Review: Dead Girl's Dance

Dead Girl's Dance (Morganville, book 2) by Rachel Caine

Genre: Paranormal Young Adult
Edition Reviewed: Paperback
Amazon: Paperback | Kindle
Goodreads: The Dead Girl's Dance (1)

Claire Danvers has her share of challenges---like being a genius in a school that favors beauty over brains, dealing with the homicidal girls in her dorm, and above all, finding out that her college town is overrun with vampires. On the up side, she has a great roommate (who tends to disappear at sunup) and a new boyfriend named Shane, whose vampire-hunting dad has called in backup: cycle punks who like the idea of killing just about anything.

Now a fraternity is throwing its annual Dead Girls' Dance and---surprise!---Claire and her equally outcast best friend, Eve, have been invited. When they find out why, all hell is going to break loose. Because this time both the living and the dead are coming out---and everybody's hungry for blood.

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Review:

Well it was better than the first book. I think the characters and plot development hit the right spots. We get to know more about everyone, and with the books being so small that is an issue. There's a limited time to developed characters and the world, while trying to squeeze in the plots! Dead Girls' Dance does a better job of it.

Though my real issues where how Claire handled the situations. Despite Monica, the mean (psycho) girl, trying to kill her in the last book Claire just kind of shrugs it off. I don't understand. Not to mention that rape was used as a plot device to get readers blood going. Then it wasn't handled well. Those boys should have been reported properly. I wanted to see it. Not just threatened by a vampire.

Not to mention that things just happen. Claire and company don't think things through. It worked out better here. But it still annoyed me. Yes things just happen and you have no control.

In the end this book finally got me connecting to the characters. It reminded me why I loved them so much. All of the little nuances I'm picking up are a fun look back for moments I still remember happening in the later books. Not to mention that I love Shane, Eve, Claire, and Michael. They are a fun group to be around. Lots happens, but at least the cliffhanger isn't so cruel! The entire book is a rush and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Sexual Content: Making out, smooching, and some adult thoughts. Sexual humor, check. As mentioned there was some rape issues. Things didn't go too far, but there were drugs involved. It also emphasized how seemingly nice guys become monsters.

 
3/5- Adored it, just a few minor details held it back.

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Previous book(s) in series:
Reviewed on BW:	Amazon:	Goodreads:
Glass Houses (1) The Dead Girls' Dance (2) Midnight Alley (3) Feast of Fools (4) Lord of Misrule (5) Carpe Corpus (6) Fade Out (7) Kiss of Death (8) Ghost Town (9) Bite Club (10) Last Breath (11) Black Dawn (12) Bitter Blood (13) Fall of Night (14) Daylighters (15)	Glass Houses (1) The Dead Girls' Dance (2) Midnight Alley (3) Feast of Fools (4) Lord of Misrule (5) Carpe Corpus (6) Fade Out (7) Kiss of Death (8) Ghost Town (9) Bite Club (10) Last Breath (11) Black Dawn (12) Bitter Blood (13) Fall of Night (14) Daylighters (15)	Glass Houses (1) The Dead Girls' Dance (2) Midnight Alley (3) Feast of Fools (4) Lord of Misrule (5) Carpe Corpus (6) Fade Out (7) Kiss of Death (8) Ghost Town (9) Bite Club (10) Last Breath (11) Black Dawn (12) Bitter Blood (13) Fall of Night (14) Daylighters (15)

Review: Glass Houses

Glass Houses (The Morganville Vampires, book 1) by Rachel Caine 

Genre: Young Adult Urban Fantasy
Edition Reviewed: Paperback
Amazon: Paperback | Kindle
Goodreads: Glass Houses (1)

From the author of the popular Weather Warden series comes the debut of an exciting new series set in Morganville, Texas, where you would be well advised to avoid being out after dark.

College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation. When Claire heads off-campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new roommates don't show many signs of life, but they'll have Claire's back when the town's deepest secrets come crawling out, hungry for fresh blood. Will she be able to face the town's terror or will she drown like everyone else?

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Review:

“Run first,” Shane said. “Mourn later.”

It's always risky when you go back and reread a book. Especially when it's been a long while. Glass Houses was something I read back when I was teen, sixteen when it first came out, and even years later I remembered it fondly enough to give it a 4 of 5 stars when I joined Goodreads. It was such a fun book especially since the writing was better than most of the vampire books at the time. It was right before the boom, and vampire books where scarce. So it's a little bit of a shock to realize that this wasn't that great my second time around. Almost 10 years later.

There were two points that I do remember having mild announce with my first time reading Glass Houses, but now they're like HUGE grievances.

First are the mean girls. The main one being Monica. She instigates horrible pranks against Claire, eventually getting to the point where she is simply trying to kill her. Monica is basically a psycho which is tossed out there by Claire and many other characters. Even Monica's own cop brother. But . . . it felt hollow. I was exasperated by how mean Monica was and I couldn't buy that every “unpopular girl” would just watch. There's power in numbers and by the time you get to college you kind of realize that. It's a nice touch that Monica is clearly unhinged, she uses the power of her connections with vampires to do it. But I felt like it needed to be explored more.

The icing on the cake for me though was Claire's stupidity. She's supposed to be book smart, but apparently that doesn't cover streets smart. If she's had to fight for every step she takes in advancing her education. It's lead her to having to pick up some life experience. Especially with getting bullied. But I felt like she never knew how to handle herself, or when to stand up for herself. More importantly when to shut the hell up and take it. My main issue is why she wouldn't question her need to not leave Morganville. People are trying to kill her. I get that she's not a quitter. But if you're dead you can't keep going to classes either! (Though I think it's revealed later on down the line that there's a compulsions to not leave Morganville? I think, I'll find out later. But in this book it sounds like people leave all the time! They just forget.)

My biggest issue is that people are trying to kill Claire, and she doesn't protect herself. It's not just vampires out to kill her. No the bigger threat are those mean girls, AKA Monica. In fact, vampires occasionally threaten her and are creepy. I don't think a single vampire actually hurt Claire. No it was the humans. So after being brutally shoved down the stairs and almost killed Claire refuses to leave town. And then she refuses to think about how these girls are going to attack her. She basically walks down the street—after being tossed down stairs, mugged to the basement to be killed, and acid tossed on her—and ignores a speeding van and gets grabbed. Right off the street. Then she does stupid thing after stupid thing. Namely forgetting that the people of this town are a threat.

Another issue is the story didn't start to get good until page 150. Which is a huge problem with a book this short! Sadly things didn't start to develop decently with the characters and story until then. But the stupid choices Claire kept making dragged the book down. Like faking something to make a deal with the vampires, which screamed stupidity to me. Luck plays a big part in helping to keep the kids alive, and I really wanted it to be Claire's book smarts.

Don't get me wrong I really like the characters and I think they're well realized. But their actions and stupidity makes me feel like the situations aren't life or death. In my head I'm yelling at them on what they should or shouldn’t do! It also bothers me that it takes that long for the book to really get going, only to be cut off mid scene. That's not really a cliffhanger and it's one of the reasons I quit reading the series so I didn't have to wait for each new release. The romance pair ups are nice and I like how things are realistic and develop well. At this point I love the setup for the vampires, and how the humans become predators as well living in a society like that. Hopefully as the series continues some things will be cleared up. Because there's a lot of promise and I remember being so in love with these books.

Sexual Content: Some kissing and sexual humor. I do like how it's discussed that Claire is a minor, she's 16, and there's certain precautions that need to be taken. Not only with issues of sex, but even drinking.

  
2/5- Average/disappointing, library check-out.

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Previous book(s) in series:
Reviewed on BW:	Amazon:	Goodreads:
Glass Houses (1) The Dead Girls' Dance (2) Midnight Alley (3) Feast of Fools (4) Lord of Misrule (5) Carpe Corpus (6) Fade Out (7) Kiss of Death (8) Ghost Town (9) Bite Club (10) Last Breath (11) Black Dawn (12) Bitter Blood (13) Fall of Night (14) Daylighters (15)	Glass Houses (1) The Dead Girls' Dance (2) Midnight Alley (3) Feast of Fools (4) Lord of Misrule (5) Carpe Corpus (6) Fade Out (7) Kiss of Death (8) Ghost Town (9) Bite Club (10) Last Breath (11) Black Dawn (12) Bitter Blood (13) Fall of Night (14) Daylighters (15)	Glass Houses (1) The Dead Girls' Dance (2) Midnight Alley (3) Feast of Fools (4) Lord of Misrule (5) Carpe Corpus (6) Fade Out (7) Kiss of Death (8) Ghost Town (9) Bite Club (10) Last Breath (11) Black Dawn (12) Bitter Blood (13) Fall of Night (14) Daylighters (15)