Almost to Die For by Tate Hallaway
First in the Vampire Princess of St. Paul series
5 stars
On Anastasija Parker’s sixteenth birthday, she knows that it’ll be a day to remember and not for the best. Ana is a witch, but she’s never got a knack for a witch powers and is sure she’ll fail the Initiation ceremony. If her day couldn’t get any worse, a father she thought was deadbeat, turns out to be undead, but not just any undead. He’s a vampire king, which makes Ana a princess and totally confused about everything. As she struggles to decide which side she wants to fulfill two boys seem to vying for her heart. There’s Nikolai, a hot witch, rocker, and vampire hunter, and Elias, a vampire Commander. The Goodreads summary says Twilight meets the Princess Diaries. I can see that with the whole princess aspect of everything else in this book doesn’t resemble Twilight, not even the love triangle. I’m tired of these summarizing people coming up with these lame and false comparisons. I’ll step down from my soap box before I get to worked up and just start my review. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I picked up Almost Die to For. One thing I was certain about was that it was a short book and hopefully it wouldn’t take me long to read. My library put this book and its sequel in the adult romance section and I was just kind of like “What?” I had already known this was YA and didn’t see how it would be considered adult and I still don’t. There was no drinking, sex, suggestive language, cursing, and well usual “inappropriate” things. The writing was captivating for such a short read and I found Hallaway’s writing style easy to breeze through. I didn’t want to put the book down at times because the pacing was just so well done and the plot flowed.
The main female character is Ana. I was reading Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side at the same time and I thought it was weird how their names were both Anastasia just different spellings. Hehe On to my thoughts. Ana is pretty relatable for a teenager. Aside from the fact that she’s a witch and a vampire I connected with her. I like when it’s to connect with the main character it makes the book much more enjoyable. Maybe that’s why I liked this book more than others. One thing that bothers me is the ending and how it worries about Ana’s future choices. I of course have no idea where these choices will lead but I have a feeling it won’t end drama free. Ana could hold her own ground.
Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 9.5
The main male characters are Nikolai and Elias. I had liked Nikolai a lot at first but then they had this one part and it made me as uneasy as Ana. Ana tried to run away but she ended up getting sucked back in by him. He sounds hot, but I just don’t trust him. I also feel like we didn’t get enough character depth when it came to him. Hopefully in Almost Final Curtain, I’ll see more. Elias was I guess supposed to be the bad boy. But these boys both seem like ‘bad boys’ to me. Which is my dream and I’m so jealous of her. How did she get so lucky and where do I sign up? Both of these boys need more development in the next installment and I expect that. Until I get more development these boys are at a tie because I don’t know them well enough to fully judge them and compare which is best for Ana.
Swoon Worthy Scale: Nikolai: 8 Elias: 8
The Villain- Ana’s mom? I think she’s supposed to be the villain. I mean she was a bump in the road and poses to be a problem, but she didn’t make me tremble in my socks as much as I’m sure the author intended. That whole spider web scene was pretty awesome though.
Villain Scale: 7
Ramses, Ana’s dad, seems like he’ll be there more for Ana in the future than her mom. This is my prediction. Bea and Taylor are Ana’s friends. Bea is annoying and seems fake. She turns to easily on people and that’s unsettling. Taylor is as flat as cardboard.
I think I just learned more about the cardboard than I did when reading descriptions of Taylor. She has promise though.
Character Scale: 8.5
This book’s biggest weakness is character depth, but since it’s a short book and I really enjoyed it I’m not going to rant about it like I normally would. This is supposed to be a fun book and I had fun reading it. I try not to take short books seriously because then it just wouldn’t be as fun. Plus I’ve been in a pretty good mood this week so maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much. This book has pretty much everything from vampires to witches to hunters to demons. I’m looking forward to the sequel and I expect more and hopefully more character depth. *Fingers crossed*
Cover Thoughts: I love the cover. It looks exactly like how I pictured Ana to look and it’s simple. There’s no overused flowing Prom Dress, but just a simple girl looking like a vampire. It’s perfect!
No comments:
Post a Comment