Tweety McTweetersons

• 21:18 Book Log #4, REALLY liked Agnes and the Hitman, by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. annathepiper.livejournal.com/837767.html #

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Book Log #5: Nightlife, by Rob Thurman

Nightlife is not a perfect book. It's got long stretches where Cal Leandros, our protagonist, goes annoyingly overboard with his half-smartass, half-emo-OH-NOEZ-I-AM-NOT-HUMAN attitude. It's got a pretty standard bingo card of supernatural creatures, and it's got stretches where the narration, for me as a reader at least, spent too much time dwelling on its own deftness. The overall plot, too, is not all that unusual in urban fantasy: boy is half-fey, boy is on the run from his inhuman kin, boy and his half-brother kick a lot of ass, blood and carnage ensue.

On the other hand, there is deft narration here. Not unlike its protagonist, this book does know what it's doing even when it's being cocky about it. And when it stops doing that, when at the end Cal drops a lot of his arrogance, the prose coalesces along with him and makes me glad I came along for the entire ride. There's genuine creepiness in here, too. Sure, we do have the standard lineup of supernaturals--elves, trolls, vampires, werewolves, banshees. But Rob Thurman does put enough of an unusual stamp on them to make them fresh again, and I'll give her this too: her troll Abbagor was one of the scariest parts of the book.

Also? It's a bit of a nice change of pace to read an urban fantasy with a male protagonist these days, even if he is a half-arrogant, half-emo teenager, not to mention a book where the primary motivating character relationships are not actually romantic. Cal and Niko are great as brothers, and their bond to each other is the resounding strength of the story. Overall, this is a strong first novel and I'll be interested to check out its sequels. Four stars.