Hemlock Grove

The story is a great, creative twist on the teen paranormal phenomenon, bringing with it great ideas for werewolves and vampires. I had no problems with the plot.

What I did struggle with were some of the word and phrasing choices. The author uses quite a few words in the normal narrative that many readers would struggle to comprehend. It's one thing if the dialog of certain characters was structured that way to build depth, but with the general narrative, an author risks alienating his readers. Also, some of the phrasings seem to be colloquialisms to the Pennsylvania region and steel industry, but when used only sparingly, as they are in this work, they just don't seem to fit.

Criticisms aside, I really enjoyed this book. If you really enjoyed the series on Netflix, you'll enjoy this book. You get a bit more depth to the teenage characters, especially Shelly, who is my favorite. You can see what they had to flesh out with the series, ie the sheriff and Chasser partnership. But the book doesn't suffer by not having those pieces. I really hope to see this book become a series as I'd love to continue following Roman and Peter's friendship now that the arc has concluded.