Bought this book years ago during my teenage vampire craze and yeah, so many of them I got during that phase have NOT held up. I didn't feel anything for Alisa, a protagonist that has a self-proclaimed "expertise in everything" and as much charisma and personality as a pale block of wood. She's a five thousand year old vampire that was a little too ready to jump into a jacuzzi naked with an 18 year old boy in order to manipulate him for information. Ultimately, I think she might have worked better in an adult series, with her unlikability possibly working in her favor, but in this direction, she just seemed entirely superficial.

Also the whole love interest going "Yeah, I know you killed my P.I. dad and need me to get information from his office, but I love you so we just won't talk about it." Like....guy only knows her for a day or two and is already willing to throw away a loving relationship and forget how much his dad meant to him. The biggest doofus of them all.

Given that I had read Houck's Tiger's Curse series way back when in high school and loved it, I figured I would feel the same way about a story that attempts to exude spookiness and Halloween vibes. What I didn't expect was for it to, well, fall supremely smack on the face. I don't know if my tastes have changed over the years, but I didn't recall her style feeling so bland and empty. There's nothing that gives any personality or atmosphere to the writing. It's mostly simple statements, descriptions, and maybe some internal feelings, but it feels rare. I never really felt entrenched in the world that was being built, and, despite some interesting lore behind the lanterns, it never felt properly realized.

Also, Ember was too frustrating as a lead character. She kept making poor decision after poor decision that, without a plot security net, would have definitely gotten her killed immediately. I think her stubbornness was meant to come off as endearing, but it was more of a hindrance. 

I think I knew I was in trouble when there were two time skips, one three months and another a year, within the first 50 pages. We pass right by Alice's training to fight against Nightmares, as well as her learning more about Wonderland, which really didn't set the story off at a good pace. It also didn't help that the book opens with the protagonist immediately in danger, which is somewhat of a bookish pet peeve for me. Without the proper build-up, it makes the moment seem so much emptier and it's difficult to feel for the character that's still an absolute stranger to us.

I also wasn't a fan of the author skipping through what could have been great character development between Alice and Hatta and worldbuilding in favor of getting to the action faster. As a result, I felt forced into a world that felt like it was making itself up as it went along. I wanted to be learning about Wonderland and all its history and eccentricities alongside her, not in retrospect. I also didn't believe the attachment between Alice and Hatta because we don't see it develop naturally. Hatta goes from stranger, to mentor she has a crush on, to no way I don't have a crush on him but mayyyyybbeee and that's all we really see of their dynamic in the beginning. 

The fact that I have to wait 1/3 of a book to get to actual plot is kind of a breaking point here. I wish I liked it more, because it does sound like a cool concept, but I think it's all lost on me.

I was almost halfway in without really connecting to the characters, plot, or writing style. It takes a while for things to happen and even then, the action seems to drag a bit. Once I noticed that I was skimming more than actually taking in information, I decided to stop. There are some really good bits of dialogue here and there, but it wasn't enough for me to keep reading.

Beautiful illustrations aside, there's not much that interested me in this book which I could have finished if I gave it another half hour, but didn't really see the point. I haven't read Moby Dick, nor do I think I ever will, so the appeal of seeing that story from the whale's perspective wasn't an incentive. That and there are so many confusing elements that make the story too absurd to take seriously: why do the whales swim upside down, how do they have harpoons tied to their bodies when they're incapable of tying them themselves, how do these whales even know how to speak to humans? I think it's a story where you're not mean to think too hard about the logistics, but I couldn't help questioning it on nearly every page. 

This book was given to me by a friend about 10 years ago and I only got around to reading it since I wanted to declutter my shelves a bit. I'm not real big on stories where romance is the main element, but I wanted to give it a fair shot.

Ultimately, I decided to put it down because I'm a little tired of the straight white male with thinly veiled misogyny representation of autism, especially when the understanding and conversation around neurodivergence has changed so much since this was written. Autism is a very wide spectrum, but apparently media is focused on only showcasing this particular manifestation, coming from writers that are not autistic, nor do they cite any research done in the autistic community to make their characters more authentic. And, judging from reviews I've seen of later installments of this series, it only gets worse.

Also, very much not interested in male writers that cannot write women to save their life. Got no time for that.

I know it's a little unfair only to stop after the first chapter, but it really didn't hook me in at all. The tone is so humdrum and, for a post-apocalyptic setting plagued by demons, it's a shame that it didn't really do anything to start with a bang. I've heard some people say that it gets better at the halfway mark, but I'm not going to slog through 200 pages of book just to get to the good bits. Also, I'm really not in the mood for more violence against women in fantasy. 

Went a little slow for my liking, only for me to not really jive with the overall writing or direction of the plot. The vampire aspect felt a little needless and it felt like it was just following the trends of when it was written. 

I know I was so close to finishing it, but there is nothing that is really going to make me come back to this book. The writing style didn't draw me in, nor did the characters. I really was getting tired of Violetta constantly being so self sacrificial that it made everyone else's contributions feel useless. The dark and mysterious house that's supposed to be a big draw is only so for about a chapter or two, which is a shame since the story tries so hard to be this gothic mystery, but only makes halfhearted attempts to do so. 

I flipped through the last eighty pages or so to get a vague sense of how it all wraps up and it all becomes more of the same. 

I just couldn't settle into this world. Nothing was happening for long periods of time and, even when something exciting did happen that made me want to keep reading, it fizzled out immediately. Nothing about the characters gripped me, and the romance came on too quick. Not worth investing my time in a 500+ page book that doesn't interest me.