leandrathetbrzero's reviews
357 reviews

For about the first 3/4th of the story, I had accepted my fate that this book simply wasn't for me. However, as I could (at the time) see myself recommending this to others, I would settle with a 3-star rating.

My reasons for not vibing with the book:
- First-person POV narrator is our amateur sleuth; and he was way too impressed with himself
- The fun GAD nuggets would be spoiled a bit by overexplaining/the references being overdone
- I love a narrative that can pull off breaking the fourth wall and being meta, but this one was way too distracting as every. single. chapter. we would have the pacing stunted with a reminder our narrator is writing this all down.

And then what got me to drop my rating from 3 stars to 1.5 stars...

I will always hate when an author

reveals that the killer's motivation relates to sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies. The LAZIEST plotting. And THIS explains his crazy killing spree of his adoptive parents, the police officer, his brother, etc...

😒

I also found a certain PIVOTAL plot point to make absolutely no sense:

The bad cop let's Jeremy go free rather than killing him after the kidnapping. Okay, I'm with you. The bad cop has been keeping tabs on Jeremy even after the kid is adopted. Okay, sure. Even though Jeremy would obviously know NOTHING about his previous life and family, the bad cop approaches him because "hey you're a Cunningham, so you know how to do this stuff..." OBVIOUSLY HE WOULD HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. ARE YOU DUMB?? And that is what sparks Jeremy's search for the Cunninghams and his killing spree...

WHAAAAT. 

- Inappropriate explicit sexual scene between minors
- Lazy world-building: A bunch of French people running around historical Europe (but instead Kristoff makes up a bunch of empire names rather than just placing them in our world); Christians vs Vampires
- Language is reminiscent of teenage boys who think crass dialogue and sexism is what masculinity is...