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Sunday, July 14, 2013

Book Review: Generation V by M.L. Brennan

Generation V (American Vampire #1)
by M.L. Brennan
Print Length: 319 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0451418409
Publisher: Roc (May 7, 2013)
Sold by: Penguin Publishing

Reality Bites

Fortitude Scott’s life is a mess. A degree in film theory has left him with zero marketable skills, his job revolves around pouring coffee, his roommate hasn’t paid rent in four months, and he’s also a vampire. Well, sort of. He’s still mostly human.

But when a new vampire comes into his family’s territory and young girls start going missing, Fort can’t ignore his heritage anymore. His mother and his older, stronger siblings think he’s crazy for wanting to get involved. So it’s up to Fort to take action, with the assistance of Suzume Hollis, a dangerous and sexy shape-shifter. Fort is determined to find a way to outsmart the deadly vamp, even if he isn’t quite sure how.

But without having matured into full vampirehood and with Suzume ready to split if things get too risky, Fort’s rescue mission might just kill him.…

I am left feeling a little torn about this book. It is the first in a new urban fantasy series and I tend to be a little less judgmental on debuts because the author is trying to get comfortable in the world and characters they created. I really loved the first quarter of this book and the last quarter. The middle… didn’t appeal to me at all.

Generation V started out perfect to me. I loved the first POV of sarcastic Fortitude Scott (love this name). Fort is part of a powerful vampire family, but he is at the bottom of the totem pole. He hasn’t made the transition into a full vampire yet so he is mostly human. He doesn’t have a lot of backbone and gets treated like crap by his girlfriend and coworkers. His family’s way of doing things isn’t who or what he wants to be and he is trying to hang onto his humanity as long as he can. His mother, brother and sister aren’t the nicest of vampires, but for some reason his brother, Chivalry has a soft spot for him and tries to protect him from the family. I really like Chivalry with his cliché vampire ways, there is something below that shallow exterior I want to see. The author has come up with a creative mythos for her vampires and I would like to know more about the inner workings of the vampire world.

Where the story goes wrong for me is when Suzume, a kitsune (shape-shifter and trickster from Japan) shows up. She is dressed all bad-ass and sexy, but she acts like a little girl and the two elements don’t work for me. I think she is going to be a love interest for Fort, but I am not feeling it. The whole middle half of the book focuses on her and Fort trying to find out who kidnapped some girls. There is a lot of info dumping about Suzume and the hidden supernatural world they live in. It was a tough pill to swallow that Fort was so ignorant of everything going on around him. Things got interesting in the last part of the book when Fort’s family got involved and Fort did some butt-kicking of his own while taking down the big bad.

I will give the second book a chance in hopes Fort and his family play a more dominant role. I struggled with how to rate this, but went with 3 Sheep because of the originality of the mythos and Fortitude's family.

Quote-a-licious-ness

“Even though it was a dark night with no moon, he was wearing designer sunglasses. I felt distinctly disappointed- the first non related vampire I’d ever met, and he was a Euro-trash tool.” - Fort

3 “Euro-trash tool” Sheep





Sharon Stogner

7 comments:

  1. Nice review Sharon, thank you. I think I will wait with reading this for reviews of the second book.

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    1. I suspect I will get a review copy so I'll let you know :)

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  2. I loved the comedy aspects of this book. There were moments when I was literally laughing out loud. The banter between Suzume and Fortitude was great. I loved their interactions and I think that is why I liked the book so much.

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    1. A lot of people have really liked the dynamic between Fort and Suzume, but it didn't work for me. Now the banter between Fort and his family... loved it! His sister is one piece of work. Curious to find out more about her.

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  3. So it was a UF??? Hmmm I mean, you know I love PNR but you;re review does have me interested. The things you don't like as much sound like ones I would enjoy. lol

    I'll be with Aurian on this one and wait to see what you're review for book 2 is. I'm interested though. Nicely done :)

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