The Becoming by Jeanne Stein

I read quite a bit of Urban Fantasy with Vampires and werewolves and weird things galore. So every once in a while, I am bound to hit a bad novel in this genre. The Becoming would be one of those bad novels. While The Becoming has a decent story line, it but it doesn't move well. The characters aren't likable, relateable or fleshed out.. And the book was slow and boring. On the book it says that the novel is a cross between Mary-Janice Davidson's and Laurell K Hamilton's novels. Having read both of these authors, I can say if that is true then it is a cross of the worst part of those authors' novels. The humor fell flat (that would be the Mary-Janice Davidson part), and the gore and sex were well just gore and sex (that would be the Laurell K Hamilton part) it didn't add to the plot of the book at all.

Our main character Anna is a bounty hunter. She is the person who comes after you when you skip bail. Her partner is an ex-football player. Together they thought there was nothing they couldn't handle until one night they met their match in the form of a vampire who had skipped bail. Evidently, vampires are thought to be only legends in this book. Anna is turned into a vampire and doesn't even know it. Luckily, there is a cute doctor who is also a vampire to help her learn the vampire ropes. But then weirder things start happening, someone burns her house down, and her bounty hunter buddy disappears. Anna assumes it is the vampire that jumped bail doing these things. But she catches up to him, and he knows nothing about what is going on. Meanwhile she is leaning more and more on her doctor friend. What is going on? Who has her friend and why are they trying to hurt her? And is the doctor on the up and up? You will have to read the book to find out.

I had a hard time with plot movement in this book and the characters in this book. The plot was slow going and not all that new or interesting. I also didn't really related to any of the characters. Anna, the main character, is not very personable and she doesn't grow, change or get fleshed out during the novel. And none of the peripheral characters are at all intriguing. To enjoy a book I either have to like, relate to, or find intriguing at least one character in the book and that just didn't happen in this novel. All the characters are just flat uninteresting beings. There is none of the humor in it that makes the Davidson novels good nor is there the angst and intrigue that made the early Laurell K Hamilton novels worth reading. As far as I can tell this book basically doesn't have anything going for it. It did hook me a little at the end when they tell Anna she is the one. And now I am thinking the one what?--maybe I will have to check out the second novel (if I can get it through paperbackswap).

Basically this book moves too slow and the characters are 2-D and uninteresting. I don't recommend anyone reading this book.