The Amarant by Tricia Barr (2017)
-NetGalley Review-

Teen Fiction | Paranormal: Vampires

Blurb:

“A fictional world brought to life, a dark romance that promises eternity, and a secret that threatens to end it all. Crimson Wilkinson is a teenage girl who, having survived a dark childhood, finds her escape in reading a popular vampire series. 

After some investigation, she becomes a very active part in the very true vampire stories the world thought were fiction and falls in love with their author, Nicholae Albaric, the sweetly lonely vampire celebrity. But her happiness is short-lived as she discovers she has a rare gene that makes the carrier extremely powerful if turned into a vampire, and she is targeted as the vampire community’s number-one most-wanted, some who want to kill her before she becomes a threat, and others who want to use her powers to their own ends.”
–Goodreads 

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pooled ink Review:

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy to review!

Okay I didn’t finish this book. I made it about 100 pages in and then finally tapped out. I’m sorry. It has some really great reviews on Goodreads but I just don’t see it. Vampire novels aren’t an instant win for me so it has to be good or I’ll end up rolling my eyes. That being said it wasn’t the vampires that left me disinterested, it was just the book itself.

The beginning is choppy and boring with no hook at all. The dialogue is simplistic, so many aspects of the story are cliché and uninteresting, the world building is vague and weak, the twists are unsurprising and uncreative, and the main character annoyed me. She’s completely vampire obsessed, reckless, and has a low standard for what constitutes as “wit”.

She hunts down information about Nicholae, her favorite book character (from a vampire series of course), and finds his banking records and such “evidence” that “proves” he’s not just a story but a real vampire in real life. Well, even if she did manage to find a school buddy able to hack into bank records it’s still unrealistic that a vampire would have the same singular bank account open since the early 1700s, or publish a book series about their self. It’s not a smart move if one wishes to remain under the radar, which most vampires do.

All of her habitual stalking of Nicholae the real life vampire doesn’t make her seem clever, it makes her seem crazy.

The whole thing was just…flat. From the first page I wanted to quit. I stuck it out for a while because the blurb had sounded interesting when I’d first read it and all the readers on Goodreads gushed about its awesomeness but I had to quit. I couldn’t validate spending hours of my day reading it. I admit I only made it 100 pages into the book but it was moving far too slowly vampire-wise and those 100 pages were mostly filled with boring jump cuts of her boring high school life. Maybe the book suddenly becomes awesome when some real action and intrigue enters the plot, if they ever enter the plot, but I can’t bring myself to take the time to find out.

I’m sorry but this wasn’t good. To me. Maybe if you’re a die-hard vampire book fan then you’ll read this and think it’s utterly entrancing. If so then I am genuinely happy for you. I wish I could have enjoyed it too.

Ah well. Not every book can be a winner.

Cheers.

Similar recommended reads: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, Chase the Dark by Annette Marie

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Meet Tricia Barr!

Tricia Barr always loved creating worlds and romances through writing; however, loving history and the idea of travel more, she pursued a degree in Anthropology. She graduated from the University of Arizona in 2011 and looked hard for a job in her field for two years before she realized that her degree would not allow her the travel opportunities she truly wanted.

Now she works as a writer and a jack-of-all-trades with her husband, Eric Barr, leaving them both plenty of time and freedom to travel on their own terms as they raise a family.
-Goodreads

Website | Goodreads

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