Bookake

Cal Leandros is only half human. His father was one of an evil otherworldly race that Cal and his brother refer to as 'Grendels'. And their mother was an uncaring drunkard, so that side of the family sucks too. The only reliable and constant in Cal's life is his big brother Nik, and they have spent the last 4 years on the run together, moving from city to city, trying to stay away from the rest of the Grendels who are desperately trying to get hold of Cal for their own nefarious purposes.

But it turns out Cal and Nik just can't keep running forever, and sooner or later they have to find out exactly what the Grendels want with Cal, and you can bet its not for a polite afternoon of tea and cakes.

What I liked:
Rob Thurman does really well at capturing the inner voice of a 19-year old kid, thats some seriously impressive grasp of character. She also does amazingly well at getting inside the head of the psychotic bad guy in later parts of the novel, and that guy is really truly sick and twisted, that has to have been difficult to write, so kudos to Thurman.

Cal is supremely witty, the whole thing is peppered with quips and clever remarks, and the banter between Cal and his brother is fun. I actually didn't get tired of the constant humour, in fact it was probably one of my favourite bits.

What I didn't like:
Most of the action scenes. To me it felt rather like this is a novel that wished it were a manga. Most of the action was set up rather precariously just in order to build up what would be some rather visually impressive scenes, but none of it held up logically. For example: a horde of Grendels take absolutely ages to run towards our heros from mere yards away, which sure looks good when you imagine it in slow motion, but in real life that combat would have been over in seconds, and our heroes would not have had time to have their heart-felt moment.

That said, I did quite enjoy the novel overall. But I don't think I'll be carrying on with the series. It's just not quite my cup of tea.