The synopsis, from the author:"Seventeen-year-old Alice Bonham's life feels out of control after she meets Jack. With his fondness for pink Chuck Taylors and New Wave hits aside, Jack's unlike anyone she's ever met. Then she meets his brother, Peter. His eyes pierce through her, and she can barely breathe when he's around. Even though he can't stand the sight of her, she's drawn to him. But falling for two very different guys isn't even the worst of her problems. Jack and Peter are vampires, and Alice finds herself caught between love and her own blood..."
I decided to turn my attention to the insanely popular self-published YA author Amanda Hocking, and began with her vampire series My Blood Approves. It's really not too hard to see what people have enjoy about this title. It has many echoes of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight: An insanely good-looking guy likes Alice, insists on buying her things despite her protests, she takes a long time to realize that he's a vampire, she's special and so this vampire family takes an interest in her, etc. Hocking adds her own elements to the story, with the love triangle she introduces, the family life that Alice has, and Alice herself, a sort of anti-Bella, as she's not very passive, but is rather loud and obnoxious. In fact, that was one of the things that made me think that I wouldn't like this book at first. Alice just sort of annoyed me. Even worse was her best friend who walks all over her that she was introduced alongside. But as the story moved along, and we get to see Alice's beautiful relationship with her brother, and the budding friendship with Jack and his interesting family, it really became a very compelling read that's difficult to set aside. And it really is the relationships that Hocking creates here that makes this book. There's not much action and the mystery is pretty thin, but the suspense that comes from the drama between the characters is masterfully handled here. There are tons of grammatical errors in this book, which I was rather shocked by, as it's so popular, but if you can overlook those, and are searching for something to fill the hole that was left when The Twilight Saga wrapped up, My Blood Approves has a lot to offer.
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