| Title: Crusade Reading level: Young Adult
Review Copy Source: Publisher |  |
Book Description
For the past two years, Jenn has lived and trained at Spain’s Sacred Heart Academy Against the Cursed Ones. She is among the few who have pledged to defend humanity or die trying. But the vampires are gaining power, and the battle has only just begun.
Forced to return home after death takes a member of her family, Jenn discovers that San Francisco is now a vampire strong-hold. As a lone hunter apart from her team, Jenn is isolated — and at risk. She craves the company of her fighting partner, Antonio: his protection, his reassurance, his touch. But a relationship with Antonio comes with its own dangers, and the more they share of themselves, the more Jenn stands to lose.
Then Jenn is betrayed by one who was once bound to protect her, causing her to doubt all she had held as true. To survive, Jenn must find the courage to trust herself — and her heart.
Review
CRUSADE takes us into a very believable apocalyptic world and paints a vivid possible future wherein vampires have stepped out of the shadows under the guise of friendship, lulled us into complacency, and when we were at our most vulnerable, they revealed their true nature.
Jenn was thirteen when the slaughter began. She was helpless to watch as her friends and family soon began spouting vampire propaganda and making excuses for freedoms they were forced to give-up. The vampires still maintained a show of friendship with humanity that is very reminiscent of Big Brother’s control in Orwell’s 1984. Those who spoke out against the vampires had accidents or simply disappeared.
The story begins with Jenn, now seventeen, and her team hunting a group of vampires in a little town in Spain. A lot of characters are introduced in a very short period of time and unfortunately none of them ever distinguished themselves clearly enough for me to care about them. There’s a witch, a werewolf, a sympathetic vampire, a superhuman, and then Jenn. Jenn feels like the weak member of her team because she has no special skills or abilities and I have to agree with her.
The promised romance from the description is about as dull as I can remember reading in a long time. Neither Jenn or Antonio ever showed me why they were in love. We were just told from the first chapter that they were. They repeated that they love each other throughout CRUSADE, but it felt pretty hollow.
The story jumps from multiple POVs and time periods all building up to the final showdown with a particularly nasty vampire, but by then the appeal of this world had been overshadowed and I had long since stopped caring. I think I could have gotten more on board with CRUSADE if the story had started when Jenn first arrived at Sacred Heart Academy. We would have gotten to see her learn all her fierce vampire slaying skills, meet her eventual hunter teammates, and most importantly, see how she and Antonio fell in love. That could have been an interesting story. Instead, this very cool vampire apocalypse world is essentially wasted on a lethargic plot and an overabundance of flat characters.
Sexual Content: Kissing
My Rating:
2/5
Okay – Somewhat disappointing with significant flaws. Library/swap/borrow if you want.
Previous books in the series:
- Passing (novella in The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire)
Also reviewed by:
Hey Abigail, thanks for your review.
ReplyDeleteI love the cover of this book and the synopsis, too bad it doesn't seem to deliver. Still, it sounds enjoyable.
I have it in my TBR list! :)
Kelly @ I Work for Books
I really liked the short story and was looking forward to this book. Maybe my hopes were to high because I was really disappointed with this book. The writing seemed so different from the short story.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the sound of this. It's a shame it doesn't seem to live up to expectations. Thanks for sharing an honest review.
ReplyDeleteKelly - I love the cover too, but sadly the story failed to live up to the outside.
ReplyDeleteTina - I didn't even know about the short until after reading Crusade. It sounds like the more interesting of the stories.
Trillian - You and me both. I love the word-building, but beyond that I was disappointed at every level.