Tori's Review: Blooded by Amanda Carlson

Released: April 11, 2012
E-book: 60 pages
Price: $2.99
Publisher: Hachette 
Source: Netgalley
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Jessica McClain
Buy: Amazon

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Jessica McClain was born the only female in an all male race. The only problem is-she's no wolf. Called a curse, a witch and the Daughter of Evil by the superstitious wolves, Jessica decides to fight for her freedom, at age nineteen, the only way she can-in the ring. 

When she's brutally attacked right after her fight, is it enough to finally earn her freedom off Compound, or will she be forced to endure the hatred even longer . . .

My Rating:

My Opinion:
Chapter one has an interesting start, and one that instantly pulled me into the action and kept me reading despite some questions that kept bouncing around in my head; the first and most important question being: how on earth is a human surviving a brawl against a werewolf who is willing to risk his life in order to fight said human? I'm wondering if the threat of the Alpha is ever-present in the werewolf's mind, and in turn, making him hesitant to go all out?

Loved the witty dialogue in the first few chapters. Jessica is definitely feisty and made me laugh two pages in. I like her already. Also enjoyed how we are thrown into the bigger conflict right away, and very smoothly. I think I have a good general sense of Jessica thus far, which is a feat for a new character--in a novella, no less.

Some pieces of the dialogue following chapter one's strong start were a bit long-winded. Realistic in real life, maybe, but I felt it was a bit too long for one person to be talking in a book. I also found descriptions regarding Jessica's father to have a bit too much telling, and not enough showing for my tastes. Necessary, perhaps, considering this is a novella, though.

Both of these, however, were balanced out by my intrigue of the supernatural community that keeps getting mentioned. So far we know that werewolves are prevalent, but what other magical nasties are lurking to munch on our heroine for lunch?

Final verdict: loved the beginning, but after the confrontation, the novella began to drag a little bit with all the exposition. Since this is a prequel to FULL BLOODED, it would make sense to read this first; however, I do not think BLOODED gave the series and characters justice, though from what I've seen, many people absolutely loved the novella. I think the long-winded dialogue will improve as Amanda writes more novels. Hell, maybe this is just a fluke. We'll see when I read FULL BLOODED.

I think that BLOODED would be better to read after checking out the novel. I need a better sense of all the characters, and I currently feel like I do not appreciate them enough yet. I will address this further in my review of FULL BLOODED.


Series Order:
0.5. Blooded
1. Full Blooded (Tori's Review)