Kaity G. (asterravos) - , reviewed on 3/13/2011 + 3 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

Jeaniene Frost is a master craftswoman and This Side of the Grave is her best book yet. I'm always blown away by her phenomenal world building but it's her characters that steal my heart. I devoured this book and am already eagerly awaiting the next.
Cat is always so much fun to read about but it was especially fun to see how much she'd grown and how far she's come in this one. There were lots of references to previous books and many characters made returning appearances which gave us so much extra insight into Cat. I love how funny she is. She manages to be hilarious and lighten to book up without making it silly. In this book she was working towards showing her loving and caring side as well which I thought was very well done. Some of the scenes were a little depressing but Frost always took care of us in the end, thankfully! I'll admit that I teared up quite a bit.
Bones was better than ever! I'm so glad there wasn't a repeat of last book with relationship angst, I was so worried about that. Bones is probably my favorite vampire ever and this book cemented that. Everything I love about him was encompassed into this book; his bad ass side, fun and playful side, loving and devoted side, etc. Cat is a very lucky girl. I was so glad to see a return to his training Cat, I loved that in the first book.
One of my favorite things about this book was all of the returning characters. I was most excited about seeing Vlad who played a larger role in this book, yay! I freakin' adore him. He's the perfect 'best friend' for Cat. He's always funny and intense but I thought he was on his A game for this book. Lots of clever lines and I loved his turn for helping Cat learn. We saw the secret government crew several times briefly. Wow does Tate grate on my nerves... This book was a turning point for him so I think we can expect the next book to be very interesting. There were lots of others popping up, Fabian was another one that stood out though. He got a chance to shine and I'm really glad he put the vamps in their places. Loved his interactions with Cat too.
The plot for this book is one of my favorites for the series. Very well done and paced. In previous book, some of the battle scenes got a little drawn out or there was just so much going on that I felt overwhelmed, that didn't happen with the book. Everything was perfect. I can't wait to see where the next book takes us!

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