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A review by ipanzica
Sweetblood by Pete Hautman
2.0
This book is so bad that it became a comedy. Which is horrible since it is trying to deal with serious topics like struggling with a disability and online safety. Though there are just so many bad and weird things in this book.
For example, one time the book went on a weird rant about seven drops of blood that got on the ceiling after the main character prinked herself for a glucose reading. Though not only was the little rant weird but it physically made no sense that there was blood splatter on her ceiling since when you prick your finger the blood needs to be squeezed out before a few drops come out. There is almost no way that the blood would have been able to reach a velocity high enough to launch it onto the ceiling if she just did a normal finger prick. So this makes the random weird rant even weirder.
Another thing I did not like about this book is that the "mysterious" online person the main character is in an online group chat with is Draco and he is so extra about pretending to be a vampire that it is hysterical at times. Like I know he is a creepy child predator but he is so uncharismatic, cringy, and is so into pretending to be a vampire, that it is hard to take him seriously as a child predator. I feel like if the author would have polished up his character a bit more and spent some more time focusing on Draco it would have made him feel like a bigger threat. Since in the book, Dracco does do some creepy stalker things, so as the reader we know he is a threat, but the book kept on getting distracted by other things happening that it was easy to forget that Draco is a very dangerous threat. Also, the Draco online predator part of the book felt like it was added to the book last minute and does not have a proper conclusion. Like other people writing reviews said, Draco knows where she lives and non of the adults in the main character's life knows about him. This makes this an even weirder book since this book is written like the stereotypical stranger danger PSA that you see in middle school, yet this book does not resolve this major subplot of the book.
For example, one time the book went on a weird rant about seven drops of blood that got on the ceiling after the main character prinked herself for a glucose reading. Though not only was the little rant weird but it physically made no sense that there was blood splatter on her ceiling since when you prick your finger the blood needs to be squeezed out before a few drops come out. There is almost no way that the blood would have been able to reach a velocity high enough to launch it onto the ceiling if she just did a normal finger prick. So this makes the random weird rant even weirder.
Another thing I did not like about this book is that the "mysterious" online person the main character is in an online group chat with is Draco and he is so extra about pretending to be a vampire that it is hysterical at times. Like I know he is a creepy child predator but he is so uncharismatic, cringy, and is so into pretending to be a vampire, that it is hard to take him seriously as a child predator. I feel like if the author would have polished up his character a bit more and spent some more time focusing on Draco it would have made him feel like a bigger threat. Since in the book, Dracco does do some creepy stalker things, so as the reader we know he is a threat, but the book kept on getting distracted by other things happening that it was easy to forget that Draco is a very dangerous threat. Also, the Draco online predator part of the book felt like it was added to the book last minute and does not have a proper conclusion. Like other people writing reviews said, Draco knows where she lives and non of the adults in the main character's life knows about him. This makes this an even weirder book since this book is written like the stereotypical stranger danger PSA that you see in middle school, yet this book does not resolve this major subplot of the book.