Fanged Mania (2)

To join in, copy and paste these rules and the above banner into your Fanged Mania post and add your link to this week’s Fanged Mania post at Elisabeth Wheatley’s Blog. Fanged Mania is a Friday meme counting down to the release of Fanged Princess and displaying all things vampire and awesome. Fanged Mania posts can be a review of a vampire book, a quote from the latest Vampire Diaries episode, a showcase of a cool vampire book’s cover, or whatever you like so long as it is vampire related. Don’t forget, participants will be entered in the drawing to win a fanged-abulous prize pack!

This week I'm highlighting: Unique Vampires

Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy
I love love love this series. In this, there are 3 races of vampires - Moroi, Dhampir, and Strigoi. Dhampir is my favorite :D I just love that they aren't just vampires. They are an entire society all on their own. They have elemental powers (Moroi), super awesome kick-butt abilities (Dhampir), and undead creepiness (Strigoi). If you haven't read this series, I HIGHLY recommend it.

LJ Smith's Night World 

This is another vampire series where the vamps seem to live in their own society. Hence the name "night world". In this series, vampires and other supernatural beings are finding their soul mates and turning against the laws of the Night World... My favorite book in this series is probably Soul Mates, in which Hannah keeps having flashbacks to her past lives where she is hunted by the evil Maya, but always saved from her true love.

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight
Hey, hate on this series all you want. But you have to admit these vamps are unique. They sparkle (what other vamp does that?? Huh?!), they only drink blood from animals (well...the Cullens do anyways), and they also have supernatural abilities. This book was the very first vampire book I've read. The first young adult book, actually. So, I owe a lot of my reading/blogging career to this series.

Alyson Noel's Evermore

Well, this isn't really a series about vampires. They are immortals. But in the beginning of the series you think they are vampires because they drink a red liquid. I think that is what is unique about this series. They are sort of like vampires, but not. You know? 

Claudia Gray's Evernight
This is probably the best series I've read all year. What I love about Evernight is I had no clue that some people were vampires in the beginning. About half way through the book, the bomb is dropped and all of a sudden everyone is a vampire and you're so shocked! These vampires are unique because most of them grow up learning in a private school full of vampires, and this time humans are allowed to the school...

Review: Evernight by Claudia Gray

Goodreads description:

Bianca wants to escape.

She's been uprooted from her small hometown and enrolled at Evernight Academy, an eerie Gothic boarding school where the students are somehow too perfect: smart, sleek, and almost predatory. Bianca knows she doesn't fit in.

Then she meets Lucas. He's not the "Evernight type" either, and he likes it that way. Lucas ignores the rules, stands up to the snobs, and warns Bianca to be careful—even when it comes to caring about him.

"I couldn't stand it if they took it out on you," he tells Bianca, "and eventually they would."

But the connection between Bianca and Lucas can't be denied. Bianca will risk anything to be with Lucas, but dark secrets are fated to tear them apart . . . and to make Bianca question everything she's ever believed.

First line: “It was the first day of school, which meant it was my last chance to escape.”

Positive:

Names- I always have trouble creating unique names, and then Claudia Gray just has the coolest names ever. Vic, Raquel, Patrice, Bianca, and….wait for it… Balthazar! Sorry, I just think Balthazar is the most awesome name. Oh! And there’s Ranulf. We see more of Ranulf in later books, but I <3 him J

Creepy eeriness- The story and setting is dark and twisty. I loved it! The whole school was really amazing. It was like, I don’t know, an old building and century old students stuck in the present. A lot of conflicts there, which really made the whole thing that much better.

Writing- The writing is just pure genius. I could finish these books in a day if I could stay home from school! And it take some amazing fluency to make me read that fast. I was a little tentative about how much I’d enjoy these books at first, but I’m so captivated by them.

Negative:

All of a sudden change- We go through the whole book and everything seems really normal, human stuff. And then all of a sudden people are vampires and it turns out that the main character, Bianca, has known all along. It was confusing to me at first. I didn’t really like it, but I think it’s a cool way to write the story. No, it did not take away from the quality of the book.

W.W.W. Wednesdays (21)

To play along just answer the following three (3) questions and leave your link at Should Be Reading:

1. What are you currently reading?

2. What did you recently finish reading?

3. What do you think you'll read next?

Omg, I am loving the Evernight series by Claudia Gray. Sooo good!
What are you reading this week?