Book Review: Drain You by M. Beth Bloom + Giveaway

Drain You
Author: M. Beth Bloom
Reading Level: YA
Genre: Paranormal
Released: July 24th 2012
Review Source: Harper Teen
Available: Amazon
Author Interview

Summary: (from goodreads) Every night I'd lie there in bed and look out at the hills behind our house, listening. I knew there'd be consequences.

Actions meant reactions. Sunrises meant sunsets. My fear was too permanent, lasting longer than eyeliner, something I wore every day and didn't wash off.

Quinlan Lacey's life is a red carpet of weird fashions, hip bands, random parties, and chilling by the pool with her on-and-off BFF Libby. There's also her boring job (minimum wage), a crushed-out coworker (way too interested), her summer plans (nada), and her parents (totally clueless). Then one night she meets gorgeous James, and Quinn's whole world turns crazy, Technicolor, 3-D, fireworks, whatever.

But with good comes bad and unfortunately, Quinn's new romance brings with it some majorly evil baggage. Now, to make things right, she has to do a lot of things wrong (breaking and entering, kidnapping, lying, you name it).

There's normal, and then there's paranormal, and neither are Quinlan's cup of Diet Coke. Staying sane, cool, in love, and alive isn't so easy breezy.

When I received this book, it looked interesting enough. Being a fan of vampire stories, I didn’t think it could go wrong. The cover is a little retro looking and the title itself references a 90’s song by Nirvana, which is appropriate. The main character, Quinn, is big on music and I did enjoy the music and lyrics scattered through the story. But sadly, that’s the only thing I could find myself actually liking about Quinn.

Quinn Lacey works at a video store, her co-worker has a huge crush on her and she falls in love with a vampire instead. Her instant love for James the vampire is not romantic at all. Although I did like him at first, there were a few things that James did as the story developed that were just uncalled for, in my opinion. He wasn’t an ideal love interest. The fact that Quinn’s character was so over the top obsessed with the guy didn’t help either. It was a little much.

The one character that I did enjoy was Whit, James’s brother. He’s human and just so much more compassionate than James. He tries to help Quinn with her best friend Libby, who has a vampire boyfriend that’s draining her blood. Even though Libby is just another whiny, selfish teenager herself. There was just an odd tangle of characters and most of them were so cliché. I felt as though I’ve read them all before. Not one of them stood out to me as unique.

The story was set in present time, but the characters’ language was straight out of the 90’s. While I can appreciate the era, it gets annoying to read the words “dude” “cool” and “whatever” repeatedly. They were extremely overused. In actuality, the whole plot has been overused. The vampire, love-triangle thing didn’t cut it in this book. I wanted to love it! I just felt that the writing was a little immature and the character connections didn’t happen for me.

I wouldn’t discourage anyone from picking it up because we all know how much one reader’s taste can differ from the next. I do feel that M. Beth Bloom is one author to look out for. Hopefully, she will expand her plot a little more in future stories.

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