For We Were Fragile, Folding Slowly Into Sunken Breath, Ravenous And Longing To Eat

I recently finished reading Blood Moon by Britney S. Lewis. This is book #1 in the Blood Moon series.

~POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT~

  Rating: 3/5 stars

"Eighteen-year-old Mirabella “Mira” Owens grew up in Timber Plains, Kansas hearing all about the local legend—that werewolves had, many years ago, traveled to their small Midwest town to protect humans from the growing threat of a vampire enclave. Just a story of course, a fairy tale, one Mira had stopped believing in when she was young—just like she stopped believing in the idea of her mom returning, after she up and left without a trace when she was only thirteen.

Mira is grown up now, starting freshman year at the nearby Lakeland University. College feels normal, exactly the thing she’s been craving most... except for one particular classmate: Julian Santos, a mysterious boy with long hair, golden eyes, and a coldness that seems directed exclusively at Mira for reasons she can’t understand and he won’t explain.

When Mira receives an unaddressed letter from her mother, she’s told the world isn’t as it seems. She suspects her mom might be telling the truth when she stumbles across strange animal tracks on a hiking trail, and when she’s miraculously saved from a twenty foot drop by the one and only, Julian Santos.

The problem? Julian would have had to jump the length of the cliff to catch her, making him incredibly fast and strong beyond belief. When she confronts him about this, he denies everything.

But when a Blood Moon rises, Mira soon finds herself caught in the middle of an ancient, magical war, with Julian on the other side of the line. She discovers there’s much more truth to the old town legends than she could ever have anticipated—and her family’s historic role in it will change her world forever."

This copied way too much from Twilight. It's one thing to be inspired, but it's another to regurgitate the entire story nearly especially because the author was promoting this as the Vampire Diaries inspire. With the lore and towards the end, I could definitely see the Vampire Diaries inspiration, but by then I had so many moments where I was like “this literally happened in Twilight” down to the point where there was a moment, Seven was like “Mira, where the hell have you been, girl”.

ANYWAY, I felt right down the middle with this book. There is a lot of exposition that could have been dialogue, and some of the dialogue was endlessly frustrating because Mira does a lot of hand-wringing and not believing her own eyes, which got old very quickly. Like girl, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…?! It served me well to remember that she is quite young, and trying to imagine what I would do if I discovered the myths I've heard and discounted my entire life were not only true, I was tied up in it against my own will. I feel like I'd be slow to believe things as well! This is very werewolf-heavy—not a complaint, I just thought it was going to be more vampire-centered for whatever reason—but the lore was very interesting and easy to understand.

I think this is marketed as a love triangle—it's not really LOL. It is quite clear where Seven and Julian stand in Mira's mind, heart, and storyline, and the MMC I was leaning toward was the one who got the girl. I did wish one of the MMCs had been developed better and had more screen time, so to speak, but it ultimately didn't matter because he's not the love interest.

I will say the friendships in this book are much better written than it was in Twilight. You can tell Mira cares about her friends, and I like that she also isn’t the only black girl or BIPOC at her school (I'm so tired of that plotline, sorry). I also enjoyed that this book has a 2008/2009 vibe, not that it was set in that time, but it just feels like it was written back then, and I enjoyed that.

I found the prose to be beautiful and engaging for the most part overall. I think this took a while to get going, and for that reason, it took me longer than I would've liked to grip me. However, I think this is a fantastic way to jump into vampires and werewolves for its intended YA audience, especially if they've never been exposed to TVD or Twilight. It was nice to digest a version of these media without odd, racially charged, or otherwise offensive depictions.

I haven't read anything by Britney S. Lewis before, and I am very much looking forward to the sequel!

Check out Blood Moon and discover what happens when werewolves and vampires run amok.