Typical teen story in which there is a black and white delineation between the heroes and the villains, and you will never mistake one for the other. Our heroine comes from a troubled family, longs for a place to belong, is marked as incredibly and shockingly extraordinary amongst her new peers, butts heads with the queen of the school who is also the flatly drawn villainess, immediately catches the eye of the hottest guy at school who is also the ex of our villainess, shows remarkable powers and wields them with a confidence and skill even the most advanced prodigy would not have after one day in a new world with new rules (after suffering from slight self-esteem issues easily erased by her upbeat and encouraging friends), and is wise beyond her years leading her to take on the benevolent savior leader role amongst her friends and eventually the entire school.

The author captures the teenage voice well enough (though it did seem she was trying a bit hard at times), but all the pop culture references got annoying. Also, while she did sound like a teenager, the narrator’s voice irritated me. She spent a good deal of time passing harsh judgments against particular types of people and behavior. Girls who wear lots of makeup are losers (as are a great many other people throughout the book). Teenagers drinking and smoking is horrifying and disgusting. Wanting to kiss someone you are attracted to apparently makes you a slut. She dislikes one of her classmates because he is not only annoying but also unattractive. While I am not saying that teenagers having sex and drinking and smoking is a good thing, I felt this moralizing had more to do with the author wanting the kiddies to know how dirty these things are than with the character really holding these opinions. It felt that her reaction to them was more immature than the character the author wanted us to see.

Also, not a fan of all the hatred for religion. More of the author pushing her point of view than creating anything compelling within the story. What does this really add? Nothing that couldn’t have been done some other way.

The author does more telling than she should, which always annoys me. You don’t need to tell me that you hate homophobes; I can tell that by the way you’re speaking about their intolerance. You don’t need to tell me you’re a dork; I can tell that by the Star Trek sweatshirt you wear. You definitely don’t need to tell me that you have no choice in being the villainess because that is the role you are meant to play, I can tell that by reading the rest of the book. Also not cool? Defining words within the text. Not necessary! Are we writing an SAT prep novel? No!

I am getting a bit tired of the vampires who are so much more powerful, beautiful, intelligent, wonderful than humans and have all these amazing abilities and gifts. This just makes it too easy to use these abilities to get out of whatever trouble pops up in the story. Neferet showing up at the Samhain ritual? Why would she? Because she’s intuitive? I’m not buying it. It’s just too convenient.

Ok, so, those are some pretty negative bits that I did not like about the book, but I did enjoy it overall. I do like the vampires the author created. I like that becoming a vampire is a biological change that your body could reject, thus killing you. I like that they are mortal and just have a longer life span than humans. I like that they can go out during the day, it’s just really uncomfortable. I like that they have a vampire school. I like that they are part of society, excelling in the arts. I like that vampires have a matriarchal society. I think the mixture of the goddess and vampirism is interesting. I like the main character’s new friends. The concept is interesting and fun, and I will probably pick up the sequels at work tomorrow.