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A review by mmmicah
Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
Did not finish book. Stopped at 28%.
TL;DR: This book is really the embodiment of "A death by a thousand cuts". Individually the elements themselves weren't the WORST, but due to the DENSE over saturation of them, the reading experience felt more like being promised a glass of fine wine, but it's actually a glass of generic brand cough syrup in a flavor that the bottle probably would suggest it is SUPPOSED to taste like cherry.
I got suckered into reading this book because it was initially marketed as "The New GAY Vampire Fantasy- Like that Ann Rice book!" Ann Rice deserves an apology... She could actually write queer characters well. Jay Kristoff can only drool over Sapphic characters (which to be fair, he does it with all his female characters, which is the main reason I put it down) the queer characters are all side characters and purely exist to make the main character look good when he rises above everyone else and decides Homophobia Is Bad Actually!! What an Ally!! That shit might've flown in the 90s but in the year of our lord 2021 I expected the "GAYYY Vampire Fantasy" to have queer characters that actually mattered than just to exist to make the MC look cool.
I also HATED the MC with a burning passion.
If I wanted to listen to someone talk very pretentiously about the "eViLs Of ReLigEon" I would go read a book by someone who actually knows what the f#@k they are actually talking about. I don't think Jay Kristoff could've been even bothered to open a Wikipedia article about any religious institution, let alone catholicism. His research (as it seems like the rest of his works) seemed to consist of a single edgy pinterest board and a self congratulatory pat on the back for his newfound expertise in the topic.
I could continue on, but this book frankly doesn't deserve my time.
I got suckered into reading this book because it was initially marketed as "The New GAY Vampire Fantasy- Like that Ann Rice book!" Ann Rice deserves an apology... She could actually write queer characters well. Jay Kristoff can only drool over Sapphic characters (which to be fair, he does it with all his female characters, which is the main reason I put it down) the queer characters are all side characters and purely exist to make the main character look good when he rises above everyone else and decides Homophobia Is Bad Actually!! What an Ally!! That shit might've flown in the 90s but in the year of our lord 2021 I expected the "GAYYY Vampire Fantasy" to have queer characters that actually mattered than just to exist to make the MC look cool.
I also HATED the MC with a burning passion.
If I wanted to listen to someone talk very pretentiously about the "eViLs Of ReLigEon" I would go read a book by someone who actually knows what the f#@k they are actually talking about. I don't think Jay Kristoff could've been even bothered to open a Wikipedia article about any religious institution, let alone catholicism. His research (as it seems like the rest of his works) seemed to consist of a single edgy pinterest board and a self congratulatory pat on the back for his newfound expertise in the topic.
I could continue on, but this book frankly doesn't deserve my time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Death, and Sexual assault
Extreme violence to women