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A review by jasperdotpdf
Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
Did not finish book. Stopped at 17%.
The book had so much potential, and there‘s a lot of things that drew me in initially.
The premise of an incredibly accomplished vampire hunter fallen from grace telling his own story, likely as one of his last acts before death, had me hooked. The worldbuilding and vampire lore seemed interesting, and it felt like there might be a good amount of depth and complexity to the protagonist. Also the drawings peppered in the chapters were really cool.
Unfortunately, that‘s where the good parts of this book end.
The way it was told entirely through the dialogue between Gabriel and the vampire interrogating him did not work for me at all. The descriptions of the events were way too detailed for someone verbally recounting memories that lay decades past, but there was still a lack of immersion caused by the distance between the narration and the actual events themselves. There were also a couple 4th wall breaks that just felt out of place.
The dialogue in the story was also very flat and juvenile. The characters‘ voices were nearly indistinguishable, except for one who kept coming up with the strangest insults imaginable and using them 3 times a page against then 15 year old Gabriel. People also kept making „I fucked your [female relative of choice]“ jokes. Obviously in other words, but the core message stays the same and it felt uncharacteristically childish for a supposedly dark fantasy novel.
The premise of an incredibly accomplished vampire hunter fallen from grace telling his own story, likely as one of his last acts before death, had me hooked. The worldbuilding and vampire lore seemed interesting, and it felt like there might be a good amount of depth and complexity to the protagonist. Also the drawings peppered in the chapters were really cool.
Unfortunately, that‘s where the good parts of this book end.
The way it was told entirely through the dialogue between Gabriel and the vampire interrogating him did not work for me at all. The descriptions of the events were way too detailed for someone verbally recounting memories that lay decades past, but there was still a lack of immersion caused by the distance between the narration and the actual events themselves. There were also a couple 4th wall breaks that just felt out of place.
The dialogue in the story was also very flat and juvenile. The characters‘ voices were nearly indistinguishable, except for one who kept coming up with the strangest insults imaginable and using them 3 times a page against then 15 year old Gabriel. People also kept making „I fucked your [female relative of choice]“ jokes. Obviously in other words, but the core message stays the same and it felt uncharacteristically childish for a supposedly dark fantasy novel.