What a fun and unique take on the vampire genre! I loved that the protagonist was an old Vietnam war vet in his 70s. I loved the conflict of him mourning the recent loss of his lover while also having to keep it a secret.

This is my first time reading Robbie Dorman, and I'm impressed with how easily he's able to paint pictures with his words! His writing is very straightforward and relatively simple (whether that's a pro or a con is a personal preference). It makes for an immersive and quick read!

The way he described the vampires was really interesting. I haven't read a lot of vampire lit (YET), so I haven't seen them written with leech inspiration before! It was do different and fun!

I loooooved how Fuchs was obsessed with Ebner. He was fascinated by him, and I think given a little more time he may have fallen in love with him 👀

Words I'm sick of after reading this: scoff, brine, foam, eddy, glacial, and vermillion. Heavy emphasis on brine, foam, and scoff.

This book felt never-ending. It dragged on and on and was so repetitive. At times it felt like the author was trying to meet a wordcount minimum or something. I'm literally so sick of seeing the words brine and foam. Everything is brine and foam. And everyone scoffs at everything.

Caro, our protagonist, had so much potential to be lovable, but she was just too obnoxious. Her constant back and forth with "I hate him, he's a monster" to "Oh my god... I love him actually" is insane. I got fed up with it very quickly, and then it just kept happening!! We get it!! Caro is a walking contradiction to herself. Whatever it is that makes her so fascinating is lost on me. All that being said, I didn't dislike her per se... I found her infuriating yet relatable. Her love for her friend was admirable and something I could relate to.

Beck was so stereotypically evil that it was kind of laughable. I never trusted him, so it was hard to sympathize with the shock and betrayal Caro constantly felt. Seeing him through her eyes is what painted him as untrustworthy to begin with, so it's mind boggling how thrown she was at his "change" of character. I guess love is blind or whatever???

I think that this was a very ambitious story. It's difficult to paint a cosmic horror picture with words, but I felt the author did a fine enough job. I liked the creature descriptions. Whether intentional or not, I felt a lot of inspiration from the 2014 film As Above, So Below and the 2005 film The Descent.

Overall, I still enjoyed reading this. There were a lot of lines of writing I really liked and made note of. Megan Bontrager got her English degree at the University of Central Florida! And I sure do love to support and cheer on fellow Florida grads (I went to the University of Florida, but UCF is close enough for me to feel companionship lol).