Everything is built up around Celine and Bastien, so I was indifferent to the other characters' subplots and betrayals.įor some reason, I had assumed this was a duology (perhaps because Ahdieh's previous books were) but it is clearly left open for a sequel. The secondary characters overall were kinda bland, even this book's villain.

This is paranormal YA- is she really going to pick the safe boring detective over the sexy naughty vampire? What do YOU think? One where Michael is clearly the third wheel and never a realistic candidate for Celine's heart, making any romantic scene between the two of them boring because there's absolutely no tension or excitement. I predicted, correctly, that Celine, Michael, and Bastien would end up in some faux love triangle. That part where one minute they are in New Orleans and literally the next minute they are in Maharashtra visiting the Lady of the Vale gave me whiplash. And when it does happen, it all hits at once in a seemingly random stream of supernatural occurrences. but none of it had much depth.Īlso, the first 150 pages of this book were a struggle because they consist of moving through different POVs and talking about what they want but can’t have and what they don’t remember and mysterious dark plans that they can’t tell you about *evil laugh* Nothing actually happens, though. There is so much wishy washy paranormal info about vampires, werewolves, enchantresses, ethereals. I mean, when the makeouts did happen, it was deliciously steamy, but the problem is that The Damned tries to get bigger and wilder with the plot and the result is an odd mishmash of mythologies and supernatural creatures. With this book, I really just wanted some Bastien/Celine smut, lol.

But the world itself was quite weak, the setting felt nothing like 1872, and the whole supernatural politics aspect was not interesting to me. It was a bit of mindless entertainment and I'm a sucker (ha, pun!) for sexy vampires, let's be honest. To be fair, I thought The Beautiful was only okay. Sadly, this sequel is like The Beautiful but with nowhere near enough sexy vampness to keep it thrilling.

Renee ahdieh the damned