So… I Met a Vampire Review

On a foggy morning, thirteen year old Jessica wakes up in a strange forest, not knowing how she got there, but with a feeling she is being watched. Helped to a local police station, memories start to come back, about where she has been the last few days… She remembers a deal she had to make to stay alive… to obtain a small bottle of vampire’s blood. With the use of a magical phone, her journey takes her to the English Lake District, a lonely Scottish village and the bright lights of New York. She meets mysterious men who work for a secret government organisation and a vampire who seems willing to help, but is he and his teenage vampire friends to be trusted? On the run, she must reach a government hide out before her adversaries catch up with her and take her to a realm of darkness and blood…

I got this book free for review, and for two discussions here and here, so thank you!
Unfortunately, I just couldn’t enjoy it. It was a short book, so easy to read, which was nice. And don’t get me wrong, there were parts of this I enjoyed. Only, not enough to give this book a very high rating. We start off in a mysterious setting, with our protagonist knowing nothing about where or who she is. Straight away, I was hooked. I love books where we find things out as the main character does.
Then, all of a sudden, she remembers a whole lot of stuff. There’s no reason for it, nothing that sparks it. It just happens, very conveniently. So that was unexpected, and absolutely not where I expected the book to go. Also, it meant we didn’t get to know Jessica. If McAvoy had played on the amnesia, we could have gotten to know her as she got to know herself. Instead, we were thrown into the story. But, it meant that she remembered she’d died. Which is exciting, right?
Only, then that part was skimmed over too. We don’t get a huge explanation of how exactly she died. Then, the next cool idea is also skipped over. She has to complete challenges for the Reaper – two are completely useless, and one involves a challenge. The first two could have also been exciting and difficult, which would have made the book more thrilling. That, or the third one should have been explored more. The Reaper even said to her she completed it in an unexpectedly short time. Which is impressive, but as a reader, not what we want. We want to be on the edge of our seats, worrying about whether or not she’s going to get to live. And if we’d got to know her better at the beginning of the book, instead of her having memory loss. That would have made us understand why she wanted to live. Her only reason was simply so she could be alive. Doesn’t exactly make you feel for her, does it?
Even the title of the book, the bit about the vampires, was rushed. You’d expect huge fight scenes, especially when we’re introduced to vampire-hunter Charles. Except, it turned out the Reaper was a much more important part of the book. The vampires took up a couple of chapters. Like I said, she got in and out in an impressively fast time. With a title like this one, I’d expect the vampires to play a much bigger role.
I gave this book a two-star rating, mostly because it has so much wasted potential. All of these plot points could have made the book amazing; instead, they were rushed