Review: The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks

Title: The Reformed Vampire Support Group

Author: Catherine Jinks

Genre: YA, paranormal, mystery

Publication date: September 2010

Published by: HMH Books for Young Readers

Source: Own paperback

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Synopsis:

Think vampires are romantic, sexy, and powerful? Think again. Vampires are dead. And unless they want to end up staked, they have to give up fanging people, admit their addiction, join a support group, and reform themselves.

Nina Harrison, fanged at fifteen and still living with her mother, hates the Reformed Vampire Support Group meetings every Tuesday night. Even if she does appreciate Dave, who was in a punk band when he was alive, nothing exciting ever happens. That is, until one of group members is mysteriously destroyed by a silver bullet. With Nina (determined to prove that vamps aren't useless or weak) and Dave (secretly in love with Nina) at the helm, the misfit vampires soon band together to track down the hunter, save a werewolf, and keep the world safe from the likes of themselves.

My rating: ★★★☆☆
This had a very interesting concept--I mean, a Reformed Vampire Support Group? What? Haha. However, I found it all to be... underwhelming. The way the vampires are portrayed all sickly-like... I get it, really. Vampirism being more of an illness, I appreciate the different take, but it was just a bit disappointing. Though I admit I might be a bit biased since I’m not exactly the biggest vampire fan. I did, actually, liked Nina’s fiction character (she’s a writer!), the vampire Zadia Bloodstone, so much better! She was pretty badass! But the characters themselves in this particular novel... they were okay, though none really stood out to me. This seems to be the norm for me with standalone novels.

The mystery surrounding who killed their fellow vampire had me very intrigued at first, but this, too, ended up being underwhelming when we found out what was going on. Another thing I was looking forward to was to romance that was implied in the synopsis, which ended up being nonexistent. *sigh* Now, don’t get me wrong. I enjoy the occasional book without any romance--it’s very refreshing! But nothing happened between Nina and Dave--absolutely NOTHING! Well, not until the last 20 pages of the book when they flashed forward one year (which I also did not like, ugh!)

Another thing, I was not the biggest fan of how this book was written. Let me try to explain: These vampires sleep during the day, so when something exciting goes down (i.e. a fight or what have you) our narrator, Nina, obviously doesn’t experience things first hand, so she is told what happened while they were zonked out. But we, the audience, are told before we actually get to the point in the story, so when the vampires wake up and are caught up, we are not surprised like them because we already know! Shock factor is gone and there’s this sort of disconnect. Speaking of narratives and telling instead of showing... there was too much narrative! I feel like they could’ve told this in a different way, say, in real time or through dialogue.

But if I’m being honest, even though it had all these negatives (for me), overall, it was quite enjoyable.It had some very fun moments between the characters. I especially loved the whole situation with the werewolf Reuben. Reformed Vampire Support Group was underwhelming at times, but overall quite fun and interesting with the different take on these popular supernatural creatures.

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! :)