Rating: 2 1/2 stars

Joseph Miles survived a nightmare. Abducted at the age of ten by a sadistic teenager, Joe was tied up, cut and stabbed repeatedly, enduring the teen biting and licking his wounds while being violently sodomized. If all that wasn’t enough, Joe’s captor would drink cups of Joe’s blood like some vampiric monster. Now a college student, Joe can feel himself changing. An intense hunger is burning in him and the need to kill and feed on human flesh is overwhelming. Joe is convinced that he was infected with a serial-killer disease passed on to him by his childhood madman. When Joe falls in love with one of his intended victims, he is torn between his desperate need to find a cure and giving up the most amazing, powerful, life-affirming gift he has ever experienced.

There truly is some sick stuff in here. While I was reading, the same phrase kept going through my head, “write what you know”. I am praying this isn’t the case. When I was a kid I used to see if I could gross my friends out. I came up with some crazy stuff, but this book tops it all. It’s disturbing, but in a disturbing way. It wasn’t even so much the cannibalism that bothered me; it was details of a 12 year old blowing her father so she wouldn’t get into trouble when he caught her circle jerking 13 gang members. At least the father had the decency to kill himself after.

However, once I got past the initial shock, I realized the book was pretty much one dimensional. If the main character wasn’t eating somebody, looking to eat somebody or wishing he could stop eating somebody, nothing else was happening. The secondary characters were just fluff, except for Alicia, Joe’s victim/lover; but even she had limited range.

Wanting to know more about the author, I read Wrath James White’s blog. Among the many questions he answers is “Why do you write such terrible things”. Wrath’s answer was that there is some sick shit going on in the world and to be able to write something even darker was a challenge. White further asserts his writing helps make real life look like sunshine and roses. In my opinion, White's focus and attention to detail seemed to go a bit beyond that. I just know there’s some sick bastard out there using this book as a how-to manual.

In his blog, Mr. White also mentions that he is married and has three children. My only question is, has anybody seen them lately? Uh, just kidding Mr. White. Please don't eat me.
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Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Company, Incorporated
Pub. Date: November 2008
ISBN-13: 9780843961645