My Blood Approves [Paperback]

OK so here goes.. I never write a review for books unless they are just too good to be true! However I read them all the time to see if I want to chance it and download it. I happened upon this book while searching around to try to find a good book to read over the weekend, and hey it was 99 cents so I gave it a shot. WOW I was just blown away!!! Totally hooked from page one and quickly found out as someone previously said it is a young adult book with a adult take which I love to find since I am in my 30's. I really cant believe I am saying this but I enjoyed it more than TWILIGHT... I know I cant believe it either. So we meet Alice who meets Jack and I love how she doesn't just fall all over him like most do. Then we meet Jacks brother Peter and thats when the fun begins with such steamy tension between him and Alice. I read this book in one Saturday and didnt want it to end. I went online to see if Amanda had any other books I could try and was too happy that she had 2 more in this series!! I got them right away and read them in 2 days, trying to find ways to sneak and read it so my husband didnt get mad I wasnt spending time with the family. LOL I just cant wait till August to read the next one and I hope there is much more to come. Trust me read it and you will love it too. And the price of 99 cents is way to low it was worth much more than that!!

(Let me `splain: I made an offer recently on a discussion board to spend the month of May reviewing books from the authors on that board. I told folks that, in this case, I would need their consent since my reviews would be absolutely honest. I didn't want anyone to be blind-sided or to feel they're being picked on since I like hanging out there. I also made it clear I would purchase my own copies to further distance myself from people I do know casually. I'm hoping to promote some new authors, particularly while big name pubs duke it out over e-books, but I won't do that at the expense of honesty. My first obligation and responsibility when I review remains is to the readers.)

My first selection, coming in a few days before the May start date, is The Blood Approves by Amanda Hocking. I selected it because, well, she was one of the first people to give consent, but because I really liked the title. Somehow I missed the fact that she's also a fellow Minnesotan, but that's icing on the cake. I'd called this young adult.

The story follows Alice Bonham as she becomes involves with Jack and then his family. Jack is somewhat mysterious and she's attracted to him, because she's less attracted to him than your average girl. Huh? What I mean is that she sees people looking at him like he's a rock star, and he strikes her as a slightly above average looking, charismatic, guy. She feels drawn to him, sure, and her moods seem to mirror his, but she seems to also see him more realistically than other people they meet. Now, his family is another matter...

I don't think anyone could get through the first scene with Jack, let alone the second, let alone looking at the cover, let alone the title, without knowing Jack's big secret. I'm not sure it's to Alice's credit that she doesn't get it for half the book, but she makes a guess much earlier that would be in the old hot-cold game pretty warm. There were just too many clues. I think the reason it still worked is what wasn't revealed. There were still enough details and blanks to be filled in that, even with the various flaws, I kept hitting next page on my Kindle. I think that's the important thing - that I had issues with the story, almost quit fairly early on, but just had to see what happened next. Amanda kept pulling me back in and that's a mark of talent.

The other flaw, which I expect to be prevalent as I read the indie books, which many of these choices will be, is that the story lacks proper editing. "They weren't moving very fast enough..." - two ways that sentence could have worked out, but not both. ::grin:: Beyond mistakes like that, the story could have used an overall tightening for pace. Some things would have been better expanded and others shortened. I think the book would have benefited from someone pointing out moments of illogic or the occasions when Alice seemed a bit slow on the uptake for plot driven reasons.

Much of the story involved feeling that Alice is being drawn in, perhaps supernaturally, and there are moments when this is done quite well. Other times, I "believed" Alice, but thought the descriptions could have been improved so that I could feel and better "witness" Alice's attraction to these people. Alice was also a very passive character, leaving major life decisions up to other people. This changed a little towards the end, but it still read as humorous when she told a character that it was her life and he couldn't make decisions for her.

One of the most interesting things about that book was Alice's relationship with her brother, Milo. I think he's a better brother to her than she is a sister to him. Occasionally he acted way too old for his age, just like Alice was pretty casual in her language skills most of the time and then would pull out major vocabulary, but he seemed like a really interesting kid. There was some foreshadowing that he might have a limited future in these books, but I think he's the person who grounds Alice. I also really hate the thought of him being hurt.

I do feel Amanda has a nice touch with humor and dialogue. I hope very much that she's committed to writing, because there's clear talent there that can only get better with time and experience, and I enjoyed the moments when that raw talent came through. I'm giving this a recommendation, with the provision that people realize that the writing is a little rough around the edges still. It did keep my interest and I did want to keep reading. (Please note that this is a series and that the book ends with a lot of unfinished business.)

More importantly, I believe I will read the sequel at some point so I can get the remaining questions answered -- including two fairly major ones. I'm going to give this a smidge under 3 stars. I believe that the essence of the story is 4 stars, but the execution and errors force me to mark it down some.

First off, I think Amanda Hocking is a very talented author, I loved the Trylle Trilogy, and I am sure that this series just wasn't her best but there will be more good ones to come.

That being said, I was very disapointed, I gave it 1 star only because she put the work into it and so I felt it deserved at least 1. I could not get through this book, it is too Twilight Saga. The similarities led me to believe she possibly took Stephanie Meyer's work, copied it, and then went and changed some of the details and sequence of events. Let me explain.

We start off with Alice and her friend trying to get into a club. They leave and get chased by a couple guys into a parking garage where Jack suddenly shows up in a car and saves them both. Definitely reminiscent of the scene where Bella is chased by a few guys and Edward suddenly shows up in a car to save the day.

After saving her life Alice and her friend get into the car with Jack where her and Jack discover that they have the same taste in music and, indeed, like the same artists. Again reminiscent of Twilight with Bella and Edward.

We then get to a point where Alice is "different". Jack's charm, so to speak, doesn't have the same effect on Alice as it does everybody else. That would be the part in Twilight where Edward realizes Bella is "different" and he can not hear her thoughts.

As we go on we get to the point where Alice is required to guess what Jack is and, even though it is entirely obvious, she has trouble coming up with the answer. Once again, very Twilight

Eventually we get to another point where Jack is driving a very expensive car that belongs to his brother, similar to the Cullens. After that, Jack suddenly decides it's time for Alice to meet his family (again, that would be Edward deciding Bella is to meet his family). As they drive up to the house we are told that it is a very expensive house with a 5 car garage. So Twilight.

I could go on and on about this but I think I will stop there as that is the part in the book where I had enough.

This book was fairly captivating and I probably would have continued reading if it had not been basically the same story as Twilight with a few changes where need be. I do give Amanda Hocking credit to some of the details that were changed *spoiler alert* such as Jack bleeding and not having insanely cold skin that is rock hard *end spoiler alert* but those appear to be about the only things that were changed dramatically from the Twilight Saga.

Maybe if I had continued with this book I may have found some more changes that make the book original and unique but all of the copy-cat work really turned me off and I found that I could no longer continue. For any die-hard Twilight fans, you may like this piece of work, I however did not.