Book Review of Blood Calling by Joshua Grover-David Patterson

Goodreads Summary: When Lucy Leary turned 18, her life fell apart. She crashed her car, her best friend abandoned her, her parents divorced, and her grandfather passed away, leaving her a single possession: A vampire slaying kit with a note that said, “THEY’RE REAL. FIGHT THEM.”

Now Lucy must stop the oldest, most dangerous vampire in history before it can kill her family.
Genre listing: Paranormal, Vampires, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult

Goodreads rating: 3.36 over 314 ratings. 

Get the book:  Amazon,  Book Depository

Review:

Edited 11/24/2016
Blood Calling was one of the many plethoras of books I found for free on Amazon. I've been traveling a lot to visit family and haven't gotten a chance to sit down and read much because of it. I ended up starting this one while Chris and I were driving back from Indiana on the way to West Virginia before heading back to Maryland. I'm currently blogging in a hotel. I feel like some fancy writer. 

I'm torn on this one. I like it, and I don't like it at the same time. I can't complain too much, considering it was free. The story is written as an autobiography that teenager Lucy is writing on her smartphone. She turns 18, and all kinds of crappy stuff happen to her all at once, and her life is turned upside down because of it.

I was a little surprised by this book. I thought it was going to be about Lucy being a vampire hunter. In a way, she was, but not really. The first half of the book we get rushed through the story of how she finds a vampire kit in her dead grandfather's closet after a ton of stuff happens to her. He leaves her a note with the equipment that is written in lemon juice. It tells her the story of how vampires are real, and she needs to fight them with this kit. Okay cool. In the 2nd half of the book, we're going to fight some vampires right? No, not exactly.

What does happen, however, is that Lucy gets attacked by the vampire that her grandfather was hunting because the monster killed Lucy's grandmother. In the attack, Lucy loses a lot of blood and is on the brink of death. Her supervisor for her community service happens to be a vampire named Wash, and in a quick decision turns her to save her life. So then in the 2nd half of the book, we see her become a vampire and fights the monster that killed her Grandmother.

I will say I like the new twist on vampires this book gave. Instead of blood-sucking creatures, they're presented more as angels of death. I thought it was an intriguing concept, but then you have all this stuff about how they have no emotions, and so the story also gets a little dry. I will say that there's a lot of action in this book, which is nice. It also makes fun of romantic vampire books. That was another plus for me. 

This book is only about 270 pages, and that's my biggest issue with it. I wasn't as drawn in with it as I could have been. The story gave all of the essential details it could just to progress the story. It didn't bring you into their life nearly as much as I hope for in a book. Even the characters were made to say they didn't know things a lot, or they didn't have time to tell an individual story, or we don't have time so here's the condensed version. There's just so much room for more details, but they aren't there. Hell Emma' 2,000-year life was condensed to only a few pages in one chapter. I think had this book had another 200 pages it could have slowed down and get into those stories they didn't have time for. 

Overall, I enjoyed it, and I'd like to read the next book in the series. I enjoyed the characters, but I  just wanted more from them that would help me better connect with them.

Three out of five moons.