*I received a complimentary copy of this book, and I’m leaving a voluntary review*
You know the drill, be warned, blah-bleh-bluh, maybe spoilers.
So, graphic novel! I love when people send me stuff like this, not that I don’t enjoy regular books/novels, but I absolutely loooove when people dare to do different things.
I brought this one with me on a train, and it was amazing.
Plot: Basically – there are vampires, and we follow Demi (Demiece) a teenage vampire as she starts college. According to the other girls, the estate they live at is haunted, by Dollaretta. Creepyness ensues.
Longer plot: We start off with a bit of vampirism origin, to set up the world/universe we’re in. This bit is fascinating, not very long, but also not very related to what happens later with Demi. I assume (seeing as this is Volume 1), this is going to be more important in future installments, but nevertheless, it’s a good introduction.
Moving on to Demi going to college, to the Elizabeth Rose Convent. Some short background info, Demi hates his mom, doesn’t care that she leaves without saying good bye, and is not very happy to be there. She’s not interested in getting to know the other girls, and her favourite response to most people is “Fuck off.” (If she’d gone to my high school, I’d imagine she smokes as well).
During the first day there however, she’s told the legend of Dollaretta, a girl who lived on the estate before it became a college and who died there. Demi doesn’t bite, she’s not scared, in fact she doesn’t really care about anything at all. Except the day after, the girl who told her the story, is found dead. Some say it was suicide, some say it wasn’t.
Review: I could go on about the plot above, but I don’t want to spoil it, because you really should read this! When I came down to this on my TBR pile, I have to admit, I caught myself thinking, “teenage-vampire-all-girl-school… why have I said yes to reading this?” It’s not really my cup of tea, but maybe it is after all, because it was really good. What really did it for me, is that it was actually quite creepy and scary at times. I really don’t get enough horror stuff sent my way, and I realize I miss it. Also the artwork is exceptional, it’s so beautiful, so professional, very gripping. Most of it is black and grey, and occasionally lots of red, when it gets scary.
I really have nothing to pick at with this, except maybe that it was too short! But I appreciate that it’s much more, and harder work to make a graphic novel compared to just writing one. Not that both things aren’t equally difficult (calm down!), but on top of writing, Cherry has to draw and color everything. I think I spent roughly 2 hours reading this, and I would have loved to read more. The ending had me hooked, bit of a cliffhanger, and I’d definitely be interested in seeing where it goes.
So yeah, if you’re into graphic novels, and teenage vampire girls (or even if you aren’t, ’cause I’m not, not really), I highly recommend this.
Trey Stone, Author 
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