dbguide2's Reviews (863)

This is super short at 82 pages but it packs quite a punch! I highlighted quite a couple of quotes in the book because I liked how it spoke of death. I liked that we got this pov – a cleaner who specifically cleans dead hoarders’ houses. That even though we like to fill up our houses with everything we could ever want, but not need, it’ll just… stay there in our house. Whatever you might have done in life, your possessions will merely be thrown away by a group of people who are paid to do so – which makes you just as ordinary as the next person. I liked that we were being told all of this sort of from a future perspective. Like we’re looking back at the events to see how it all played out. Meet Paul before things happened to him, find out what kind of person he is.

Another thing I really liked was the writing. Spooky, atmospheric, chilled me right to the bone. Sometimes actions or feelings were being described and I sat there wide-eyed and grossed-out. That made me love the book even more. Busby did a great job at making me feel like I was there cleaning with Paul (and I didn’t want to be). Even though this was a really quick read it made up for it in its strong writing and characters. 

 As I said earlier, this was quite an interesting read. For the most part, and just as I’d finished, I decided on 3 stars, maybe add on a .5 stars for the vampires. Now it’s a solid 4 stars. Did I like the main characters? No, they’re terrible. But they’re meant to be terrible and they’re written great (in that sense). If you like unlikeable characters I recommend this book! 

It’s not that I don’t like unlikeable characters, I do, I also tend to get really annoyed with characters if they annoy me. I’m aware of how it doesn’t make sense. For this book I liked the male main character (Susenyos) way more than the female one. Arguably, he’s definitely the worst as he’s a vampire and doesn’t care about silly human things like morals and values. The female lead (Kidan) hated Susenyos for being a vampire and doing bad things but like you knew that? In this world vampires are extremely bad. They’re not sparkly romantic ones like Twilight. They’re terrible! But I did like that she herself felt connected to those dark areas of Susenyos and disliked herself for that. Somehow I think that made me like her more – like her disliking herself led to me liking her more. 

 I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I love world-building. With paranormal creatures the lore is built into the world-building so it’s technically more world-building, which is great for me. Plus the creature lore is almost always different every time. That was definitely the case here. Girma created new and really interesting vampires and explained their rules in different ways – through the classes, Kidan interacting with Susenyos, through her learning about her family’s history. Made for quite an interesting reading experience. 

I also liked the other characters we got to know to. I’ll admit, I didn’t like Slen as Kidan’s friend but then I read her sporting a South African pin so I feel like I have to support (as a fellow South African). I’d probably say Taj (Susenyos’s friend, another vampire) and GK, a student in Kidan’s class were my favorites of the supporting characters. I will say that I didn’t like June. I didn’t get her and Kidan’s relationship; maybe that’s why I disliked Kidan a bit – she was so focused on finding her sister but I didn’t see the relationship between them. Maybe that’s just me. 

The action in this is largely in the background as it’s more psychological. The focus isn’t so much on action and vampires lighting each other – which is a difference from other vampires books, maybe that’s another reason why I didn’t like this so much. I’m so used to vampires fighting and high action plots and scenes in books. One thing I definitely won’t be able to do is attend this university because I half understand everything they said – but that’s okay!