The Vampire Games

by Stephanie Archer

[liz089]

Read more about this review and others on my blog Freyja Eats Books

STANDALONE or SERIES.
So far it seems like a standalone on Goodreads.. but the ending is completely open, like there will be a second part.

WHY this book.
I requested it through NetGalley and got approval, jeej. It seemed very interesting, like some sort of Hunger Games with vampires ? Worth a try right ?

FIRST THOUGHTS.
And that was what I did, I gave it a try, over and over again. I had so many moment were I wanted to DNF this book, but it was only two hundred pages.. So I pushed myself and finished it. I even punished myself by not allowing me to read anything else before I finished this one. That got me going !

So.. well, I don’t know how exactly to explain it, it was not a bad book, I liked the plot, the main character was not overly annoying, it was something different, but it just.. it didn’t have any soul ? It might sound weird, but it had everything going for it, but it seemed all so empty. Soulless. I could not get connected in any way, and that bothered me.

PLOT.
So the story is about Bianka, and we meet her around her graduation from high school. When she comes home there are some really white people in her house that take her with them (with the approval of her parents) to a cave. There she finds out Marc (her high school friend/crush) is taken too. There is a whole underground system were the vampires live and use humans for slavery of harvesting (emptying of blood). It turns out that the humans who live above ground are all part of some breeding towns owned by the vampires, and when they go to college, well, they don’t really go to college. There are even some Games, were they select the people who are worth some for fighting. Of course, Bianka is special, gets selected and trained for the “honour” of becoming a vampire. So does Marc.. Phillip, the vampire prince who saved her from harvesting to fight for him, falls in love with her.. but she don’t want to be a vampire, she wants to go back to her home, to begin a rebellion. In the end she has to fight against Marc, choose not to, escapes.. the end.

Now I’ve written the plot.. is does all seem so cliché.. which I guess it kind of is. It was not really the most intriguing plot, kind of predictable. Of course Philip had a thing for her.. Of course she was going to fight Marc in the final battle.. Of course she was going to escape.. I think that was one of the reasons I did not get into it..
One of the other reasons was that it had a very fast pace, I mean 200 pages, but I think maybe too fast paced. Not enough time to stop and think.

ROMANCE.
I felt ZERO passion. ZERO attraction. I think it was supposed to be some epic star-crossed lover thing, but that did not really do it.. It did have the potential to be something like that, but the way she wrote it down.. it just didn’t work for me.

SETTING.
I did really like this world, were you have the vampires who basically rule different parts. You have multiple regions, like the one that Philip is the boss of, Dawn Hold. You have Shadows Keep, and a couple of others. They have their own rules and way of living, The Games are created to make new, strong vampires. But vampires are not only made, they can be born as well. The “kingdom” of Philip is a bit different than the others, they don’t drink a lot of blood, and when they do it is voluntary. He is supposed to be the King, but because he has not found his Fated Mate yet, he has to wait.
I like all those parts, but I do think that she could have done more with it. More information, more background, to get you into that world instead of just being a bystander. Because it didn’t had that, it had no depth, it just all stayed so superficial and shallow.

CHARACTERS.
The same problem as the world building, the characters had the potential to become someone great, but it missed its target. Not enough information and background, all the characters had no real personality and no personal growth.
Also, Bianka was kind of naïve, I mean come on.. Really white and strong people taking you underground were they drain people of blood ? That just screams vampire.. and she didn’t even think about it !!
And Philip, he had the mystery thing kind of going for him, but he stayed in those shadows and never showed much. Until all of the sudden he showed too much and it just seemed fake.

FINAL THOUGHTS.
I really do think that if the author had taken more time to explain things and give in more depth and background to the world and it’s characters, this would have been a better book. But that is not the case unfortunately, so I will have to give this book 2.5 Freyja’s. It has a lot of potential, but for me, it did not work this way. I could not get into it, and I would not recommend this book.