Hooked on Books

The Claw, The Wing & The Smoke...

The beginning of this book started out pretty iffy for me. The main characters, cousins Dacia & Lou, came across as superficial, flighty and immature and the majority of the dialogue focused on what they were wearing, what boys they liked and what shops they were going to visit while on vacation.

I listened to the audio and the narrator's voice, although it reflected the flighty characters personalities perfectly, it was also rather annoying. About midway through, the plot finally took a turn for the better and Dacia & Lou gained a little more depth in their characters. The narrator seemed to reflect that too in her tone and I started enjoying both book and narrator a lot more- not enough to rate it 5 stars or anything but enough to finish the story at least.

I think the story with its shapeshifters, Dracula family origins and Romanian setting had the potential to be much more then it was but it just wasn't executed very well. The plot waa thin at best. The Romanian culture was hardly touched on and the characters left much to be desired. The tone of the book also seemed geared more toward children's middle grade then young adults. I would say the last quarter of the book was probably the strongest but, it was a case of- too little, too late!

*I read this for my 2016 Halloween Bingo: ~Vampires vs. Werewolves~ square



**Booklikes has been sooo slow today & yesterday for me that I can't do anything on there so I'm only posting here on GR until it's fixed.