The Lesser Dead

Characters: ★★★ Atmosphere: ★★★★ Writing Style: ★★★ Plot: ★★★ Intrigue: ★★★★ Relationships: ★★★ Enjoyment: ★★★Overall Rating: ★★★A vampire horror in which the scariest part is having to babysit three insatiably hungry children.We follow unreliable narrator, Joey Peacock who is a forever-teen vampire who's been roaming New York City for the better part of 60 years. He lives underground with his small found family of vamps in the forgotten corners of NYC's subway systems. He spends his nights charming people into letting him eat them, assaulting unwitting women, and getting kicked out of nightclubs. Classic vampire stuff. It's when he comes upon a group of child vampires that things really start to unravel.This story had some predictable twists and turns, and some unpredictable that didn't feel like they made much sense. None of the characters were very likeable, but hey, they're vampires. Should they be likeable? This was the first of Buehlman's books I've read and in the two I've finished, they both included child or childlike characters in graphically sexual situations. I don't care to read more to see if this is a trend in all his works, but having two in a row with this subject matter was enough for me to retire this author.The plot moved along at a good pace and it was an easy read but I found the inner thoughts of the main character to feel odd considering it's supposed to be a 60 year old vampire who was transformed as a teen in the turn of the century, yet sounds like a teen from the 1970's and beyond. Even then, it's not even his voice; just meant to sound like his he's been telling the story all along. Some of the key plot points felt lazy (it was right in front of us the whole time! forehead slap) and the character choices seemed unrealistic at times in order to drive the story forward. In conclusion, even vampire kids are annoying.