High school sucks. Especially for the undead.
Kat Finn and her mother can barely make ends meet living among humans. Like all vampires, they must drink Hema, an expensive synthetic blood substitute, to survive, as nearly all of humanity has been infected by a virus that’s fatal to vampires. Kat isn’t looking forward to an immortal life of barely scraping by, but when she learns she’s been accepted to the Harcote School, a prestigious prep school that’s secretly vampires-only, she knows her fortune is about to change.
Taylor Sanger has grown up in the wealthy vampire world, but she’s tired of its backward, conservative values—especially when it comes to sexuality, since she’s an out-and-proud lesbian. She only has to suffer through a two more years of Harcote before she’s free. But when she discovers her new roommate is Kat Finn, she’s horrified. Because she and Kat used to be best friends, a long time ago, and it didn’t end well.
When Taylor stumbles upon the dead body of a vampire, and Kat makes a shocking discovery in the school’s archives, the two realize that there are deep secrets at Harcote—secrets that link them to the most powerful figures in Vampirdom and to the synthetic blood they all rely on.
Amazon Link: Youngblood
Author: Sasha Laurens
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Rating: 4/5 stars
I was excited for this book, but it disappointed me.
This felt like it was meant to be the start of a longer series. It spent so much time building up all these big problems: the blood disease, the mystery surrounding Kat’s mom and her origins, a conspiracy around vampiric corporations, the main characters both getting involved with other partners before they realized their feelings for each other, etc. About halfway through the book, I found myself thinking, “There is no way they are going to resolve all of these plotlines before the end.”
Sometimes, when I’m afraid that nothing will be resolved before the end, I am pleasantly surprised by an ending that manages to wrap things up. But this was not one of those times.
Everything was resolved in a very convenient manner, very quickly, when the main characters trick the bad guy into confessing with a monologue that would embarrass a Bond villain. And just like that, the entire vampiric society switches their opinions.
It was very disappointing after all of the world-building that went into the first half of the book. It felt like the deep-set opinions of the vampires would take a lot of effort to change over a long period of time.
Also, I didn’t like the relationship Taylor had with her bully. It just went on for so long even though she hated herself over it and wanted to end it.
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this book because it was unsatisfying.
