What's Her Name is one of a very few "hunters" (think Buffy the Vampire Slayer) who graduated from the Salamanca University of Blahbitty Blah. Only, she constantly needs to be saved by everyone around her. Or people need to catch her while swooning. Or she's bawling.
In this world, Vampires sweet-talked their way into society until bam, the entire world is in the crapper and the hunters are the only hope. The hunters being a handful of kids who can't even vote yet. And yet, somehow these people idolize the hunters, hanging them on walls of bedrooms and fangirling over the hot ones. Why, say, the adults and all the gun-toting red-necks of grand old 'Murica haven't risen up against the vampires is anyone's guess.
I kept holding back on this book because from the cover, there seemed to be a thread of something that might be interesting. But as soon as I actually started listening to it, I could tell it was exactly like every other Young Adult Urban Fantasy in existence. Same stock characters; same silly romance; same barely-there world-building.
The characters are mediocre; honestly, the only one I cared anything about was Jaime and that was primarily because the narrator gave him an Irish accent (I have a thing for Irish accents). I am floored that Jenn could even graduate this amazing school, given how awful she is at her job. Antonio's vampire has been done so many times (Vampire Chronicles anyone?), Skye is terribly cliched as a witch, of COURSE we have to have werewolves if we have vampires (sorry Holgar!), and Eriko is just bleh as a leader.
I don't even know what the story is supposed to be; I would think you should get a bit of a hint by 14% but there was nothing in sight, beyond a trick action scene at the beginning to suck you into pages upon pages of steaming piles of needless infodump. And honestly, the only reason I made it to 14% was because I had NOTHING else to listen to on audiobook.
As for the audiobook: there is a "G" in "strength" and "length". Nothing quite so annoying as hearing a narrator say "strenth" and "lenth".
About the only positive I can give this is that there are a LOT of females, a lot of competent females (minus Jenn, of course), and some decent non-white characters (Eriko, for instance, and I pretended Skye was African-English).
Maybe something miraculous happens and at the 15% the book becomes kick ass; I will not be finding that out, nor will I be rushing to purchase these author's next books. If you are tired of the same-old, same-old of Young Adult and Urban Fantasy, I would recommend you do the same.
DNF at 14%.
Yet another cliched ridden attempt at cashing in on the Young Adult Vampire phenomenon. Part Buffy, part Twilight, part OC, the book focuses on a Captain Planet and the Planeteers type team dynamic, only all the characters are cliched and/or boring. Eriko is the worst leader; Skye is defined by her job as a witch; Jaime is an ass (because all Irish are asses); Antonio is your standard "I'm a vampire, but I am in love!"; Holgar is a complete cypher. Oh, yeah, and there's Jenn, this nothing girl who needs to be saved and yet somehow graduated from Teh Best Supernatural School Evah.
The ONLY positive I can give this book is that there are numerous female characters and while Jenn is a complete incompetent fool, at least Eriko and Skye are more than capable of defending themselves and standing on their own two feet. Also, in the portion I read, there was no slut-shaming, and Jenn and Antonio didn't have any weird purity dynamics going on (it was just your standard, "I'm a vampire and want to drink your blood, but I also kinda love you too" bit).
I am 100% done with this genre; I would have quit sooner, but until today, I had nothing else to listen to.
Full Review:
"Crusade" is yet another in a long line of Young Adult cash-ins to the then-vampire phenomenon. While on one hand, it fairs much better than the Twilights and the Hush, Hush's of the genre, on the other hand, there really isn't much of anything to make it stand out from the rest of the crowd.
Jenn What's Her Name is one of a very few "hunters" (think Buffy the Vampire Slayer) who graduated from the Salamanca University of Blahbitty Blah. Only, she constantly needs to be saved by everyone around her. Or people need to catch her while swooning. Or she's bawling.
In this world, Vampires sweet-talked their way into society until bam, the entire world is in the crapper and the hunters are the only hope. The hunters being a handful of kids who can't even vote yet. And yet, somehow these people idolize the hunters, hanging them on walls of bedrooms and fangirling over the hot ones. Why, say, the adults and all the gun-toting red-necks of grand old 'Murica haven't risen up against the vampires is anyone's guess.
I kept holding back on this book because from the cover, there seemed to be a thread of something that might be interesting. But as soon as I actually started listening to it, I could tell it was exactly like every other Young Adult Urban Fantasy in existence. Same stock characters; same silly romance; same barely-there world-building.
The characters are mediocre; honestly, the only one I cared anything about was Jaime and that was primarily because the narrator gave him an Irish accent (I have a thing for Irish accents). I am floored that Jenn could even graduate this amazing school, given how awful she is at her job. Antonio's vampire has been done so many times (Vampire Chronicles anyone?), Skye is terribly cliched as a witch, of COURSE we have to have werewolves if we have vampires (sorry Holgar!), and Eriko is just bleh as a leader.
I don't even know what the story is supposed to be; I would think you should get a bit of a hint by 14% but there was nothing in sight, beyond a trick action scene at the beginning to suck you into pages upon pages of steaming piles of needless infodump. And honestly, the only reason I made it to 14% was because I had NOTHING else to listen to on audiobook.
As for the audiobook: there is a "G" in "strength" and "length". Nothing quite so annoying as hearing a narrator say "strenth" and "lenth".
About the only positive I can give this is that there are a LOT of females, a lot of competent females (minus Jenn, of course), and some decent non-white characters (Eriko, for instance, and I pretended Skye was African-English).
Maybe something miraculous happens and at the 15% the book becomes kick ass; I will not be finding that out, nor will I be rushing to purchase these author's next books. If you are tired of the same-old, same-old of Young Adult and Urban Fantasy, I would recommend you do the same.
It felt like a long book, but I like the story. Interesting.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Ok. I'm thinking vampire books written in the early 2000s are just not my thing. I did not enjoy this book like I thought I would. It sounded right up my alley, but the characters, especially Jenn, made this book miserable. Ok not all characters. Holgar is the reason I finished this book. He didn't annoy me and was an actual bada**. But Jenn, goodness, she was awful. She constantly talked down about herself and honestly, she's right. She was absolutely useless except when she was by herself in California. Yet, she didn't grow at all throughout almost 500 pages! If she wasn't bad enough, it was the crap Skye was pulling. Yes let's keep a secret that could everyone killed. She chose her stupid secret over her team and friends. Just no! Ugh! The writing just did not make this book worth it. Holgar was the only reason to even keep reading. I don't desire to read the next book in the slightest.
(This review was originally posted at VampireBookClub.net)
Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié’s portrayal of vampires, or Cursed Ones, in their new series opener Crusade feels eerily accurate. Do I know what it would be like if vampires made themselves known? Of course not. This isn’t the same take one finds in Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries (also called the Sookie Stackhouse novels and basis for HBO’s True Blood).
The vampires in Cursed have come out saying they love humans and only eat animals. They’ve won over the government. But, of course, they are liars. The Cursed Ones feed only on human blood and enjoy treating them as playthings and slaves. Many cities and governments bend their will to the vampires, changing laws to make it near impossible to stop them. They know what is happening, but now pretend to not know the truth.
The way Holder and Viguié lay out this new world, with each new atrocity, is ghastly in its realism. Each new revelation adds a layer to the world and a nudge in your mind that “that’s totally how it would go down.”
Not everyone in this new world is hiding their heads in the sand, though. Academies have cropped up — most in Europe — to train people to fight the Cursed Ones. Those who survive and graduate are called hunters, one of those graduates is made the Hunter (with a capital H) and given an elixer to heighten speed and strength. The school in Spain is the only one that takes students from outside its country. So, when Jenn flees America — where the government quickly opened its arms to the vampires — she heads straight to its doors. She and her team of hunters are about as different as you could imagine, and there is a quite a bit of in-fighting. The hunters are forced to figure out a way to fight the vampires without tearing themselves apart, and so far it isn’t going so well.
Interestingly, Holder and Viguié elected not to make our main heroine the Hunter and defacto leader of the group. A different move and one I really liked. It adds a level of insecurity that many will be able to relate to and her mega crush on team member and only reformed vampire in existence Antonio is written to perfection. There are so many things that fight to keep these two apart. I’m excited to see how the authors will maintain that tension throughout the series (and for a big fat happily-ever-after at the very end).
The only downside here, really, is all the world building takes time. Yes, that’s true of most first novels in a series. Having read this duo’s Wicked series, I knew sticking with it was worth it, but be aware the plot doesn’t really kick into high gear until about halfway through the novel. I would also note there are a lot of characters in this book and as the pacing speeds up it can get a bit confusing, but the core remains the same. I focused on them and knew the new people were part of a certain group.
Overall, Crusade offers a thought-provoking take on vampires and new slayers we not only can root for but also care about. There’s a slow start, but the second half is engaging and the ending leaves one thinking about what may come next.
Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié’s portrayal of vampires, or Cursed Ones, in their new series opener Crusade feels eerily accurate. Do I know what it would be like if vampires made themselves known? Of course not. This isn’t the same take one finds in Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries (also called the Sookie Stackhouse novels and basis for HBO’s True Blood).
The vampires in Cursed have come out saying they love humans and only eat animals. They’ve won over the government. But, of course, they are liars. The Cursed Ones feed only on human blood and enjoy treating them as playthings and slaves. Many cities and governments bend their will to the vampires, changing laws to make it near impossible to stop them. They know what is happening, but now pretend to not know the truth.
The way Holder and Viguié lay out this new world, with each new atrocity, is ghastly in its realism. Each new revelation adds a layer to the world and a nudge in your mind that “that’s totally how it would go down.”
Not everyone in this new world is hiding their heads in the sand, though. Academies have cropped up — most in Europe — to train people to fight the Cursed Ones. Those who survive and graduate are called hunters, one of those graduates is made the Hunter (with a capital H) and given an elixer to heighten speed and strength. The school in Spain is the only one that takes students from outside its country. So, when Jenn flees America — where the government quickly opened its arms to the vampires — she heads straight to its doors. She and her team of hunters are about as different as you could imagine, and there is a quite a bit of in-fighting. The hunters are forced to figure out a way to fight the vampires without tearing themselves apart, and so far it isn’t going so well.
Interestingly, Holder and Viguié elected not to make our main heroine the Hunter and defacto leader of the group. A different move and one I really liked. It adds a level of insecurity that many will be able to relate to and her mega crush on team member and only reformed vampire in existence Antonio is written to perfection. There are so many things that fight to keep these two apart. I’m excited to see how the authors will maintain that tension throughout the series (and for a big fat happily-ever-after at the very end).
The only downside here, really, is all the world building takes time. Yes, that’s true of most first novels in a series. Having read this duo’s Wicked series, I knew sticking with it was worth it, but be aware the plot doesn’t really kick into high gear until about halfway through the novel. I would also note there are a lot of characters in this book and as the pacing speeds up it can get a bit confusing, but the core remains the same. I focused on them and knew the new people were part of a certain group.
Overall, Crusade offers a thought-provoking take on vampires and new slayers we not only can root for but also care about. There’s a slow start, but the second half is engaging and the ending leaves one thinking about what may come next.
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced