Drain You by M. Beth BloomPublished: 24th July 2012
By: Harper Teen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Not being over the whole vampire theme yet, I really expected to love this one, but unfortunately, that wasn't to be.
First off, we have the horrid insta love. Quinlan sees James outside the video store and he follows her home and that's the start of it, just like that, she's can't stop thinking about him and is in love in less than a week with James apparently unable to stay away from her either. Until they do the deed and then he disappears just leaving a note telling Quinlan he'll be back. And we never do find out the real reason why he disappears.
With his departure, enter With, James human brother. I thought we might be heading for a love triangle here, but no, instead, we had insta best friends. He apparently knows where James is yet he doesn't tell Quinlan and she doesn't ask!!
Then we have the childhood best friend Libby, who Quinlan seems to have very little interest in, until she decides to risk everyone's life to save her from the vampires. But when she sees him sucking on her wrist and Libby nearly passed out, she just goes home thinking "whatever she's into!!" And the guy who crushes on Quinlan for some reason that I can't fathom, she just treats him like crap constantly, taking him for granted, and putting the lives of him and his family at risk too. And she knows she treats him badly because she keeps saying it to herself.
The characters in this were very one dimensional. Quinlan is not a likable character at all, she's just selfish and uses people for her own good constantly. Which is why the big rescue of Libby is totally out of character. James, being the vampire, did have his mysterious side, but once you got over that, he wasn't that exciting either, but yet the book took a downward spiral after he left. And he doesn't change his clothes, what's with that. Ok, I get that he's a vampire, who doesn't sweat and smell like humans do, but, surely he'd still get dirty.
I'm afraid I didn't like this authors writing style at all and at times I found the dialogue confusing. And there was just far too much use of the word "dude", which just drove me mad. Maybe, in LA, this is how people speak, I don't know?
And the ending was just unbelievable. The book just stopped. I don't like open endings, I like a neat finish, but I don't know if I would even call this an open ending, there was just too many things left unanswered, too many ways that things could have went. I asked the author if there was a sequel, and she said there was nothing planned at the moment, but if the fans wanted one, then yes. I feel like she didn't finish this one with the express purpose that "fans" would need a sequel just to get some closure. After speaking about the ending with the author, I've deducted a star because it just didn't feel right. As much as I wanted to know how things would end, I wouldn't read a sequel.
