Thursday, November 3, 2011

Review #85 Glass Houses by Rachel Caine

Hello my lovely friends! Hope your week has been well. I hope those participating in NaNoWriMo are doing well. I know I'm almost 1500 words in, which is bad considering you're supposed to write about 1,667 words per day to successfully complete NaNoWriMo X_X No matter, we're here to review a book today! And boy it's a good book :)

Glass Houses is the first in the Morganville Vampires series by Rachel Caine. Claire Danvers is a 16 year old genius, attending Texas Prairie College in the college town of Morganville. After getting beaten up by the nasty Monica and her Monickettes, Claire flees her dorm, finding solace at a house called the Glass House. Settling in with the house's quirky residents, Claire finds out the town's chilling secret: It's run by vampires. After an incident which pulls one of her roommates into a deep pit of drama, Claire tries to find a way to save him, which sets off a chain of events she will have to use all her intelligence to end.

Oh holy crap, this book is fangtastic! (pun intended ;]) After hearing such rave reviews of this series, I knew I had to start it stat. Thankfully I did, and it's amazing! I haven't read such a unique, refreshing vampire story (barring My Blood Approves and Vampire Academy) in a while. I just love the idea of vampires as the mafia of this town. I've never read a story with that kind of vamp addition. It's so cool, even though you know it's also wrong, as a story concept, it's amazing. Plus in general this is a great vampire story. I loved reading every minute of this emotional roller coaster. You are literally gripped from page one, especially near the climactic ending. You get such a sad feeling after finishing this delicious treat of a read. It's so good I almost bought the second one right after finishing this one. Sadly I didn't, but I can wait until I'm able :)

Claire was an excellent protagonist. A young genius on her own for the first time, you love watching her grow and develop into kind of a badass by the end. Yes, she is still a bit weak, but she grows into a strong person by the end, and you just root like hell for her and her friends. Which brings me to her friends/roommates. In my opinion, while Claire was a great protagonist, Eve, Michael and Shane just shone. They were definitely my favorite characters of the novel. I loved the dynamic and the rapport they had with each other, even more once Claire really became a part of it. You could tell they were a family, loving, hating and protecting each other with undying loyalty. Eve was just fabulous. I loved her sarcastic attitude, coupled with a vulnerability that made her even more real. Shane was hilarious, yet so sweet and loyal and caring. Michael is also sweet and caring and loyal. I so with that trio existed so we could all live in the Glass House as roommates. It would be so cool. Monica frankly scared the shit out of me (pardon the language). I mean that, I haven't been scared like that due to a character ever. Considering Warner from Shatter Me, that is really something. She is just so sociopathic and straight up evil you literally get shivers down your spine that won't go away until she's out of the scene. Holy crap, Monica is scary. The other characters are so well developed, despite how long each of them might appear. All were amazing and wonderful in their own way. 

Kudos to Ms. Caine for building up her world quite well, and for just being so talented. I will be getting the next book for sure!

I will next be reviewing Savor by Megan Duncan.

Until next time, viva la literature!

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