Helpful Score: 2
I really enjoyed this young adult vampire novel. Michael Cart, in a back cover blurb states it well, "A dark reimagining of a popular genre with wonderfully imagined characters whose world is far more than surface noir. Multilayered, textured as a tapestry, expectation-defying, and vividly original!" Further, I would describe this as a very American kind of noir novel. Recommend!
Helpful Score: 1
Reviewed by Lynn Crow for TeensReadToo.com
Cole isn't quite like most hemes--as in hemovore, one who devours blood. The soft life of those living in The Building in New York City, with willing omnis offering their blood in exchange for the high feeding gives them, makes him uneasy. But he's drawn from his solitary lifestyle when the leader of the hemes asks him for a favor. Cole's friend, Sandor, has accidentally created a new heme, and it's up to him and Cole to teach Gordon about the "disease" he must now live with: how to feed, how to avoid detection, and how to control the mind-warping Thirst.
Cole, Sandor, and Gordon set off on a cross-country road trip, easing Gordon into his new life along the way. As Cole overcomes his frustration with Gordon and starts to feel sympathy for him, a long-buried guilt from his past starts to rise to the surface. When the trio encounters a stray heme with murderous tendencies, and Gordon goes on a hunger strike in an attempt to refuse accepting his condition, Cole finds himself questioning everything he thought he believed about himself and about what it means to stay human.
NIGHT ROAD is a dark, thoughtful novel that will draw readers into its mysterious and often dangerous world. Its take on the vampire mythology is fresh and layered. Despite his predatory nature, Cole is both easy to relate to and likable in his doubts, his respect for the omni humans on which he feeds, and his attempts to do right by those around him without risking too much of himself in the process.
Jenkins doesn't shy away from tough issues, like what might happen to hemes when they appear to be dead, whether they have souls, and how someone doomed to forever watch life passing in and out of existence around them can keep some semblance of humanity. The characters and ideas will stick with readers long after they've set down the book. Highly recommended, even for those who think they couldn't bear to read one more "vampire" book.
Cole isn't quite like most hemes--as in hemovore, one who devours blood. The soft life of those living in The Building in New York City, with willing omnis offering their blood in exchange for the high feeding gives them, makes him uneasy. But he's drawn from his solitary lifestyle when the leader of the hemes asks him for a favor. Cole's friend, Sandor, has accidentally created a new heme, and it's up to him and Cole to teach Gordon about the "disease" he must now live with: how to feed, how to avoid detection, and how to control the mind-warping Thirst.
Cole, Sandor, and Gordon set off on a cross-country road trip, easing Gordon into his new life along the way. As Cole overcomes his frustration with Gordon and starts to feel sympathy for him, a long-buried guilt from his past starts to rise to the surface. When the trio encounters a stray heme with murderous tendencies, and Gordon goes on a hunger strike in an attempt to refuse accepting his condition, Cole finds himself questioning everything he thought he believed about himself and about what it means to stay human.
NIGHT ROAD is a dark, thoughtful novel that will draw readers into its mysterious and often dangerous world. Its take on the vampire mythology is fresh and layered. Despite his predatory nature, Cole is both easy to relate to and likable in his doubts, his respect for the omni humans on which he feeds, and his attempts to do right by those around him without risking too much of himself in the process.
Jenkins doesn't shy away from tough issues, like what might happen to hemes when they appear to be dead, whether they have souls, and how someone doomed to forever watch life passing in and out of existence around them can keep some semblance of humanity. The characters and ideas will stick with readers long after they've set down the book. Highly recommended, even for those who think they couldn't bear to read one more "vampire" book.
