Darkness Before Dawn by J.A. London

 

DNF @ p.92

Does anyone remember the Goth Girl Prom Dress Trend of the 2010s YA book covers that totally looked like Evanescence album art? Because I totally do. And even though I like to make fun of things, I secretly love covers like these and they make that inner voice inside my head scream, "BUY! BUY! BUY!" But luckily I didn't even have to buy this one because the entire trilogy showed up for FREE inside one of my local Little Free Libraries, so obvs I was like #NEED.

If there's anything that gets my little trash heart singing, it's a vampire book. And the fact that this was a dystopian vampire book where vampires are the oppressors and humanity is hiding inside a wall sounded dee-licious. Never mind that it kind of sounded a little like 30 Days of Night and a half-dozen other stories I could name. I don't expect all of my books to be 100% original as long as they can entertain me.

And at first, DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN did. At first.

Dawn, the heroine (TITLE PUN), is a delegate to the vampire Lord, Lord Valentine, who is pissed off that humans aren't meeting blood quotas. Her job is precarious. It probably got her parents killed. She's chafing under the constraints of her role and decides to go out and party. After her friends is roofied, she is rescued by a mysterious man whose name is, I kid you not, VICTOR VALENTINE.

VICTOR. VALENTINE.

I wonder if he has a cousin Vincent...

Anyway, obviously Victor is a vampire and the son of the vampire lord Dawn hates. And obviously Dawn is a specialy specialton not-like-other-girls heroine who has something that makes her different and special. And obviously... I did not care. Hence the DNF.

J.A. London is a mom and son writing team. The mom writes under the name Rachel Hawthorne (also YA) and I think this is the son's first work. I think it's really sweet that they're doing the project together but I also think that mom-and-kid writing teams don't always yield the best stuff, case in point: the P.C. Cast vampire series that shall not be named. (My mom bought me the series at Costco when I was a teen thinking I'd like it because I liked Vampire Diaries and Twilight. I read literally one chapter of book one before pronouncing it unfit to read and she returned them all to Costco.) I don't think I'll be reading further into this trilogy, which is a shame, because the colors are gorgeous.

1.5 to 2 out of 5 stars