Young Blood: Book One of the Young Blood Trilogy
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $3.99
Publisher Description
The Young Blood Trilogy tells the story of a group of children who, at various points in their youth, are able to temporarily turn themselves into vampires using a special potion. They see this as something fun, going around and actually murdering people. While they know that what they’re doing is wrong, they are too immature to understand the consequences of their actions, and they enjoy getting away with it. As they get older, these consequences begin catching up with them, and they have to deal with the fallout.
The trilogy opens with Young Blood, set in 1983 in Augusta, Georgia, a city that, while somewhat large, still retains some small-town tendencies and southern values. As the mysterious vampire attacks continue to plague the city, many residents, including the authorities, try to be in denial about what is happening. The children, meanwhile, must do their best to avoid being found out, to keep the secret safe. At the center of the narrative is Ray Young, who relates the tale from an unspecified point later in life, aware of the magnitude of their crimes and slowly revealing the details to the reader.
While much of the trilogy focuses on these children, this is not in fact a children’s story. It is aimed at mature readers, and were this a movie, it would be rated R, mostly for violence and language. It crosses a few genres: horror, urban fantasy, historical fiction, perhaps more. Epic in scale and length, both The Young Blood Trilogy and its first volume, Young Blood, delivers a thrilling saga of terror, youthful recklessness, nostalgia, and regret.
Customer Reviews
A Slow Burn, But Very Much Worth It
First of all, this is a LONG book. I was actually surprised once I got it and wasn’t sure if I could get through it all. But it was fine once I got used to the pacing and figured out what was going on. There aren’t individual chapters, just four long parts (reminded me of the first two Anne Rice books, maybe this was intentional?), and things read a bit like a diary, this boy describing the day to day events as they unfold, both extraordinary and not. There were some bits where I’d be thinking, “Why is he talking about this?” But then many pages later, I’d see that something that seemed to be pointless earlier turned out to be foreshadowing. Like there’s this one point where the kids are sitting around talking about fashion in the ‘80s (when the book takes place; there’s a lot of cool nostalgia things thrown in here and there, but never to where it feels excessive or forced…), which seems trivial, but the conversation turns out to be relevant to identifying one of the vampires’ victims later on. It took a while, but I realized that the mundanity was the point, the juxtaposition of the ordinary with the real horror of what’s happening. The kids in this book go out on the town and straight up murder people just for fun, then go home and watch TV, play video games, read magazines, etc. Their lack of concern and morals is chilling; if they care about anything, it’s about not getting caught.
The pace does pick up and the stakes get higher as the book goes on, kinda like the plot is maturing with the narrator, who starts off age 8 or 9 and is a teenager by the end. If you’re looking for fast-paced gore and violence, this might not be for you. There is some of that, but not a whole lot. The horror seems more psychological, especially once the characters start turning on each other and finally start understanding how wrong they’ve been and may have to pay the price. There are plenty of “oh crap” moments for the reader when you get the sense that something really bad is about to come, and often, it’s the characters’ own fault.
Mostly, I think it’s a good story and recommend it. But be prepared to set aside a lot of time; it’s not a light fluffy read.