Sunday 6 June 2010

Vulnerable by Amy Lane

**1/2
I would never have found this by myself but it came as an Amazon recommendation and I decided to give it a go.  I've had some great new reads through this method and could see why it popped up, particularly as my reading has become even more eclectic with a bit of a paranormal slant over the past twelve months.
It tells the story of Cory, a student desperate to escape her small town life through education; to do this she works the graveyard shift at a garage, but gradually notices the clientele are decidedly otherworldly.  She becomes drawn into a world of the sidhe, vampires and were-creatures which is lead by the charismatic Green, and she falls in love with Adrian.  She discovers an alternative life where she is powerful and attractive but something sinister is happening to the creatures and her love for Adrian draws her into a dangerous situation.
I have to say I found the whole thing a bit disappointing and although there are further books in the series, I won't bother with them.  Part of the problem is that I don't think I'm the target audience - for teen girls needing to fuel their Twilight et al addiction, it is probably spot on, but for me it was very similar to PC Cast's "Marked" books with a rather sullen, unworldly, small town teen with a minor attitude problem becoming part of the supernatural world and finding they have amazing, previously unimagined and untapped power!  It read slightly like fan fiction - I'm sure the author had a wonderful time writing down her fantasies (particularly the sexy bits), but at times it was a little sordid!  The whole book needed major editing and the numerous typos and grammatical errors were appalling.
The characterisation was pretty weak.  Cory is not an engaging protagonist - I really didn't care what happened to her.  The way she develops from an ordinary slightly grungy girl to sex goddess was completely unconvincing and made the whole story less interesting.  Adrian (a vampire needs a better name than that!) was potentially a better character but went down in my estimation by being so obsessed with Cory.  The whole love triangle was a bit creepy, I just didn't get the whole fascination with Green thing and the way this was resolved seemed plain daft, why lose the character with the most potential to develop further?!
I could continue to disparage the whole plot, but really I think that's unfair as I'm sure some people would love it, but it's just not my thing.