Nick

There really isn't a ton to say about this one. The reader essentially gets thrown directly into a dystopian religious convent. Everyone is ordered by class like a goth Handmaid's Tale. Bazterrica treats us with beautiful and sometimes scary imagery instead of a heavy plot.

To be honest, this book did get confusing at times but it was very enjoyable.

Was this book terribly original? No. Was it entertaining? Hell yeah.

At face value, we have your standard possession story. A woman starts feeling different, find a book about possessions, starts questioning things...

But then everything goes to shit. This story is exactly as it needs to be. There is no long-winded, convoluted plot labyrinth here. The main character's life starts falling apart as she fights back and/or doesn't. Highly recommended.

I'll be honest: my review is partially about Moreno-Garcia and partially about the genre as a whole. Vampires are scary. Who wants to be fed upon by undead humanoids, right? Eww. And then the 70s came...

Oh, Anne Rice. No longer are vampires scary. They're *gasp* just like us! And then about 15 years later comes the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG. Now we have factions that a there constantly at war with one another as well as humans.

This leads directly to Certain Dark Things. I did like this a tad more than Mexican Gothic, but I guess I just don't get Moreno-Garcia's writing. There were some cool mythological parts and some really intense action scenes, but I found myself rolling my eyes a few times. The hot goth chick vampire stereotype seemed a little <i>too</i>, I dunno, corny? And the vampire after her? Yikes.

Anyway, file as YA schlock.

Something I absolutely loved about this book is the way that there's a tense uneasiness in the air that never goes away. In fact, it gets worse as the stakes get raised higher and higher.

The eponymous auctioneer is a cult of personality. He's nice. He's charming. Everybody loves him. So, what's the catch? Well...the catch is everything one could expect about this sort of character.

The first half of this book flies by, but the second half kind of drags in spots. The ending is also a bit unsatisfying, but it was a hell of a ride nonetheless.

This book reminded me a lot of The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson. On one hand, it comes off as YA, but it is also a gore fest. I'm not sure where the target audience is. I'm guessing it's somewhere around the same high school kids that flocked to I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream.

My suspension of disbelief just did not hold on for the ride. I found myself constantly questioning the motives of the main characters and townspeople and wasn't really sure their actions echoed their desires.

Not very well written, but hey, it was fun I guess. I wouldn't recommend this for serious horror readers over high school age unless you're in the mood for some literary fast food.

This book had a lot of hype behind it, and for good reason. It was very well written and very charming. However, that's about it for me. I did enjoy the beginning and the ending, but the entire meat of the book was very bland. Like The Goonies meets Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls, we have a bunch of old folks who don't want to move and then a shapeshifting mer-person comes to save the day (and have sex with the old lady).

I get that one of the biggest themes of the book is holding onto the past, but the romance stuff was just weird.

The book ends in a very satisfying way. If you're in the same boat as me, please do yourself a favor and finish the dang book!

Meh