Discount Armageddon (InCryptid, #1)
Seanan McGuire
Cryptid, noun: Any creature whose existence has not yet been proven by science. See also "Monster." Cryptozoologist, noun: Any person who thinks hunting for cryptids is a good idea. See also "idiot." Ghoulies. Ghosties. Long-legged beasties. Things that go bump in the night... The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity—and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she'd rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance. Sounds pretty simple, right? It would be, if it weren't for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family's old enemies, the Covenant of St. George. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high stakes, high heels, and a lot of collateral damage are almost guaranteed. To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone's spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city...
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0What can I say? I devoured this book in only a few days (it would have been less if it weren't for my job). I loved it! Not only was the writing superb, but the world that Ms. McGuire created was so well thought-out. It was easy to picture and imagine all of the different species/mythical races that were living side-by-side with the humans. I think my favorites were the Aeslin Mice that were living with Verity in her apartment - they were very religious and had daily celebrations for the oddest reasons. I just thought it was so cute that they cheered for anything, and even tried to be thoughtful by piling up their trash by the base of Verity's garbage can.
I don't think I really have anything negative to say about this book. Perhaps the male lead, Dominic De Luca (from the Covenant), could have been developed a bit more, but I'm sure more will be told about him as the series progresses. It was really nice not to have romance as the sole focus of the story, and I thought the author blended it seamlessly into the main plot, which was Verity teaming up with Dominic in an effort to find out why so many Cryptids (non-human sentient beings) were disappearing.
Another thing to note is that this story just flowed so well. I did not find any scenes in the novel boring, and I really enjoyed learning about Verity's family history, because rather than writing some dull and lengthy paragraphs to explain this information, Ms. McGuire wrote funny and entertaining descriptions of the Price history. She also told it in a way that an actual person would describe their family (not like a simplified Encyclopedia description).
All in all this was a great start to what looks to be an exciting and addictive new series.
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0Let’s see. Take one Buffy-like main character who loves free running, studying the paranormal and competitive dancing. Add a broody male character who is at odds with our girl. Stir in a world full of info on all sorts of paranormal beings. Insert a pinch of humor, a dash of religious mice, and top it all off with a hot-and-cold romance, and you have Discount Armageddon.
While it was light and fun and I want a home filled with mice that worship me and mine for anything at all, there wasn’t much new to the novel; I expected a lot more and only got pretty decent paranormal romance fare.
Back to Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series for me.
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