Release Day Review: Drink Deep – Chloe Neill
November 1, 2011 in Reviews
- Paperback: 352 pages
- List Price: $15.00
- Publisher: New American Library (November 1, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0451234863
- ISBN-13: 978-0451234865
Clouds are brewing over Cadogan House, and Merit the vampire can’t tell if this is the darkness before the dawn, or the calm before the storm. With the city itself in turmoil over paranormals and the state threatening to pass a paranormal registration act, times have never been more precarious for the vampires. If only they could lay low for a bit…
Then magic rears its ugly head when Lake Michigan turns black. The mayor insists it’s nothing to worry about, but Merit knows a panic is coming. She’ll have to turn to friends old and new to find out who’s behind this, and stop them before it’s too late for both the vampires and humans.
*Contains Spoilers From Previous Book*
There is so much I want to say about this book, most of which would include spoilers. So I will avoid all spoilers, feel free to read the review knowing I won’t spoil anything. I do feel the need to explain my feelings on the book, most of which were WTF. This is going to be a bit disjointed, due to the fact I’m trying not to spoil and this is the ramblings of my brain right after reading it.
I stayed up until 2am reading it on the day I got the book. At 2am, I emailed Tori and ranted. At 9am, I had coffee & a major rant session with Tori & Mandi from Smexybooks. It’s one of those books that you need your friends to rehash with. So thanks ladies, I needed to get all that out of me. See Mandi’s review of Drink Deep posted yesterday here.
I had a huge amount of issues with Drink Deep, starts with people/backgrounds rehashed. There was a scene that had Morgan in it, made no sense to me. I don’t see why he was there, maybe just to show he’s still alive? We know he’s an asshole, nice to know it again? That’s exactly what I mean by WTF, why? I don’t get it!
We also get more Jonah time, but really all he is (IMO) is someone for Merit to pass the time with while she “mourns” Ethan. He really serves as her partner and someone to pass the time with. Funny enough, I ended up liking Jonah more then Ethan and hell Merit showed more emotion with Jonah then she has with Ethan in the past.
My big issue was it takes place 2 months after the last book, thus we get almost zero mourning out of Merit. When a major character is killed, I want mourning. I don’t want it skipped past, where you still cry a little bit. I want ugly cries and the character getting comfort. It’s sad when I feel that I cried more about the passing of a character then Merit did. It felt like it was done for shock value, not to move the series along or in a different direction.
Another issue was the lack of movement. 3/4 of this book moved at a snails pace, I was bored & really had no investment in what happened. The sky is turning red, the lakes black & it’s all to do with ancient magic. I honestly didn’t care about the plot, more then likely because I figured out who the bad person was right off the bat.
I was not impressed with that usage either. But I can’t go into more detail about that without spoilers. Needless to say, I want my mystery. If I can guess who the bad person is because of big hints dropped, I get a bit aggravated with the story. There’s also someone trying to take over the House for mismanagement, it gets “resolved” so quickly I had to re-read to see wth I missed. I missed nothing, it just skipped by so fast.
Towards the end is when I got really confused & wtf’y. I still don’t understand wth happened, but I do know it was totally unrealistic. I’m aware this is fiction, but I want some realism in my fiction. When you kill off a major character, THEN start changing characters, I am not impressed.
You may get what I mean after you read Drink Deep, but needless to say I thought it was a bit cheesy. It seems like everything at the end came fast and furious, which to me usually results in WTF and WHY? It all felt way too rushed, explanations were dropped in favour of hurrying up.
I might re-review this & ask a few of you to join me, a few weeks after release so I can talk about the book more in depth without worrying about spoilers.
I will be saying goodbye to the Chicagoland Vampires, Drink Deep was it for me. I’m sad to have to shelve this series for good. Drink Deep felt rushed, lacked clear direction and I missed out on the emotions.
