Overbite takes place six months after the events in Insatiable, in which Meena Harper falls in love with the prince of darkness (Dracula’s son) and they take out some bad guys. In this book, Meena is working for the Palentine Guards, a secret organization attached to the Vatican whose mission is to destroy vampires and other sundry demons. Meena is convinced that her ex-lover can be redeemed, and that every being, even demons, can choose good or evil. She spends much of this book arguing her case.
And I liked that idea. I’m not sure how it was supposed to apply to vampires, but it was a fine, noble idea. It just didn’t come together in the end.
Lucien (the prince of darkness) spends most of the book feeding from an evil river so that he can be a better ruler of dark forces. Meena spends most of the book dodging one attack after another. Her ability to see someone’s death, well formed in book one, didn’t come into play much here.
Lucien’s mother is an angel. I was never clear if this meant Lucien had the ability to choose whereas others do not, because at some point it seemed Meena wanted all vampires to be able to choose good or evil. Yet only Lucien seemed to have that choice.
The plot was fine. It moved. I didn’t have any sticking points here. There was a lot of action and it went rapidly from point to point. Aside from not believing the major theme came together at the end, I think my biggest problem with the book is that I found it misclassified under romance. There is no romance in this book. I think there’s supposed to be some sort of love triangle thing going on between Meena, Lucien, and Alaric, but almost no time was spent on it, and in the end, I remembered precisely why I don’t like love triangles. Nevertheless, it may have helped my enjoyment of this book quite a bit if I had gone into it expecting more urban fantasy and less romance.
I also had the feeling…and I hope this doesn’t get out of line…that the story was rushed, and should have been a longer series. It made me wonder if the author (who I don’t think normally writes fantasy) got in a bit over her head and then just decided to finish it. Most stories of this nature that I’ve read take 3+ books to resolve, and particularly with regards to developing a real romance and fully exploring the good/evil as a choice theme, it could have used another book or two. (Note: The way it is written, this story is done. I don’t expect a sequel, nor am I particularly interested in reading one. I just felt like it should have been written differently, expanding the story to cover more books.)
All in all, if you’re looking for some urban fantasy to read, you may like this duo (Insatiable and Overbite). It’s a quick read (both book) and there are moments of humor you may enjoy. I don’t recommend going into it for the romance, though.
Rating: 2.5/5
Title: Overbite
Author: Meg Cabot
ISBN: 0061735108
Published July 5, 2011