Review: Blood Drunk by Angela Lovell

Title: Blood Drunk: Faded Blue
Author: Angela Lovell
Series: Blood Drunk #1
Pages: 332
Publisher: CreateSpace/Ticking Boxes
Format: Paperback
Genre: Paranormal (YA)
Source: copy provided by author for review

Goodreads Description:
With summer waning quickly before the start of his senior year, a family emergency forces Blue Knightly to leave his small Midwest town and travel to New York City to locate his rebellious sister. From the morgue to Central Park to the underbelly of New York, he quickly discovers the big city is the least of his concerns as he reluctantly takes sides within a warring faction of vampires to unravel the mystery of his sister’s disappearance. In their underground world of abandoned subway tunnels, Blue finds himself falling for a femme fatale vampire whose vibe is seldom clear. Not knowing who to trust, Blue finds himself battling not only the undead, but his own heart, as the family crisis escalates and every decision could be his last.

My Review:
I am not going to lie. I actually approached Blood Drunk with a lot of trepidation. I know, I know, I'm a horrible book blogger...I admit it...I sometimes judge books by their previous ratings or lack thereof...I know I shouldn't, but I've had a few bad experiences with books that have no reviews. Sometimes, the reason they don't have any reviews is because no one has been able to finish it...so when I look on Goodreads or Amazon, and no one has read or reviewed a certain book, I get a little nervous. I sit there wondering just what I've gotten myself into. Fortunately for me, I decided to give Blood Drunk a try even though not too many people seemed to have heard of it. Why was my choice fortunate do you ask? Well, because Blood Drunk was absolutely fantastic...that's why. :) I kid you not. Blood Drunk takes you on a crazy ride in the darkness of New York's underbelly then on an emotional and shocking side trip back to the Midwest where you have no idea what's going to happen next. I have never been taken by more surprise in the last few chapters of a book than I was by Blood Drunk. EVER. It was a total twist! But I digress...let me just tell you about the book...

The book starts off with this (INCREDIBLE) terrifying scene in the dank and dirty subways of New York City. You watch as this poor girl gets deeper and deeper into trouble you just know she won't be able to get out of. The whole time, I felt like I was watching a horror movie (the good kind) and just wanted to scream "Get out!!! Run!! Do something you crazy *@*#&$!!" lol... I knew right then that this book was something that I would enjoy, and it only got better from there. The very next scene has the main character, Blue, having to identify his dead little sister's body in the city morgue. Only...her face is completely bashed in...gah! OMG! I wanted to cry for poor Blue! Or at least give him a hug or something! It was such a graphic and well written scene that I might have gotten queasy if my gore-meter hadn't been completely broken by Laurell K. Hamilton earlier this week. Still, it was the perfect intro into this tense, suspenseful, and terrifying world that Blue discovers in the city.

The writing style took a little while for me to get used to. The dialogue and text is pretty very punctuated. It's kind of short and choppy, which kind of jarred me at first. I just got finished reading a book that was practically entirely written in flowering sickly sweet poetry...so I just wasn't used to the abrupt change from flowing verses to to fast paced prose that was short and to the point. As I read on and grew accustomed to the short bursts and quiet descriptions, I just kept getting sucked deeper and deeper into the story and the plot.

The characters were very interesting and the vampire politics were cool and unlike any that I have seen recently. There are two(at least) factions of vampires living in the abandoned subway systems of New York City. One faction only drinks from humans and makes them obsess over, worship and love them. The other faction kills humans, but claims that they only kill those who are sick, dying, criminals, etc. You can't help but fall in love with many of the different vampires from both factions. Tristian and Kat, the leaders of the non-lethal vamps, are a confusing mystery, but Tristian seems to love Lacy and Kat seems to be honest and a bit lost, so you want them to be the good guys. Alex, the leader of the lethal vamps, you don't really get to know at first so you don't know his story or wether or not to trust him, and yet...he makes you want to trust him, to fall in love with him, to go with him anywhere...which definitely makes him positively deadly. I don't know how any humans could navigate the complicated world that is the Vampire New York, and it's impressive that Blue and Lacy got along as well as they did with the vamps.

One thing I really liked was how family oriented the characters were. Blue obviously cares a great deal for his sister. I mean...I can't even imagine my brother helping me get dressed and handling my undergarments...lol that scene had me laughing. Blue was so hopelessly awkward! But you could tell by his pure suffering that he loved his sister enough to man up and do it. It was quite refreshing to see a character who actually cares for his family and doesn't treat them like they don't matter. In a lot of literature, parents and family either portray a hindrance to the main character, something like grounding them, forbiding them to see their true love, etc. or they are barely there. It was nice to come across a loving family that was dealing with the pain and troubles that life threw at them by loving and caring for each other. Though I have to admit that there were a few sappy-lovey times when I felt like I was watching a cheesy life-time movie..a good one though! :)

Oh.My.God.THE ENDING! I couldn't have been more shocked if my cat grew wings, flew around my room and started slapping me upside the face with her waterdish. Okay I lied...that would be pretty shocking...but so was the last two chapters of Blood Drunk. Everything you think you know gets a massive and totally fantastic shake up. You can't decide what to think or who to trust or even who to like! I swear, it's like ten lifechanging and book-altering things happen in twenty pages! I don't want to give anything away because pretty much everything I could possibly say about the last two chapters would be awash with spoilers, but trust me when I say that the ending is worth it. If the book hadn't already captured my interest and made me look forward to the sequal, the last few pages were like a sucker-punch into my heart saying "I WANT THE SEQUEL NOW". 

I give Blood Drunk 4 out of 5 Keys! It's one of those books that you will think about all day if you leave it before you can finish it. I know I did. I had one chapter left when I got to work, and I spent four long, painful hours just thinking about what just happened, what could happen next, and when I could get my hands on the next book. And I tell you, after all of my hours of wondering, I didn't even come close to imagining how the book ended. Angela wrote a very original and captivating vampire book. I totally recommend it for anyone who likes the paranormal!

SO if Blood Drunk sounds like something you'd like to read, check back sometime later this week. Angela will be here with an interview about the book, her life, and all sorts of other fabulous things. She is also being an AMAZINGLY generous person and has offered to do a giveaway here on the blog!!! There will be TWO copies of Blood Drunk up for grabs and you guys won’t want to miss it!