2 out of 4 stars
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The Memoir of Valentine Koremdakoff by Danica Mara Shuck is a novel in the young adult fiction genre. The book is just over 100 pages and takes place in the year 1639. The book is written in the first person point of view wherein Valentine Koremdakoff tells us his story in a journal format.
Valentine is a vampire. He's had many experiences and already lived more years than most humans. He lives in the village of Zukrag and protects them from the war that is raging all around them. Unfortunately, the villagers don't care about his protection and think that he is an abomination. They have even gone so far as to kill his daughter. The question is will he continue to protect this village even after what they have done? Or will he leave them to their own devices?
I know exactly what is going through your head right now. "Not another vampire story. That's way overdone." Before you count this book out entirely, let me say that there is more to it than just the fact that Valentine is a vampire. In fact, I'd say that that's just a part of his personality. The author focuses on his grief over the loss of his daughter as well as the mood of the village and the war raging around them. For that, I am grateful.
I enjoyed seeing the world through Valentine's eyes. Through the journal format, we were able to learn about his history and where he came from as well as the current events. I was just as intrigued about how he came to be as I was about what he was going to do with those that killed his daughter. However, this format does leave something to be desired. The main character is only Valentine himself. Everyone else is a secondary character. This might not be so bad; but, because this is written in first person, we don't learn anything about the other characters. This makes everyone but Valentine feel flat and undeveloped.
As for Valentine, he is a conflicted character. Quite often he quotes from the Bible. One of his wives was a Christian. He believes that his daughter accepted Jesus before she was killed (and he uses something very similar to those words.) Yet, he claims to not be a believer. He admits that there was one Jesus and that he died upon a cross. This leaves me confused. Is the author trying to write a Christian book? Is Valentine eventually going to turn his life over to Christ? If not, I'm not sure why the author has added so many Christian elements to the story. In the end, it's just a puzzle that I couldn't solve.
One of the other things that I had an issue with was the author's treatment of cusswords. Since this is in the young adult genre, profanity should be used sparingly if at all. In this book, the author basically censors herself using dotted lines instead of the curse word. Not only is this annoying, but it becomes kind of pointless as well. Most everyone (including teenagers) will know to what word she is referring. The first sentence, for example, states, "War is a -----." This occurs quite often. In my opinion, either you need to use the cussword or alter the sentence. Don't try to use a swear word without using it. That's just annoying.
There were also small errors located here and there throughout the text. In some sentences, for example, "ans" is used instead of "and." Also, the first few sentences of some chapters were in a bigger font. Not all of the chapters were that way, though. If there was a rhyme or reason behind this, I didn't figure it out. Also, the whole book seemed to be in bold print. This wasn't wrong, but it was unnecessary.
Now to the hardest part of the review, the rating. I enjoyed the story. I think it has great potential. But there were too many issues for me to give The Memoir of Valentine Koremdakoff any more than 2 out of 4 stars. These issues include the formatting and grammatical errors as well as lack of character development and the use of swear words without using swear words. I believe, with some revision, this story could be a winner. I hesitantly recommend this to those who enjoy fictional memoirs; however, I would caution any potential readers that there is also a cliffhanger ending.
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The Memoir of Valentine Koremdakoff for His Daughter
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