Reviews for Crusade

The average rating for Crusade based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-11-05 00:00:00 Lisa Salecker At least thats one thing this book got right. In this book, not only are vampires real and known, they are taking over the world, with only small numbers of Hunters to fight them off. The Salamancan Hunters are a band of Hunters, the first of its kind, and by the way things are going, it may be the last. This hodge-podge band of fighters are having a wee bit of trouble getting along. Even though they are based in Spain, they all come from different parts of the world. There is Eriko, a former Japanese school girl, and the silent leader of the band; Jamie, a hot-headed Irishman with an immense hatred for werewolves, vampires, and the English; Skye, a witch from England with a dark secret threatening to rear its ugly head; Holgar, a secretive Danish werewolf; Antonio, a Spanish vampire severely devoted to Catholicism; and lastly, Just Jenn, a nothing-special from California. Not only do these hunters have to fight the prejudices and suspicions amongst themselves, they have a full-out war on their hands. Jenn's younger sister has been kidnapped by a manipulative and powerful vampire, and the group must come together to get her back, hopefully alive. Gah. Sounds like an interesting cast, right? Not exactly. Jenn, the MC, is pretty much insufferable. She has worse self-esteem than Charlie Brown. Jenn refers to herself as "Just Jenn", meaning that she feels inferior to the rest of the group. Well, most of the time, she is right. It was only when she is California by herself that she shows any sign of bad-assery. Whenever she is with Antonio (her lurver), she turns into some limp noodle that must be carried from room to room because she is too distraught and tired to pick her own ass up. Characters are constantly insisting that she is "special", but she insists she's not (a point I can agree on). But still. She should have some confidence. She went to an academy with 90 young adults in her class. Out of those 90, only one-third of them made it to graduation. Out of the thirty that graduated, only 16 or so survived the final test. Out of those sixteen, only six got to be hunters. So have some pride, girl, you've obviously had enough balls to get you this far. The rest of the characters were also unlikable. Actually, I take that back. I liked Holgar. He was nice and didn't annoy me. Eriko, I didn't really like or dislike. She was rarely in the story, and was uninteresting for the most part. Skye was annoying because she is keeping a secret that could get them all killed, and chooses her secrecy over the well-being of the rest of the group. Also, she gave no explanation as to why she was in love with Jamie. Personally, I think she should end up with Holgar. I was sensing some vibes. Jamie was a douche bag. There is a line between being charmingly hot-headed and being a jackass, and he was one the jackass side of the line. Seriously, this guy needs to STFU. He had too bring up his werewolf prejudice in every goddam conversation, and its him that will get the group killed, not Holgar (Holgar, I gotcha back). And then there was Antonio......Guess what he wanted to be when he grew up. Go ahead, guess. That's right! He wanted to be priest. Howdya know? Could it be that it was mentioned on EVERY GODDAMN PAGE?! You're Catholic. I get it. You probably shouldn't be trying to get in Jenn's pants then. The romance between Antonio and Jenn, supposedly a driving force behind this novel, was the most lackluster, chemistry-less coupling I ever read. Seriously, it was horrible. I won't even got into how absolutely terrible it was because it makes my lip just now stopped curling, and I don't want my face to get stuck in a grimace. This novel tried to give it's characters depth through multiple perspectives, which is a tool, when done right, is extremely interesting and effective. This book failed miserably at it. The narrative had absolutely no focus, and would shift perspectives in the middle of the page, which made it confusing and frustrating. It also failed in creating three-dimensional characters, because in attempting to give everyone a voice, it skimped out on everyone. I couldn't care less if everyone in this book died. I have absolutely no attachment to them, and frankly, I was hoping someone would stab Jenn most of the time. Ironically, the only truly intriguing character was the villain, but unfortunately, to finish hearing out her story, I would have to read more books in the series, which is something I will not do. The writing was just bad. There was nothing unique, purposeful, or enjoyable about the style, and for some reason, I despised it. As soon as I read the first paragraph I was like "Oh shit". I knew then I was in trouble. But yet I hoped the characters or plot would pull through. Nope. Overall, this book was a such a flippin' mess. The writing irked me to no end, and the characters were all pretty stupid. I ended up skimming most of the second half of the novel. Most people say it starts out slow, and then gets better, but no. It pretty much sucks the whole way through. Ugly cover, BTW. Jenn, I hope Heather eats you. Jamie, get bent. Antonio, you are going to hell. Get over it. That is all.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-11-21 00:00:00 Henry Chavez Bullet Review: DNF at 14%. Yet another cliched ridden attempt at cashing in on the Young Adult Vampire phenomenon. Part Buffy, part Twilight, part OC, the book focuses on a Captain Planet and the Planeteers type team dynamic, only all the characters are cliched and/or boring. Eriko is the worst leader; Skye is defined by her job as a witch; Jaime is an ass (because all Irish are asses); Antonio is your standard "I'm a vampire, but I am in love!"; Holgar is a complete cypher. Oh, yeah, and there's Jenn, this nothing girl who needs to be saved and yet somehow graduated from Teh Best Supernatural School Evah. The ONLY positive I can give this book is that there are numerous female characters and while Jenn is a complete incompetent fool, at least Eriko and Skye are more than capable of defending themselves and standing on their own two feet. Also, in the portion I read, there was no slut-shaming, and Jenn and Antonio didn't have any weird purity dynamics going on (it was just your standard, "I'm a vampire and want to drink your blood, but I also kinda love you too" bit). I am 100% done with this genre; I would have quit sooner, but until today, I had nothing else to listen to. Full Review: "Crusade" is yet another in a long line of Young Adult cash-ins to the then-vampire phenomenon. While on one hand, it fairs much better than the Twilights and the Hush, Hush's of the genre, on the other hand, there really isn't much of anything to make it stand out from the rest of the crowd. Jenn What's Her Name is one of a very few "hunters" (think Buffy the Vampire Slayer) who graduated from the Salamanca University of Blahbitty Blah. Only, she constantly needs to be saved by everyone around her. Or people need to catch her while swooning. Or she's bawling. In this world, Vampires sweet-talked their way into society until bam, the entire world is in the crapper and the hunters are the only hope. The hunters being a handful of kids who can't even vote yet. And yet, somehow these people idolize the hunters, hanging them on walls of bedrooms and fangirling over the hot ones. Why, say, the adults and all the gun-toting red-necks of grand old 'Murica haven't risen up against the vampires is anyone's guess. DNF at 14%. I kept holding back on this book because from the cover, there seemed to be a thread of something that might be interesting. But as soon as I actually started listening to it, I could tell it was exactly like every other Young Adult Urban Fantasy in existence. Same stock characters; same silly romance; same barely-there world-building. The characters are mediocre; honestly, the only one I cared anything about was Jaime and that was primarily because the narrator gave him an Irish accent (I have a thing for Irish accents). I am floored that Jenn could even graduate this amazing school, given how awful she is at her job. Antonio's vampire has been done so many times (Vampire Chronicles anyone?), Skye is terribly cliched as a witch, of COURSE we have to have werewolves if we have vampires (sorry Holgar!), and Eriko is just bleh as a leader. I don't even know what the story is supposed to be; I would think you should get a bit of a hint by 14% but there was nothing in sight, beyond a trick action scene at the beginning to suck you into pages upon pages of steaming piles of needless infodump. And honestly, the only reason I made it to 14% was because I had NOTHING else to listen to on audiobook. As for the audiobook: there is a "G" in "strength" and "length". Nothing quite so annoying as hearing a narrator say "strenth" and "lenth". About the only positive I can give this is that there are a LOT of females, a lot of competent females (minus Jenn, of course), and some decent non-white characters (Eriko, for instance, and I pretended Skye was African-English). Maybe something miraculous happens and at the 15% the book becomes kick ass; I will not be finding that out, nor will I be rushing to purchase these author's next books. If you are tired of the same-old, same-old of Young Adult and Urban Fantasy, I would recommend you do the same.