I did it; I caved. I downloaded “Chapters,” one of the myriad of mobile storytelling apps. Listen, I’m not proud of it, but boredom is a powerful motivator. Since rediscovering my love for urban fantasy last year, I was thrilled to discover one of the “books” offered in the app was a clusterf*ck of a love story: ordinary human girl, Ari, discovers her mother made a deal with the devil. At the ripe old age of 18, her mother’s contract expires, and Ari must strike another deal: her mother will live, on the condition that Ari goes to Hell, is courted by each of the devil’s seven sons (modeled after the seven deadly sins), and then marries one. Whichever son she chooses is suddenly elevated from Prince to King of Hell, and has complete dominion over it.
As soon as you start the “Chapters” adventure, a little message pops up. It turns out, Vampire Girl is actually a novel written by a husband-and-wife duo, who publish their work under the pen-name Karpov Kinrade. Naturally, I put my phone aside and grabbed my ereader— and the first entry into the series was only two bucks! Score!
The novel and the “Chapters” story follow the same sort of premise, but the story adds details while (awkwardly enough) withholding others; honestly, it’s a good thing I read the first few chapters of the mobile app, because otherwise I’d be scratching my head.
It’s not that Vampire Girl is a dense read, too complex for me to handle without first attending a philosophy class. It’s that, while the app fleshes out the characters to the best of its ability (keep in mind, it’s an app, so: you get what you— don’t— pay for. But the writing of the in-app story was good enough to make me buy the book, so I assumed it would be a natural upgrade), the book does the opposite. It feels like a hastily-written rough draft, uploaded into Dropbox with 59 seconds to spare before your assignment portal snaps closed for good and you lose 50% of your grade.
The concept was really intriguing, but the execution failed on almost every level. I felt like I was just barely-skimming the surface of the world, and the characters read like cardboard cutouts. The authors did try to diversify their cast with a trans character (Es, Ari’s best friend), but that diversity isn’t worth much if the character isn’t dealt with properly. At one point in the book, Es is bullied at the bar she works at by some douche-monster dudes for being a “tranny,” (that’s directly from the book) but the dialogue was absolutely cringe-worthy. Es herself is never validated or dealt with as a character that has complex emotions, that scene was just setup to have Ari’s crush step in and be the hero.
The descriptions of the Isle of Inferna (what the Princes call Hell) were weak and watered-down, to the point that I honestly felt I got a better picture of it from the app (again, it’s an app. I didn’t pay for this, why is it outshining the source material?). A lot of the magic seemed to be yanked from the bowels of nowhere, and I was so uninvested in the characters that emotional scenes and dramatic reveals just seemed manufactured, not organic. I didn’t care, and was disappointed. Ari falls in love fairly early on in the first book
Oh, and one more thing. Reading erotica is almost always awkward, but there are multiple points in this story where the authors at least try to convey desire. One particular scene involves Ari running her hands all over the naked body of one of the Princes, and I don’t have anything to say about that scene to say except: cringe. I can’t tell if this was supposed to be like, mature YA, or if the authors wanted to go for “vague but still sensual,” but honestly; what is between the Prince’s legs? A lump of clay? That’s as “steamy” as it gets, so if you’re really, really not into that angle and you enjoy skittish, shy erotic scenes, this might be to your taste.
I really did enjoy a lot of the ideas within Vampire Girl, but this one wasn’t for me. It was kind of fun and super-fast, and I didn’t hate it with the burning intensity of a thousand suns, but I’m glad this was an ereader purchase. I won’t be continuing on with the series.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.
Recipe: Spinach & Feta Falafel Bites
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