Red Moon Rising Review

This post was scheduled in advance, but I employed some fairies to help me, and their glamour has a tendency to stop working at the most inopportune times, like when you're loading this blog post. It should run smoothly, though. I hope.

Hey Blogger Buds,

To continue the trend, I've got another gag-worthy book for review this week! It's called Red Moon Rising by Peter Moore.

Disclaimer: This is a review of an ARC. It may differ from the final book.

Blurby:

Being only half-vamp in a high school like Carpathia Night makes you awhole loser. But Danny Gray manages to escape the worst of the specists at his school. Thanks to genetic treatments he had as an infant, most people assume Danny's other half is human. Which is a good thing.

Ever since the development of synthetic blood – SynHeme – vamps have become society’s elite, while wulves like his father work menial jobs and live in bad neighborhoods. Wulves are less than second class citizens; once a month they become inmates, forced to undergo their Change in dangerous government compounds.

For Danny, living with his vamp mother and going to a school with a nearly all-vamp student body, it’s best to pretend his wulf half doesn’t even exist. But lately Danny's been having some weird symptoms — fantastic night vision; a keener-than-usual sense of smell; and headaches, right around the full moon.

Even though it's easy to be in denial, it's hard to ignore evidence. There's only a month until the next full moon, and Danny's time is running out.

Review:

tl;dr review: Easily one of the worst books I've read so far this year. Granted, I've read an embarrassingly small number of books this year, but Red Moon Rising takes the cake. (And yes, I did just say "takes the cake.")

Full review: I don't even know how to preface this one. Just...I expected better judgement on your part, Disney-Hyperion.

We'll start at the beginning.

CHARACTERS

His name is Dante, and he goes by Danny. Who names their kid Dante? At least in some way acknowledge that Dante is a strange name. Just think of Samhain* "Sam" LaCroix! (No offense to anyone named Dante. It's an awesome name, and I think Mr. Alighieri was a brilliant writer.) And Dante was an alright, though pretty boring, character.

The only good part in the book (besides for one intense scene near the end, though my mood was spoiled by the non-ending) was Dante's best friend, Claire. Claire was pretty awesome.

THE WORLD-BUILDING

The world-building would be funny if it weren't so terrible. There are mentions of McJagger, the Royalings Tones, and David-Bo E. I don't remember it exactly, but there's a Bob Dylan knock-off...with the first name Dylan.

But that's kind of avoiding the giant pink elephant in the room, isn't it? So let's introduce him. His first name is "Wulf." His second name is "Vampyre." I think he can finish the introductions by himself, but I don't think that's necessary. We all see his draw-backs. And the spelling is starting to make my eyes bleed.

From page one, you're assaulted with new terms, like "crit level" and "SynHeme" with little explanation. Some of the words aren't so difficult to understand, but it would have been nice to know about the glossary in the back before I finished the book.

OTHER STUFF

One part of this book left me shaking in anger. For this reason alone, the book should not have been published.

The "vampyres" are all blond-haired and blue-eyes. And, once upon a time, oh, 70 years ago, the German "vampyres", who are the upper-class, decided to round up all those mangy "wulves" in concentration camps. Reference, much?

That's right. We just compared 10** million human lives to mythical dogs who don't even know how to spell. And yes, I'm aware that this book is trying to show that the way the "wulves" were treated is wrong. That's not an excuse to make Holocaust references. Jews have been called "cur" (though I wouldn't be surprised if this book spelled it "cir" or something else equally idiotic) enough without your help, thankyouverymuch.

*pronounced "Sow-in."

**I'm including the 4 million homosexuals and gypsies

Rating: 0*

Currently Song: I'm not even going to waste my time

Peace,

Riv