Yuck. The writing was poor, the attitude was bad & the heroine was a whiner. No redeeming features to this book, IMO. ( )

The only reason this gets half a star is that I don't think it is possible to rate something zero stars. Do NOT waste your time or money on this stinker. I thought The Vampire Shrink was badly written, but it seems like Shakespeare compared to this book.

I hate not finishing a book. Even when it's bad, I usually stick it out, but I couldn't finish this one. I almost didn't make it through the prologue, but I laboured on before finally giving up part way through chapter 1. This is badly written, boring, and incomprehensible. My only consolation is that I didn't buy it, but got it from the library. ( )

This review is for all of L.A. Banks' Vampire Huntress series. The last book just came out, though I'm still on #5 (out of 12). It is, as you could guess, yet another paranormal romance series about vampires, but what made me pick it up is that our heroine is a Black woman, her love interest is not a white man (he's Latino), and her supporting cast is made up primarily of POC. The first two books got off the ground a little slowly, but they're short and entertaining enough to get through quickly - and once I hit the third book, the series really seemed to hit its groove and it's been rocking along ever since. (Book 3 is also a story in which the history of colonization in Brazil plays a large part.) It's a lot of fun, if not high literature, and has enough worldbuilding to keep me as a SFF fan satisfied.

I have some quibbles with Banks' treatment of race and gender, but really, those are "why this is not quite perfect" criticisms rather than "why I want to throw this book against the wall" criticisms. *** I have read 2 of the L.A. Banks "Vampire Huntress" books. I'm very torn on them. I like the vampire hunting genre but am constantly annoyed by the whiteness of it. I love that this series centers itself in communities of color. That is seriously awesome. I love that there are strong PoC who are a variet of ages. I like that vampire huntress has a love interest is a Latino guy. I do not love is that he is also a drug dealer.

What I'm torn on is that the communities of color the book focuses on are crime ridden inner city areas. Banks does it well, but it's not what I personally wanted from the series. There is also an uncomfortable scene in the beginning of the first book where a character has a homophobic freak out, which leads to her killing her husband. It really left a bad taste in my mouth.*** Point well taken. In a later book, it's pointed out that the Guardians are chosen according to "the first shall be last and the last shall be first," hence so many of them being poor people of color - but that was a choice Banks made, and yes, the result is that the communities of color we see fit into stereotypes. As you said, though, her portrayals are done pretty well - for instance, Carlos' choices in becoming a drug dealer are neither romanticized nor reduced to mere greed. I don't think that Banks should've written a different story so much as I think that there ought to be more stories about communities of color in the popular mainstream, to fill in the holes left by her portrayal.

One possible reading of the homophobic scene in the first book is that the character in question allowed evil an opening through her own failure - a mirror to her husband's arrogance in choosing to pursue a vampire on his own. I admit that's a generous reading though - particularly since there haven't been any positive portrayals of queer characters to support that reading. I'm willing to keep reading and see if Banks remedies this, but I wouldn't blame anyone for not being willing to extend that trust.

I have read a good bit of the available vampire books and it is always interesting to see each person's take on Vampire lore...so when I read one that manages to stand out despite the abundance of vampire stories I like to make note of it. This manages to be different, mainly due to the main character and her story: you do not see many African American Vampire slayers or a book with mainly minority characters as heroes. But this becomes secondary to the story and plot once you get to reading. If you like the Soookie Stackhouse series or Anita Blake and Buffy..you will like this alot. But a warning...the ending WILL make you want to buy the second book. ( )

I’ve come across this novel a couple of different times and each time I looked at it, Minion by LA Banks never really reached out to me. At my cousins insistence, I gave it a try and I have to say, so far, I’m not impressed. I’m only about five chapters in and nothing has really happened. At least, nothing has happened that is making me want to continue reading it.

However, I will say though, I’m getting a lot of a Buffy TVS ripoff sense from it. Here’s the concept, every 100 years or so, there is a chosen one called the Neteru that is raised to slay the vampires. As she matures, her abilities start to come out, bringing with them more strength, agility, etc. Maybe I’m over generalizing it, but that’s the impression I’m getting.

I’m halfway through the novel now and this book is holding no appeal for me, which means I’m going to put it back on my shelf and come back to it another time. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about this novel that makes it hard for me to get into it. Maybe it’s because I’m a really white girl and there’s nothing about the novel I can associate with. Yeah, that sounds strange considering I’m reading about vampires, but there should be something that I should be able to relate to, right? Maybe that mentality is my problem, but whatever it is, it’s not working for me right now.

I really haven’t been able to find anyone other than my cousin who has read this, so if you have….let me know. I’m curious to hear what others have to say about it.

http://www.literaryescapism.com/2008/... ( )