So I recently finished playing DMC Devil May Cry. It’s a game about a Nephilim, half angel half demon, dude who’s a demon hunting vigilante, pretty much an arrogant asshole, and doesn’t take shit from anyone. He looks like this:
And his name is Dante. Ring a bell?
Do I need to tell you the reason why I even picked up this book?
Well, if you didn’t catch my drift, the Book Dante seems to be a perfect replica of the Game Dante. I have had a crush on the Game Dantes (yes, there is more than one Dante – the original and the reboot, and you are seeing the pictures of the reboot) for about five years now, and I’ve been wanting to read some fan-fiction about them for ages.
Book Dante should have been a good replacement for Game Dante. And he was for about half the book, before things went horribly wrong. However, The Collector barely managed to scratch my DMC itch. But that’s a story for another time.
I started this book thinking that I will simply replace Book Dante with Game Dante. The female lead’s name will be Kat. She is a Wiccan graffiti artist who opens gates into Limbo (a parallel world between Hell and Earth where demons go bump in the night) and she looks like this:
Copyright you say?? Nonsense.
So having the characters already sorted out, I was ready for some fun! And it was for, I repeat, half the book. You will hear me say this a lot by the by. The good half, and the bad half. *sigh*
Anywhoo, Book Dante was fun! Victoria Scott sure did a good job with him. He made me laugh out loud. Really laugh out loud not just the meh lough out loud. The dude is an entertaining fucker. Let me give you some of my most favorite quotes. I’ll write them between the spoiler code because, you know, spoilers and shit. (view spoiler)[
Apparently Charlie doesn’t have a car. “But don’t worry,” she tells me, “we can walk to school from here.” Thrilling. It’ll only take a few lifetimes, what with her limp and all.
“Dante, this is Annabelle.” No. No way. That name is reserved for females with grace and elegance, not this girl. This girl is…beastly. “Annabelle,” I say. “It suits you.”
The beauty behind the table gets up and saunters toward me. I have to stop myself from shoving Charlie out of the way.
Some people say the Amex Black card is a myth. Those people are also referred to as poor. Even thinking the word makes me itch.
If Charlie doesn’t dig my get up, I’ll expose her for what she is: asexual.
“In this trunk,” she says with a serious face, “is God’s gift to women.” “Chocolate?” “No.” “Midol?” “What? No.” “Tampons.” “Stop guessing,”
I did like Dante. I mean yum. Sure, I still have the image of the Game Dante in my mind but Book Dante’s personality is there. He’s funny, and charming, and most importantly evil. But there are many things that bothered me about this book, Dante and Charlie, the female lead.
Number one, he starts being attracted to KatCharlie after she changes her looks. Sure, he keeps on mentioning that he misses her old self blah blah blah no one gives a shit but that doesn’t change the fact that he feels like touching her hair or skin only after she changes them into something more “beautiful”.
Number two, there is no way in Hell such a “playa” would fall for someone like Charlie. I mean the girls is all right, if you’re into below average looking girls – hey don’t give me that look, it’s how she’s described by the author – but Dante’s feelings are not really justified. Yeah she’s got a good soul and she might be the next Jesus, ridding the world of evil and all that (creepy), but his nature wouldn’t allow him to fall for such a girl. Not that hard at least. And not that fast! The big bad L word popped up so fast I could not believe my eyes.
“I love you, Dante. I’ve loved you from the start.” “Why?” “Because I see you. Even though you try so hard to hide, I see you, anyway.”
Gag. I mean really. Gag. If I only knew that things will get even worse later on..
Charlie is an OK character, not too bad, not to good. She would make a perfect YA contemporary romance lead. My problem with her is that she’s too damn plain. She’s supposedly “speshul” because the author tells you so. She did not do anything special in this book, she did not show her powers, she didn’t do anything useful. That’s why I’m insisting on Dante’s feelings not making sense. There’s nothing much to fall for.
I will protect this girl with everything I have, because if something happens to her, I will lose myself. I will cease to exist. And I will take everyone with me.
You see, this shit is what gets me angry. A character as cool and as evil as Dante would never go that low. What the hell?!
I pull my hands away from my face, because I have to see her face. I have to see how she’s looking at me now that she knows. When I do, I can no longer stop the tears. They crash over my cheeks and free-fall to the ground. Because her face.
He is acting like a love-struck teenage girl, ladies and gents. Gather round and throw some rotten tomatoes at his head, maybe he’ll snap out of it.
God these things piss me off. You had such a great character and you cut off his balls like this. The whole book is ruined for me and I sure as hell won’t even go near book two. I don’t want to witness more useless fucking drama between Dante and Charlie. I simply don’t.
The Collector had the perfect start of being a very good and entertaining book. If only Victoria Scott had Dante fight some crazy demons or something, removed Charlie and removed the stupid romance. A badass book, I tell you. Oh well, too late for that.
Rating points: Dante: first half – 4 stars, second half – 0 stars -> average - 2 stars Charlie: first half – 2 stars, second half – 0 stars -> average - 1 star Story: first half – 3 stars, second half – 0 stars -> average – 1.5 stars Lolz: first half – 5 stars, second half – 0 stars -> average – 2.5 stars Demon hunting: first half – 0 stars, second half – 0 stars -> average – 0 stars ---------------------------------- Average score: 1.4 stars
So it’s another three-star rating from my side. I was hoping Lord of Misrule will finally be THE five-star Morganville book, but it seems like we’re b...moreSo it’s another three-star rating from my side. I was hoping Lord of Misrule will finally be THE five-star Morganville book, but it seems like we’re back to the “could have been so much better” state.
I have no idea what went wrong with this book. It had a pretty good, yet weird, start but by the end things got confusing and messed up. There are a bunch of characters that grew even more in my eyes, Claire, Shane and most importantly Myrnin. Michael and Eve were still great but I feel like I didn’t get enough of them, especially when it comes to Michael. Poor Eve ended up carrying a huge load on her shoulders. I won’t get into details regarding that, go ahead and read the book if you want to know what I’m talking about.
I can’t seem to know how to review this book so I guess I’ll leave it at that. It was good, but could have been much much better. The ending was a mess. Really. But what am I expecting? It’s Rachel Caine after all. Let’s see what Morganville #6 is going to throw in our way.
Fans of Morganville Vampires rejoice! We finally got a book that lives up to this series potential. Or at least gets very close to it. Which is cool.
I...moreFans of Morganville Vampires rejoice! We finally got a book that lives up to this series potential. Or at least gets very close to it. Which is cool.
I really love this series and it pains me to give these books less than five stars. Morganville Vamps can do five stars easily. It just doesn’t work too hard to reach that for some reason unknown to me yet.
I never felt like continuing a series after giving the first book three stars. Never. That means that I found the series meh. Meh doesn’t want me to instantly buy the book and find out what happens next. And yet Morganville always leaves me wanting more. Is it the fact that the series is amazing or should I blame it on the cliffhangers? Or both? I’m going for both.
I do hope that the next installments will be even better since Midnight Alley gave more depth to the vampire universe. Caine keeps on adding more and more details to her stories and characters and all this boosts up the quality of her books. I am le extremely happy.
I’m going to make this real short, so here are some thoughts.
The Dead Girls' Dance didn’t impress me much. I felt like the events that the story focus...moreI’m going to make this real short, so here are some thoughts.
The Dead Girls' Dance didn’t impress me much. I felt like the events that the story focused on weren’t so interesting, and this didn’t get me in the right mood. I didn’t think it was better than Glass Houses, and it wasn’t worse. Claire was better though. Eve and Michael were as good as ever. Shane. Meh. He bothered me many times, but in the end he was alight.
I got used to Rachel Caine’s cliffhangers so I was bracing myself for a big one. Nope. It was rather stupid, if you ask me. My good friend Alk told me that book #3, Midnight Alley, is badass so I’m pretty excited about it. Will be reading it asap.
P.S. You guys should totally read this series. You’ll love it!
For those of you who are thinking what the hell is wrong with her for even trying this book, let me tell you something. A group read is a group read....moreFor those of you who are thinking what the hell is wrong with her for even trying this book, let me tell you something. A group read is a group read. You have to show some solidarity. You have to stick to your friends no matter one. I managed to stick to my fellow buddy-readers for about 15% of the book. I could not take more.
The main reason why I hated Kiss of Steel is the cheese. I don’t like cheesy books, and I hate cheesy romances. And this, my friends, is a cheesy romance. (no surprise there given the cover)
Anyways, Kiss of Steel is your typical vampire (yes indeed) romance with a touch (as minor as it gets) of steampunk, which is mostly aesthetic if you ask me. There was close to none worldbuilding, the character development was weak, the plot was romance (yes...), which is no plot at all, and again, I repeat, there was absolutely no steampunk feel to it.
I like some steampunk romances, you know. I loved Wicked as They Come by Delilah S. Dawson and Heart of Steel by Meljean Brook because the steampunk feel was there! And the authors actually created a steampunk world, good characters and then inserted the romance elements. This I like. This I like a lot!
I would recommend this book to hardcore romance readers. Keep in mind that my review is only for the chapters I managed to finish so some things might have changed later on in the book. (not that I care)
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