I do not remember how this book got on my to read list. When I picked it up and read the inside cover to remind myself what it was about, I was perplexed since contemporary YA vampire novels aren't really my thing. Unfair as it is, that specific genre has been tainted for me due to the monolithic identifiable power of the Twilight books. But this book very pleasantly surprised me. The characters very easily could have been one note and infuriating but instead they were pretty multi-faceted and behaved intelligently. There's a small romance subplot, if you can really call it that, but the story itself is really about the motivations of Tana, its main character. The vampires were also extremely dangerous, so I had no trouble believing the high stakes Black kept setting up. In her afterword, Black talked about the vampiric lore she was inspired by and what kind of vampire story she set out to tell, and I did not have to struggle to see the influence. This is a YA love letter to the vampiric stories of Anne Rice, drawing upon hard set "rules" while also introducing a new creative element to the mythos. 
 Overall, I really did enjoy this book, much more than I thought I would. It never reached "cannot put this down" levels of engagement, but if you're someone like me who was a bit jaded (okay, a lot jaded) from the Twilight series, you might want to give this book a try, as this is an extremely refreshing take on the vampire genre.