Member Reviews

I didn't enjoy Vamps: Fresh Blood as much as I had hoped. I didn't mind the writing style, but the story itself did not grab my attention

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I liked Vamps: Fresh Blood.
It was a fun enough read and I would definitely recommend it to people that like Gossip Girl and vampires.
Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

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I enjoyed reading this it was an easy read, it makes me think of a sort of gossip girl/vampire hybrid we didn't know we wanted. Dillon is a teenage boy who finds out is he a dhampir and goes to a vampires school, which as you can imagine causes enough grief to start with, throw in a bit of mystery and an unexpected plot twist it makes for a fun read and id recommend it.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster UK and Netgalley for this eARC which I received in exchange for an honest review.

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I'm truly surprised, the book is a mix between Vampire Academy, Elite, and Gossip Girl but with Vampires and Dhampir.
The first few chapters were as sometimes a little too long for me because of the explanation about the rules at VAMPS and the class Dillon and the others took but besides that, I really like the book.

It's rare for me that the main character is a male, it gives a new perspective that I truly like. Dillon is a very interesting character just like us is thrown into a world that he doesn't and keeps learning about himself and the vampire world, it's also rare to see a Damphir in a Vampire Book, I like it.

The romance is definitely there with some huge slow-burn / a little love triangle that I truly love, I ship Dillon with almost everyone but this romance between him and another character was amazing.

The plot is truly great, you start with just a teenage boy who finds out is he a dhampir and goes to a vampires school and you continue with some good mystery, plot twist, a shocking moment that you don't see coming, and an end that makes you think there will be a second book.

A great book that I had the chance to read before its release that I truly enjoy.

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This is not Good. Luckily, I don't think anyone is picking up a book titled VAMPS looking for great literature. What they probably are looking for, and certainly what I was expecting, is trashy teen fiction that is equally exasperating and compelling, which is pretty much what this is.

This is a pretty easy read. It's light, sexy, with minimal thinking and maximum nudity. It's exceedingly silly and just a little too modern YA to be pulpy, but it still hits a lot of the good trashy novel notes. I genuinely enjoyed the characterisation and treatment of the vampires - these are proper vampires, that drink blood, have compulsive appetites, and bang like it's going out of style. They are utterly true to vamp stereotypes and literary archetype - although with absolutely zero depth or subtext - and all the better for it. This book is a hair's breadth from being a carbon copy of every other trashy media about rich teens being dramatic little nightmares, but because of its laser focus on vampires it manages to avoid it and instead is a very fun vampire story with some pretty good world-building. Expect explicit sex scenes, intense bloodlust, chaotic bisexuals being chaotic, violence and haughty arseholes; these are not sanitised vampires for the puriteen crowd, these are the true heirs to Dracula's coffin.

The entire book is in dire need of, among many things, a fact checker, but in many cases the things said and scenes displayed were so absurdly wrong or ludicrous it worked in the book's favour, forcing you to shut up your brain and get on board. In particular, the tattoo/colours scene was so beyond stupid that I had to essentially block every thinking part of my brain to continue, and the spectacular ridiculousness lent it a truly pulp-ish air of pure entertainment.

The writing was shaky, and at times quite bad, but it was mostly passable and pretty on par with a truly trashy novel (assuming the basic grammatical and proofing errors like duplicated words get ironed out by publication). The only real problem I couldn't get past was the portrayal of Ireland, which was totally hilarious but borderline offensive across the whole book (which would've frankly been much better had there not been what I can only assume is some kind of stereotype bingo leading to at least one national Irish stereotype from gangland 50s media desperately shoehorned into every scene - although I will say it provided endless mirth as I tried to explain some of it to my friends).

Honestly, this book is pretty bad, and I would recommend it. I will 100% be reading the next one, and I might even buy a nice series boxset once they're all out to go on my vampire fiction shelf. This is my kind of terrible, trashy fiction.

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At the beginning we were introduced to too many people too quickly, they all arrived at the start one after another and the whole scene seemed really pointless.
The conversations seem stiff and don't flow well. The scene at the start made me feel weird as they were drinking from their teacher (in erogenous places as well.) I get that they were trying to state that vampires were secually empowered but I just thought that was a weird boundary crossed.
I don't like that its in 3rd person, there are so many characters I am getting confused by which 'he' they are talking about.
The MC seems to have two romantic interests, but I have no idea why he was so into Cora. She was manipulative the whole time and stringing along two guys for her own gain. I didn't like her at all.
The only character I liked was Angelo, he was flawed and his personal development was good. All the other characters were clique and unlikeable.

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Dillon is part of a new year at the elite Vamps Academy. He suffers from the new kid who’s different being brought up by a human father and having a Vampire mother makes him a dhampir. The other Vampires of wealthy rich families look down on him. This will be Dillon’s first year which will change his life forever. Relatable well thought out characters really sing off the page. You are swept away into Dillon’s new world at breath-neck speed. Role on year two.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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This might be the worst book I ever received on Netgalley and I honestly can't believe this is getting published by Simon & Schuster. A YA vampire boarding school story and it reads just as cheesy as I expected.
The beginning is already incredibly ridiculous; the most popular students all arrive at the meeting place in a more and more showy way (first in a Mercedes, than a Lamborghini, than a jetski and than even in a helicopter) and than loudly declare their name and watch the next person arrive.
The perspective also changes several times in the first couple of pages and switches between omnipresent and personal narrator, which I doubt to be intentional. There are also no transitions between sentences, informations and descriptions are just thrown onto the page back to back, which makes it a tedious reading experience.
'Vamps' kinda reads like a trashy Netlfix show and I'm definitely not the target audience.

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Dillon is a dhampir–half vampire and half human–and needs to attend VAMPS, one of the most prestigious academy for vampires in the world where children of powerful vampires attend. Dillon is like a fish out of water. He grew up with his human father in a remote part of Ireland, and he has never met his mother. The kids at the school don't take kindly to him, but when his blood turns out to be more powerful that everybody expected, he needs to learn to use his vampire side fast if he wants to survive.

I immensely enjoyed this book. I loved how complicated the relationships between the vampire children and their parents were, and how Dillon found it hard to accept everything that was going on. The only downside of this book for me was that I realised who Dillon's mother was pretty early in the book, even before he finds out.

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So happy I got to read this book! I loved the premise and the characters were surprisingly endearing, highly recommend.

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I absolutely loved this book and it did not disappoint. I read the whole book in two days and found it hard to put down.

The world building in this story was fantastic. The plot was great and i especially loved the plot twist at the end!

I loved all the characters and how well they were written. I enjoyed the diversity of characters in the story too.
The main character Dillon goes through a journey about the discovery of himself, learning about being different and discovering who his friends and enemies are.I enjoyed the mystery of trying to figure out who Dillons mother is as well.

I definitely recommend this book and really hope that a second one is on the way.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster UK and Netgalley for this eARC which I received in exchange for an honest review.

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