Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Last "Wages of Sin" post EVER

**NOTE: Spoilers ahead! I am summarizing the entirety of this book, and I'm doing it just for you. You'll thank me later.**


Wages of Sin was nearly the death of me (see what I did there?) . . . but I'm done! Let the brain cell regrowth commence! *celebratory trumpets sound*

So where were we? Oh, yes . . . Cin goes to meet Kali, the Destroyer. And Kali looks like this, because our dear author has never had an original idea.


Except Kali isn't wearing the metal bra. We prefer our vampires topless up in here.

Turns out she wants Cin to work a blood-magic spell to open a portal to her demon dimension so she can retrieve her princess crown, which will give her the power to go back in time and NOT kill her girlfriend in a fit of jealousy (yeah, she did that) and NOT be bound to the mortal dimension. Then she plans to destroy the world and rule over everyone who manages to stay alive. It's all quite ambitious.

Cin puts on her brave-girl face and fakes confidence through all the talk of world destroying and actual zombies walking around and Kali caressing her suggestively. Then a bat flies by her head and she crumbles into a quivering mass of hysterical womanhood. I grow tired of her stupidity.

Then Kali drinks Cin's blood, but she bites her boob instead of her neck . . . because this author has never met a stereotype she didn't like.


Then The Righteous come to her rescue and swords are drawn and fighting happens and Cin uses her magic to set Kali and Sebastian on fire a little bit. Then they all run away.

Back at the house, Cin decides for certain that she wants to be a vampire and goes to her room to bask naked in the setting sun, as you do. Michael walks in and is struck powerless by her nudity . . . because he's a man. All noble thoughts of saving her from becoming a vampire and keeping her away from his man parts are forgotten. Sexy times ensue. I encourage you to use your imagination here, because our dear author seems not to have any personal experience with this sort of thing and instead drew all her references from a generic porno. But I won't deprive you of this tidbit:
His manhood stood out proud and terrifying. I sucked in my breath and stared. He had to be joking; there was no way this was going to work. 
Needless to say, it DOES work . . . despite the fact that virgins don't tend to melt into puddles of ecstasy the first time (on account of the agonizing pain) and vampires (aka dead things) shouldn't be able to get erections. Oh, and also he bites her neck and drinks her blood while they're in the throes of passion. Classy.

The whole becoming-a-vampire part is treated like a trip to the grocery store. He drinks her blood, she drinks his blood, she goes to sleep (dies?) for three days (original), and wakes up a vampire. No inconvenience or discomfort whatsoever . . . so in fact far more pleasant than a trip to the grocery store.

Once a vampire, she's suddenly very brave. Unfortunately, she is still an idiot. Her first day as a vampire, she finds a nest of bad vampires who have been killing prostitutes. Michael tries to get rid of her so The Righteous can do their thing without her getting in the way, but then this happens:
I stuck out my chin. "They're my vampires, I found them, and I'm going with you."

She then proceeds to be of no help at all while the other three are fighting and also somehow manages to distract Michael and get him stabbed.

Later, she goes to her old house, where her aunt and uncle are now living with their kids, to retrieve a book that contains a spell to bind Kali in a rock or tree or something. When she gets there, she finds that Kali and Sebastian are holding her aunt and uncle hostage to lure her out of hiding. She goes to them and pretends that she's seen the light and wants to be on their side and do everything they want and maybe even have some sexy times with Kali. Then she convinces them to travel to Stonehenge, where she will perform the spell to retrieve Kali's crown.

Things happen on the journey. Cin inexplicably understands sexual innuendo and giggles about a pub being named The Cock and Bull. She also alternates between being terrified of Kali and feeling quite comfortable enough to go shopping with her. In case you haven't caught on yet, NOTHING ANYONE DOES MAKES SENSE.

Character arcs. Who needs them?

When they get to Stonehenge, Cin starts to work Kali's spell but switches over to the binding spell and traps Kali in one of the stone tablets. And a werewolf attacks Sebastian. (If you're wondering why there's a werewolf, that makes two of us.)

Then The Righteous show up, and the four of them touch swords and say a little motto about defending the innocent and being the hand of justice or some such nonsense. At this point, they've become the Three Musketeers and D'Artagnan, because why NOT rip off that story, too?

And everyone lives happily ever after as vampires who save people but also survive by drinking human blood.

Let's never speak of this again.

10 comments:

  1. Wow congrats getting through this and I hope the brain regrowth isn't too painful. I did this several times reading your post cos really, wtf? http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/thumb/7/73/JeanLucPicardFacepalm.jpg/618px-JeanLucPicardFacepalm.jpg

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  2. I think you should only read terrible books from here on out.

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  3. If I thought I could survive past 30 doing that, it could be my shtick.

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  4. I think Picard would be very supportive in this sort of situation.

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  5. YES! YES! THIS! 

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  6. Oh wow.

    I don't really know what else to say?  Can we get a Congressional Metal of Honor up in this joint?

    I just went and checked this thing out on Goodreads - THERE ARE MORE OF THESE BOOKS!?  Um... and the reviews are great too:
    "This book is a 4.5 star entry and Jenna Maclaine is now on top of my "to-watch" author list!"

    Yikes.

    So when do you start reading (and blogging) GRAVE SINS ?!?!

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  7. OMG, and I have to add this because it's kind of perfect.  So I found Jenna Maclaine's blog and there was this:

    "St Martin's Press won't be publishing any more of the Cin Craven series. The books got great reviews (and I heartily and humbly thank all the readers and bloggers who took their time and energy to write them), but sales were not what we'd all hoped for. In fact, my agent advised me that if I wanted to continue writing, I would need not only a new idea but a new pen name as well. As you can imagine, that was more than a little depressing! "

    People, the books are so bad that she needs to change her name if she ever wants to be published again.  Ouch.

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  8. NEVER, Brooks. Never ever.

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  9. That's kind of sad. I mean, it was fun mocking her when I thought she had a following...but now I just feel mean.

    Makes me wonder if those five-star ratings on Goodreads are from her family members.

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  10. I think those fans were/are totally for real. That blog post mentioned that she may finish the Cin series as self-published e-books - so it's not really the end of the line for her.

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