City of Nightmares

This book is wasted potential.

The setting is so cool, but instead of getting to explore a city where you can be turned into your actual greatest nightmare, most of this book is about a will-they-wont-they with a vampire. The book being as short as it was does it no favors, and while the main character is kindof annoying, I did trend towards liking her, if she was given more time to develop or do something other than worry about being a coward and think about a vampire or her dead sister.

There's also a mystery plot to this book, which...the answer to is largely not given clues for, so its impossible to guess, which makes mysteries not fun. The main character's trauma over her dead sister feels very surface level (“my sister became a giant spider, so now I am A COWARD BECAUSE MY SISTER DIED”) and I think her growth in this book felt unearned. Because, again, she spent most of the time talking to a spooky (but hot?) vampire.

If this was a book one in a larger series I would be okay with this hyper focused plot. Like if the author was planning a Dresden-type series with this. But it's the first in a duology. And I just....find this concept so interesting, and am very sad it's being used as a tool to be mediocre.