Read Books This will provide a list of the books I've read with a brief review. Users are blocked, contact me for access. I welcome discussions, but I'm tired of spam.

February 25, 2010

Undead and Unreturnable by MaryJanice Davidson

Filed under: Fantasy — Randolph @ 3:48 pm

Undead and Unreturnable by MaryJanice DavidsonI stumbled across this book in a library, it looked interesting and seemed rated well. I remain unimpressed.

The story is about a vampire queen named Betsy, her sister is the daughter of the devil, and Betsy can see ghosts . There are several assorted characters, each with peculiar and interesting quirks. The characters are interesting and the book seems like it should be a winner.

There is no plot. There is no character development. The characters wander from event to event and things happen. Several events happen that could lead to an actual plot, but most of them don’t develop. It wasn’t clear what the intended plot was until late in the book, and feel anticlamatic in that it concludes too quickly and with little character development. After the climax, the book still has to wander. It was only at this point that I realized it was even part of a series. Maybe character development from earlier books would help, but I have my doubts.

The writing itself is simplistic. The dialog reads like a teenager’s tantrum half the time. Betsy died at the age of 30, but seems to act like a teenager most of the time.

Most of this can be forgiven in a humorous book. The book did have its moments with clever idioms used as a double-entendre with vampire meanings. It is mostly situational humor which doesn’t quite play out.

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