Light has had a tumultuous life as a vampire. From his
original Election by Ruby he has gone through the decades discovering what it
means to be a vampire, how that differs from humanity and the new rules –or lack
thereof – of his existence
Until a new era and a new love opens his eyes to the
potential of humanity while he also learns that vampire reality has far more
rules than he originally imagined
This book reminded me very strongly of Anne Rice’s Vampire
Chronicles Series.
Unfortunately, as people who’ve read me reviews will
know, I absolutely hated that series.
The similarity is that we have our protagonist, Light,
recounting his long long long history in overly elaborate language and
including a lot of detail that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in someone
recapping their own experiences. In between the very elaborate recounting we
have musings of philosophy (again, very reminiscent of The Vampire Chronciles) only this is very focused on the difference
between Blood Life and First Life and what being a vampire means.
The difficulty I have with the philosophy is it feels
both unnecessary (since, ultimately, it comes down to Light valuing creativity
and originality and discovering who has it while at the same time being the
most clichéd rebel you ever did see) at the same time it feels shallow. Like if
you’re going to of this route and look at the evolution of humanity and
examining the differences between the vampires and humans then do it – don’t
just have this aside that turns up now and then but is never really explored in
I think one of my main issues with this book is the
format. Because it is set out as Light’s autobiography. And we start with Light
and his now elderly human lover and the very beautiful poignant emotion he has over
her slow loss to disease. It’s beautiful and it’s sad and it… doesn’t really
explain why he’s writing a long history of himself addressed to the human lover
who is no longer in a position to read it. But more, it’s like a story that
begins at the end. The rest of the book tells us Light’s story – but we already
know what happens to him. We know he falls in love with a human and moves
somewhere isolated to spend the rest of their lives together. This is told to
us in the first chapter. The rest of the story becomes… prequel? A plot whose
tension is lost because we know pretty much exactly what is going to happen
