3.0

Setting: New York
Rep: fat MC; lesbian Indian-American MC; sapphic British-Korean MC

This started off strong and I was excited to read another by this author as I loved her first book, but eventually this fell a bit flat for me - the fantasy came off as silly and a bit juvenile compared to the real life aspects of Tess dealing with rape and trauma and PTSD, and I found myself skimming by the end, but I appreciated all the queer rep.

I loved the vibes of this book! I'm not a huge vampire reader, but this was a pleasant surprise. I found myself wanting to continue to read rather than do laundry, which is a great change since vampire books tend to bore me sometimes.

Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to netgalley and publisher for this arc!

I love anything vampire especially growing up on Buffy aka still one of the greatest tv shows of all time (but ick JW). This was such a fun take on a vampire book, what would happen if you met your fave vampire characters and found out it was all real and based on their lives?! I would love to do that with Buffy or even TVD. I enjoyed this book a lot especially Callum surprisingly especially since the author said at end it was based off Spike who I enjoyed in early Buffy but then not at all in second half of series! It was very hard and sad to read about Tess' trauma though and honestly could have done without that especially since it was such a focal part of her and her story which makes sense but I read to escape and don't want to be upset or sad reading you know? Even though this book is about 300 pages it still felt like more could have been shown and done especially on the isle and with Callum and Tess even! I also think Octavia and Joni should have gotten their own book in some ways because it took away too much from Callum and Tess imo. Overall a good read but could have loved it not only liked it with some tweaks.

This was an excellent read. I couldn’t put it down! I usually don’t read many vampire books but this was exceptional! 10/10 would recommend.

Was it a little cheesy? Yes. Did I read and love it anyways? Also, yes. So it's a funny play on pulp fiction and honestly, it was a real page turner. I wanted to know what was happening to the characters and enjoyed every minute