This was an okay teen read. Comparing it to the other YA books I've been reading recently, which you can see in my book blog, I found it better than the Cate Tiernan Sweeps series, but not quite as good as the Darren Shan Cirque Du Freak ones.
Like Candy, a lot of Fran's quirks and insecurities got to me after awhile. But I think a lot of that's simply in the author's writing style because A Girl's Guide to Vampires hit me the same way, with the immature squabbling those characters did. And I didn't care for all the cutesy words either—I thought I'd scream if she said nummy one more time!
Beyond all that, the book had a somewhat interesting story line. Fran and her mother, who's a witch, are traveling around Europe with the GothFaire. Fran has been pulled out of school for a year and she's not that happy about it, struggling to fit in and all. As it stands, with her gift of psychometry (being able to sense things by touch) she should actually be more at home among the people of the Faire: witches, demonologists, palm readers, vampires, and the like; yet still she hides her gift and feels like a freak.
Fran's mom asks Fran to use her gift to help determine who's been stealing the money from the Faire's safe, and though she's reluctant to do so, she eventually agrees. Though Fran claims she's a mystery buff, her detective skills were laughable; she'd write people off as suspects for stupid reasons. I had a feeling I knew who was behind everything from the beginning and I ended up being right, despite Fran's inability to see the truth. I would've also thought that with all the psychics and such hanging around, that getting away with such a crime would've been near to impossible. But then the author wouldn't have had much to build the story on.
Like in her adult Dark Ones series, written under the name of Katie MacAlister, we have Dark Ones in this book. The Faire's palm reader, Imogen, is a Dark One, or a Moravian more correctly since supposedly only the men can be called Dark Ones. A Dark One is basically a vampire, with a few minor differences from vampires as we encounter them in other books. Imogen's younger brother, Benedikt, has come to the Faire to visit his sister, and takes an immediate liking to Fran, and tells her she's his Beloved. A Beloved is a Dark One's other half, and is the only one who can redeem his soul. I can imagine this would be a lot for 16-year-old Fran to handle. But then again, Benedikt is 300 something! So the budding romance, if you can call it that, between Fran and Ben is cute and adds to the rest of the story.
See the BookCrossing journal page for this book for more reviews and information.
Friday, November 10, 2006
#64 Got Fangs? by Katie Maxwell
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2 comments:
Honestly I loved the book it was an outstanding novel and it was my first read by Katie Maxwell! I had fun learning about the adventures by fran and the dark one (aka ben)This was a great read and I would recomend it to anyone.
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