Glass Houses (The Morganville Vampires #1)
by Rachel Caine
Summary: It’s a small college town filled with quirky characters. But when the sun goes down, the bad comes out. Because in Morganville, there is an evil that lurks in the darkest shadows—one that will spill out into the bright light of day.
Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation. The popular girls never let her forget just where she ranks on the school’s social scene: somewhere less than zero. And Claire really doesn’t have the right connections—to the undead who run the town.
When Claire heads off campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Hew new roommates don’t show many signs of life. But they’ll have Claire’s back when the town’s deepest secrets come crawling out, hungry for fresh blood...
Review:
This book was incredibly surprising to me. I have heard of this series, but never checked it out until I saw it available through my local library for my kindle. I’m glad I picked it up. It was a fast read for me and I couldn’t put it down.
I didn’t read the synopsis before checking this book out, so I was delightfully surprised by this book. I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but any series with the word vampire in it usually leads me to believe there are vampires and somehow the main character will get involved with them. While that’s partly true, I guess I wasn’t expecting vampires to be portrayed as the bad guys. It was refreshing! While the events and structure of this book are pretty far fetched, it was actually believable to a degree. The author created a very in depth vampire town where it all (sort of) made sense. It was definitely intriguing.
I loved Claire. I loved that she was intelligent (which is always a plus) and she was determined and brave in a place where most of the inhabitants just sort of go with the flow. She wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself and proved to be a very loyal friend. I wish I would have known more about her before coming to Morganville as she was sort of a blank slate upon arriving, but it worked for me. While she constantly berated herself for being “weird” which I totally disagreed with, I don’t think it is a stretch of the imagination to believe that a really smart girl that is in college early would have some social problems. She was obviously bullied when arriving in Morganville and the only people who ever seemed to praise her were her parents. I felt like even though I know it’s not uncool to be smart, I could believe that Claire hadn’t stumbled upon that particular revelation, yet.
When Claire decides to move out of the college dorm and find a place, she encounters Michael, Eve, and Shane living in a big house off campus. I loved all three of these characters. Each of them were funny and interesting and I think they all needed Claire in different ways. While they weren’t exactly fine with the way the town of Morganville ran, they weren’t challenging it, either, until they met Claire. Shane was definitely my favorite character because he was funny, easygoing, and terribly sarcastic.
I can’t recall ever reading a YA vampire series with a plot anything like this one, so it was highly unpredictable to me. It was full of twists and turns that took me by surprise at every corner. Looking back, I see a few coincidences and plot issues, but they honestly didn’t bother me at all while reading. I thought the author weaved a great story that captivated me.
As soon as I finished reading, I was ready to pick up the next book in the series. It will have to wait, since my library doesn’t have the next book, but I definitely plan on continuing.
Labels: Review