Review: Third Strike

Third Strike by Heather Brewer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Content warnings: violence, death

Well that was definitely a thing.

It was about as good as the prior book. Though it had a happier type of ending than I expected.

It’s terrible that it takes a serious injury to bring a family back together but sometimes tragedy has to happen more than once to fix things that are broken.

I suspected something was up with Patty (or whatever her name is). Because of how she was acting.

Turns out my presumptions of guilt weren’t entirely correct in regards to Joss’ nightmares.

If you’ve read the other two books, you might as well read this one as well. But I’m more excited that it’s finally done than the fact that I read it.

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Review: Second Chance

Second Chance by Heather Brewer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Content warnings: violence, death

Well it was a little better than the first book. Not by much. But a little. So that counts for something.

Joss is still fanatical. And still believes his sister dying was completely his fault and he could have avoided it (even though he couldn’t have) and feeling guilty and therefore having nightmares because of it.

Abram is still an asshole.

Oh and we get the line of “don’t ever go shopping with a female even one who carries a stake” in comment to a woman going on a shopping spree with Joss and him becoming (in his words) a pack mule. Because y’know women ALL love to shop. And make men pack mules -_-

One more book to go in this series.

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Review: First Kill

First Kill by Heather Brewer

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Content warnings: Abuse, manipulation, death, violence, fanaticism

UGH. I CAN’T PROPERLY EXPRESS MY CONTEMPT FOR MOST OF THIS BOOK.

I now know WHY I don’t care much for Joss (besides the bits we see of him in the chronicles of vladmir tod) and why I particularly DON’T like his uncle.

Seriously, setting your nephew up for failure. Assuming that he’s the traitor because deaths just happened to be near him. Beating him near to death with your friends as a “trial”. Making him a fanatic to the point that he stops eating, drinking, and sleeping. Whipping him because he couldn’t manage 3 days with no food or sleep. Never mind the fact that he’s 13 fucking years old.

I just. I can’t with this book. I’m angry about it and not thinking very coherently but that’s probably the most coherent I’ll be able to do period. I’m going to TRY to read the other two books in this trilogy but I don’t know that it’ll go over well.

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Review: Twelfth Grade Kills

Twelfth Grade Kills by Heather Brewer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think I liked this the best out of all the books. I mean I’m really not one for happy endings because they’re so overdone but it works with this series.

I actually became somewhat invested in this book.

And I KNEW something was up with his dad. But never expected it of the Russian vampire. That they’d be incahoots with each other.

I initially thought with the not being able to sense him thing that it might have been because he was shifted into Nelly’s cat. And that if a vampire is shifted you can’t sense them. But it also makes sense if you burn your mark off, the vampire society can’t sense you.

A lot of people, going off of other reviews of the series, seem to think the first book was the best. I think it’s second best because it’s the only one I’ve contemplated giving 3 stars to and didn’t. But this one I think deserved the 3 stars. The plot holes are fixed which yay! and everything comes together and basically all the unanswered questions get answered. Which is always a plus.

Decent book. The series would have been better without plot holes.

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Review: Eleventh Grade Burns

Eleventh Grade Burns by Heather Brewer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well that was certainly a different ending.

As for Meridith insisting Vlad owe her an explanation he really doesn’t.

Joss is back and of course up to no good.

Book ends on a cliffhanger that seems like possibly too convenient of a plot device.

Vlad is still a huge hypocrite.

I’m glad this is the second to last book.

We all knew Otis was going to be cleared of his charges. It’s why D’ablo backed off from Vlad so much so that he could plot all of the trial happenings and make sure it went his way. Dorian surprised me slightly since he was just portrayed as a power hungry asshole most of the book. It was a slightly pleasant surprise. And I love the fact that he released Snow as his drudge.

One more book and then I’m done.

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Review: Tenth Grade Bleeds

Tenth Grade Bleeds by Heather Brewer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Content warning: torture

Well…that was certainly a thing.

It was definitely a little better than the past two. But not by much.

And one of the biggest things running through my head about Vlad is hypocrite. In huge flashing neon letters. And that he needs to wear one of these:

Also, I’m of two minds about him and Meredith breaking up. On the one hand it’s to protect her and that’s noble/valiant of him…..in a very knightly kind of sense. On the other hand it’s a very shitty thing to do to her. I mean he could make up some story about anger management issues and how he doesn’t want to hurt her with them and that’s why he’s breaking up with her. But to lie to her and say he never loved her is such a gorram cop out that it makes me sick.

How many more family members of Vlad are going to randomly show up? We’ve got his uncle and his grandfather as of this book now. And his grandfather is a fundamentalist asshole. And as I previously noted in my last review, I DESPISE fundamentalists. Of any kind. Because they are almost always extremists. It’s very rare to find one that isn’t in my experience. I have a few in my extended family. They’re not fun to be around.

Anyway, more action in this book which was yay. Less of Vlad acting like a love sick puppy, more yay. Conflict between main character and best friend, more yay. Plotholes, booooooooo. Seriously, Vlad even brought it up. If D’ablo can get into his house and threaten him there, why doesn’t he steal the journal himself. Or send one of his flunkies to do the job? IT MAKES NO SENSE.

I mean hell, he could break in while Vlad’s asleep and his adopted mum is working at the hospital and kidnap him even. Maybe even drug him (since it’s not stated on if drugs of any kind will work on vampires it’s not a stretch) to make it easier. And I would have seen that as a child if I had read these books back then (even though they didn’t exist until 4 years after I graduated high school).

Two more books and then I’m done with this series unless I can find the journal thing at the library too then 3. And the 3 slayer chronicles books.

Overall, decent book and has gotten out of the “meh” category. Which is a small improvement.

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Review: Ninth Grade Slays

Ninth Grade Slays by Heather Brewer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Henry’s cousin annoys me. And has the fanatical devotion to his cause that I associate most with religious (and anti religion) fanatics that just want to shove their beliefs down your throat and try to get you to believe as they do (which they annoy me in their own right). Somewhere nearish to page 107 I noticed a punctuation error. There’s a random period in the middle of a sentence and I’m not sure if it was missed in editing or if it was an error that happened AFTER editing. But that bothered me. I like that Vlad got some actual training. And am envious that he got to travel. D’ablo is still acting like a devil (coincidence with his name amirite?) There’s still plot holes (seriously it was even mentioned in the story, it’s a small town how hard is it to find one person? that it takes all of or a majority of a year to find them?). Overall I’m kind of meh about this book. I get the awkward teenager thing because everyone has gone through that phase (even if it doesn’t hit til adulthood or hits while still a child) from what I gather. And the being bullied thing. It surprises me that no adults have noticed the bullying on one hand. On the other hand it doesn’t surprise me at all. And I still want to punch Eddie in the face. As well as Vlad’s bullies.

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Review: Eighth Grade Bites

Eighth Grade Bites by Heather Brewer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book reminds me of a book I’ve read before but for the life of me can’t figure out.

And I know I’ve never read this series before so that’s not it. But I know I’ve read a book in which there is some kind of mystery because someone has disappeared and mysterious new person moves in and winds up being main character’s relation.

Anyway though.

This was a very quick read. It was also a very easy read. Easy on multiple levels (comprehension, font size, thinking about it later on….). It was something I needed because I have a few books coming up after this series that are probably going to give me headaches and stuff when I eventually read them.

But some of this book feels like the author was trying to be clever (which is entirely possible) but clever like I was clever in middle school (which wasn’t very). Naming the main character Vladimir (Vlad Tepes), Bathory school, Edgar Poe, Lugosi Trail, etc.

There’s some serious plot holes (like how did it take an entire year for this book to go down? are they just that cliché in the bad guys following the good guy thing?)

Overall it was decently enjoyable. I can remember being really awkward in 8th grade so my memory of me at that age connects with the characters but adult me giggles over them.

As someone who enjoys vampire books and movies this hit a lot of clichés but it wasn’t altogether terrible. Then again it wasn’t good either. Just kind of meh and decently enjoyable. It’s what I consider to be a turn your brain off and enjoy reading type of book.

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