BOOK REVIEW: Memoirs of the Damned by Yasir Hayat ★☆☆☆☆

It’s your typical vampire story. Andross Ameliyo is a man surrounded by tragedy, in what’s supposed to be an ‘epic’ vampire novel set in a timeless gothic world. On a (predictable) stormy night, he is given a choice, death or vampirism, the latter proving to be his damnation for him and his family. A story of sorrow, rage and horror, we follow Ameliyo’s story on the choices that shape his destiny. The cause of his tragedy started even before his birth. Will he choose revenge or redemption?

Gosh! This story got on my nerves. But before I get into the negatives, I do want to point out there a few things I did like.

I did like how Hayat put a new twist on vampirism. It’s not your typical ‘he-bit-me-and-now-I’m-a-hot-Victoria-secret’s-model’ vampire. Ameliyo goes through these stages, from a fledging (little power and needs all the blood) to something in the middle, to a full grown ‘vampire sire’ with your own horns and claws (Boss Level). From the vampire novels I have read (I am Legend, Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Diaries, etc) I haven’t come across any of those characters going through metamorphism of such portions.

To add, I also like the timeless element which is in the books, which adds to the feeling of weightlessness. If I had to guess, it would be somewhere between 13th – 17th century Europe, because of the prose, use of armour in the battle sequence and means of written communication. Nonetheless, you’re open to interpretation.

This point is a little mixed. I admired the way Hayat wrote the dialogues in a prose poetry kind of way but then again because I’m not used to this sort of dialogue, I didn’t quite get into it.

And that is all I can think of.

I really wanted to like this story but so much obscured the positivity. The plot, although moved fast, was all over the place. One minute he’s talking to a banshee and the next he’s on a mountain going to meet a demon. Did I miss something? The beginning did grip me into the story but later on I was losing interest. Although its less than 200 pages, I think Hayat should have invested more time in the plot as I did find some of the chapters irrelevant and just written to complete a word count.

I don’t think it’s poorly written. I think it’s poorly edited. And it wasn’t just once. It was at least one in every chapter. I guess Hayat edited this himself, but even so I think all the grammar mistakes overshadowed the story. Plus, don’t read the positive reviews on Amazon. Maybe the author wrote the positive reviews himself because the reviewer’s profile only ever reviewed this book.

Hayat should invest a bit more in introducing the characters because at times they just popped out of nowhere. I did feel sorry for the main character, but I didn’t connect with any of the others. I couldn’t care less if they lived or died.

In conclusion, Hayat isn’t a bad writer, but I think he should have spent more time simmering the plot down, spend more time developing his characters and finding himself a professional editor. Maybe Memoires of the Damned could have been saved.

Rating: 1/5
Publishers: December 1st 2012
Publication date: Troubador Publishing
Genre: Horror/Vampire/Gothic