Now I want pancakes. Review of "Vampires of Manhattan" by Melissa de la Cruz

I need to stop reading books labeled “paranormal”.  The damn things sell like half-price hotcakes at Denny’s, though, so authors and publishers keep churning ‘em out.  Much like the aforementioned hotcakes most of these books are ephemeral and fluffy and make you feel nauseous and shamefaced if you consume too many.

I blame Anne Rice.  It is her fault that I am interested at all in snotty urban vampires.  Granted, the teenage me liked The Vampire Lestat much more than did the adult me. But shoot, as a teenager that book checked ALL of my adolescent, angsty boxes.  Vampire? Check.  Rock star? Double check!  Broody, handsome protagonist?  Triple check with a heart flutter and a girlish scream. It’s true that Anne Rice has gotten an overinflated sense of her own literary pulchritude.  She was one of the first mainstream authors to popularize the genre, however, so Anne gets a pass.

This book gets no such license.  This was my first foray into Melissa de la Cruz’s world—it will also be my last.  I could not finish this book because the writing was abysmal.  Maybe she is trying to sound hip, but to describe your main characters as “ripped” or “badass” just seems indolent.  We can infer these things if the writing is good, thank you very little.  The author exhibits a marked juvenile obsession with wealth--the book contains endless descriptions of pricey food and designer clothing. For those of us for whom a Ford Focus is a major purchase reading about shallow, prosperous douchecanoes makes me get stabby. The main characters make the Kardashians seem like models of depth and moral turpitude.  I got fed up about halfway through—there isn’t enough alcohol on the planet to make this book palatable.  Damn you, Anne Rice.