I, Vampire: The Confessions of a Vampire - His Life, His Loves, His Strangest Desires ...

I, Vampire #1

by Michael Romkey

From yesterday to a hundred years ago, he lives in the world and walks among us. He enjoys the finest things in life, including beautfiul women, well-aged wine, and the finest classical composers. He has no guilt—he has no need of it. Neither good, nor bad, neither angel nor devil, he is a man, he is a vampire. And this is his story. . . .“Women are my weakness. Or to be more accurate, I should say they are my greatest weakness, for I have many. Travel. Books. Classical music. Art. Excellent wine. And, formerly, cocaine. I admit these things without a sense of guilt. I am, as my friend from Vienna says, a man with a man’s contradictions. I am neither good nor bad, neither angel nor devil. I am a man. I am a vampire.”—From I, Vampire

Genres: Vampires, Horror, Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, Supernatural, Dark Fantasy

370 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 1990

Reviews

[P. Aaron Potter · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books I've gone to the trouble of actually finishing...mostly because I couldn't quite believe how wretched it was. Every time you think the plot can't get any more contrived, the protagonist more obnoxious, deeper it goes, like some urban-paranormal train-wreck.

The main character is the second worst Mary-Sue in modern letters. We are to believe this drug-addled, morally vapid, sex-driven liesure-suited bargain-basement lothario keeps running into the Great Minds of history (Mozart, Einstein, et. al.) and that every time he does, they are astonished and humbled to have met *him*!

This is a foul book. Other books nearby on the shelf are made worse by mere proximity to this turkey. It maketh a blight upon the land.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was completely unexpected for me. I am a HUGE Anne Rice fan and have loved her writing for years. At one point, a family friend recommended to me this book. Initially, I was intriqued because it was a book about vampires.

Romkey is a master at taking something that will challenge your perceptions of things you know and twisting them to his purpose for telling an incredible story that takes its readers on a fantastic journey. In an effort to dispel the convoluted statement I have just made - Romkey's characters consist of famous artists throughout history, ie Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

This is quite the page-turner and an easy read, especially if you are a fan of the genre and subject matter. I recommend this book highly.

[⚔️ Mythica ⚔️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ended up enjoying this although it started out a bit dull. I liked that a few historical figures are portrayed as vampires (Mozart, Rasputin etc) if you’re on a 90s vampire reading kick I’d say give it a go 🧛🏻

[Gnomepartay · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was the goddamn worst. Absolutely hated it. I am so annoyed that I wasted so many hours reading it. This book is extremely anti-feminist. It is a novel written about a man who is one of those "really nice guys." He is constantly talking about how "real women" should act and let men take care of them. It states how new "enlightened women" are ruined.
From a plot perspective just....what? This main character is a real basic male from Chicago who apparently for no reason just becomes the most powerful vampire. So much so that he is desired by vampires that are incredibly old and shakes the foundations of society. Why? It doesn't make any sense but we are supposed to go along with it.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot say enough about this book. It's not what one would expect at all. I know I seem to read a lot of vampire novels but this one stands apart from all others in it's surprising characters, people you've actually heard of, and yes, they are vampires. It's so much fun and full of good humor and completely unbelievable but the story is gripping and I have read it more than once.

[The Local Spooky Hermit · Rating 1 out of 5]

My power went out yesterday so I gobbled up most of this last night with a book light (well not the last 40 or so pages). It was.. frustrating. I would just groan when things got waaay to corny or the main character got too marysueish.. I'm picky when it comes to vampires and their abilities. In this book they can float, lift stuff with their minds, make giant illusions, hide in plain sight, go in the sun(BUT ONLY THE GOOD VAMPIRES CAN DO THIS BC.... THEY ARE GOOD GUYS!!) !.. yeah.. sure okay so.. why are you all having such a problem if the bad vampires can't do this stuff???? like drag their asses out in the sun, make them think its night time or something. seems like there are less bad vampires then good ones. Oh and anything that's helpful to mankind? a vampire made you think about it
also bad vampires made the Nazis.. and Hitler was a vampire. Maybe Edgar Allan Poe killed Hitler with a super vampire brain technique.. idk. All the cool ideas and stuff that could be a better story are just mentioned and dropped just as fast.
all the vampires good or bad are historical figures okay cool but I feel like no one acted like how they really were in life. none sound like they are centuries old. which honestly could be a great idea! but.. nah you get stuck with a guy named david a washed up lawyer in a shitty marriage in a job he hates and now wants to die. Oh yay so fun...
but no tatiana romanov (haha yeah...) just pops up and she's just oh so sad until 2 months with david, WHO SOUNDS REALLY BORING (his way of rebelling from his rich upper class life is to join a.... *drum roll* jazz band!!) "oh no i can't tell you what i am *sob sob* okay im a vampire.. oh no I must leave you forever *sob sob* okay your a vampire now.. i should help you through this or someone should.. but bye...i've got bad guys after me. nope can't tell you who or anything to help you with feeding or the changes you are going through.. *sob sob*" So of course he's like a week old vampire and kills a hooker and then got all upset trys to burn himself to death with the sun.. but he lives and says he's reborn so phew! no more guilt.!!! wow how handy! just dusts off his shoulders and goes humping each woman he sees.. (BUT ONLY IF SHE'S A REAL WOMAN! bc he thinks all women should look and act in such a way. and constantly quotes poems whenever WHICH GETS OLD REAL FRICKEN FAST!!!) yeah he just knows mind control now.
oh hey mozarts a vampire.. and he totally loves davids musical talent.. Oh... there goes Mozart.. uh okay bye? he just pops up and then leaves. just.. says tatiana misses you, look at all this cool mind stuff i can do, you can do it too, if someone teaches you.. but my times up, go to Paris. I'll see you in a year.
Then jack the ripper (prince Albert Victor ah yes that crackpot theory) shows up which hurray! something, but now vampires can move dead bodies and make them walk and talk.. (why?), Rasputin shows up (he's a good guy thats fine.. but they make him like urber nice and out of character idk.. just doesn't sound right) FINALLY SOMEONE TRAINS DAVID so he can go save tatiana from prince Albert. shes super important but they want the new guy to do it all HE'S LIKE A YEAR OLD VAMPIRE THAT CAN WALK IN THE SUN, BUT THE BAD GUYS CAN'T WHO ARE CENTURIES OLD for reasons. I read Rasputin's story about that time I noped and fell asleep and the powers on. and I hope this all made since I went to watch a movie half way into typing this and came back. I'm not keeping this.. idc what happens

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I was a teen in the late 90s, before the invasion of the Twihards, I loved all things vampire, particularly Anne Rice. I loved the interludes in history and the present, the lavish lifestlyes, the melodrama, and the broodiness (emo, before there was emo). I, Vampire was definetely written with these qualities in mind; depressed wealthy genius becomes a vampire and joins the ranks of, wait for it.....

...vampiric Romonov princesses, Mozart (yes, that Mozart), Rasputin, and my personal favourite, Jack the Ripper. Try explaining that plot line to your friends and see if you don't feel foolish.

Whilst this book does try to reach for the same qualities that Rice accomplishes, it falls woefully short. The inclusion of so many historic figures feels farcical; our depressed hero is a flat character and rather dull--he is no Louis or Lestat; the love aspect feels like an after thought. There is not much of a plot in this one, with the climax happening in the last 10 pages of the book. At least the first 2/3 of the book is the protoganist attemtping to tell his story and really just handing the audience a stream of consciousness pile of nothing.

I am dissappointed in this one; I thought it could be so much better.

[K. Anna Kraft · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/8/2020: For a lark, because this is my thing now, and I initially reviewed this story long before I came up with my "thing," I decided to re-arranged my old takeaway thoughts on this book into a haiku:

"An attractive thought,
But the Gary Stu's worst look
Lies hiding inside."


Don't know whether anyone would want to read it, but here's the old 2014 review:
I think that the writing itself is actually pretty good, but the main character is hard to like. He's a bit like a Gary Stu in a sense, in that everything seems to happen without him really taking much action. When he does take action, well. . .it seems to be in the interest of using his mental powers to increase his chances with women. His character just doesn't even out very well in my opinion.

[Brian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Easily, one of the worst pieces of tripe I've ever read. It's the only time I've finished a book thinking "how bad can it get". It got pretty bad. Every cliche' you've ever seen in a vampire story was there.
The "surprise" ending felt more like a punchline.
The book's only redeeming quality is that it's thankfully a quick read.

[Bailey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Anne Rice knock off that fails to understand that the characters are so worldly and emotional and insightful because they are hundreds of years old. They aren't some "super special" guy who does coke, bangs women and is friends with Mozart and Rasputin.

[Mark Muckerman · Rating 1 out of 5]

SPOILER ALERT!!!! This book sucks.

The positive Goodreads reviews are examples of better fiction and creative writing than this steaming turd and waste of wood pulp.

Early into it I didn't like it. As the "story" (and that is a very kind use of the word) progressed I began to hate it. By the time I was done I hated myself and the author as well. It's. Just. Crap.

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways:

The writing is hackneyed. I applaud the effort to write a story about a concert pianist/lawyer/poet/vampire (and I must assume there was some LSD involved for the author), but all I can say is WTF.

The plot is both unbelievable in its premise and development, yet horribly written. That alone is a death knell, because anyone reading a book about vampires automatically suspends disbelief at the door, and YET Romkey still manages to push the boundaries of absurdity to levels which even the most forgiving reader can't accept (and yet, there are 5 star reviews . . .).

Plot: None. Sorry, but I just can't quite wrap my head around how the last surviving Romanov (vampire) selects a Chicago lawyer to be a vampire. Said lawyer then meets Mozart (vampire) and Rasputin (vampire) who need the lawyer to singlehandedly destroy the evil triumvirate of Nazi (vampire) + Jack the Ripper (vampire) + the Borgia family (vampires), because they and the rest of the Illuminati (yep, all vampires) cannot.

This book takes the concept of McGuffin to epic levels. Need a plot twist? Vampire powers. Need to fly? Vampire powers. Need to project mental ball of fire to vaporize someone? Vampire powers. Need to learn global economics, international finance and computer hacking in 3 days? Vampire powers. Hypnosis, mind control, invisibility, super genius? check, check, check and check - all vampire powers. BUT. . . they still need a handgun to shoot vampires.

Did I mention WTF????? AND- - - there are apparently 5 more books in this series? Oh, no - not for this guy!

Rather than recycle it back through the used book store to pass this on to some other poor bastard, I may actually have to use it to start a bonfire next weekend and in so doing, make the world a little bit better place.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly, I, Vampire turned out a lot better than I was expecting. Granted, I wouldn't call this the Great American Novel or anything. The writing was juvenile; it read like a teenager's fan fiction of the Vampire Chronicles, especially Interview with the Vampire. Even so, if one can manage to look past the hokey writing, then there's plenty of entertainment to be had here with regards to the story.

To be more specific, the story is unabashedly stupid. Protagonist David Parker, a failed musician-turned-lawyer, divorces his wife and nearly commits suicide before he meets and falls in love with Princess Tatiana Romanov -- yes, that Tatiana Romanov -- who turns him into a vampire. Pursued by nefarious, unseen enemies, Tatiana is forced to leave David, who must learn the lessons of vampiring on his own, at least until he meets up with a good friend of hers, fellow vampire Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- yes, really. With Mozart's help, David must discover his powers and rise to the occasion to defeat the monsters poised against him, namely Jack the Ripper, Maximilian Von Baden, and the ultimate masterminds, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia.

Put simply, if this plot synopsis sounds too ridiculous to bother with, then this book is not for you. It only gets more ridiculous as it goes on and is not the book to read if you're looking for something more poignant. If, however, this sounds like a fun little romp, then I could recommend picking it up. I, Vampire does prove itself to be a joyride as long as you don't take it too seriously.

I mean it. Do NOT take this book seriously. It is incredibly stupid... but in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way. At least it was for me anyway.

[Elli Toney · Rating 2 out of 5]

So here is the deal. I read this one back in 1990whatever and I absolutely loved it. I reread, and just meh. There is one scene, in particular, that was quite a stark contrast to the rest of the book, it was grotesque, funny, and sick and I wish there was more of THAT. However, it took about 50% of the book to get going, and then it didn't go much of anywhere. Ok, so when I think of vampires, the best ones to me are artistic, poetic, romantic, think Bram Stoker's Dracula or Anne Rice. But the lead character was just such an over-the-top pretentious pianist lawyer snob who also happened to be a melodramatic depressed addict, it was just ridiculous. Not to mention that the most elite vamps were this author's vision of the best of historical figures and the evil vamps were his most hated. I was really surprised that Hitler didn't show up. Sadly, this went from a 5-star book from my nieve youth to a 2-star book today.

[E · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible tacky vampire cheese. Dated, circa mid-80s. Overblown and campy. You might not be able to admit to yourself how much you are enjoying it. And wow, is it terrible. In the best possible ways.

[Jamie-lynn Hazzard · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can not believe this tripe was published, let alone rated highly here. It reads like the unedited manuscript of a 14 year old boy who just read Interview with a Vampire, and thought to himeself "huh, I bet I could totally write that". No. No you can't. Sweet baby Jesus you can NOT.

[Dave Leichter · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was just too silly for me.

[Denise Devine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book!

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I laugh every time I think about this book. Ridiculous.

[Tracy's Terrors · Rating 4 out of 5]

I, Vampire (1990) by Michael Romkey avoids the potential challenges of organizational vampirism by giving us monsters with big personalities. Their nearly unlimited power poses a plot problem, but not one glaring enough to diminish my enjoyment of the book.

The novel purports to be the personal journal of David Parker, a neophyte vampire. Prior to his conversion, David had been an independently wealthy Chicago lawyer who, despite his outward success, was deeply unhappy: He was going through a divorce, struggling with substance abuse issues, and stifling his deepest desire to give up law for a career in music. On the verge of suicide, he is transformed into a vampire by a mysterious Russian ballerina, who is actually Princess Tatiana Nicolaievna Romanov, the last member of the Russian Royal family and a member of The Illuminatii. The Illuminati is an organization of the world’s best and brightest vampires, almost all of whom are famous historical figures. They preserve and develop talented humans and gently direct the unfolding of world events to benefit mankind. This beneficent society is locked in battle with the Disciples of Darkness, criminals of the vampire race, ruled by the corrupt Renaissance power player Cesare Borgia. Borgia plans to replace the governments of Europe with a ruthless vampire aristocracy and only The Illuminati can stop him.

Immediately after biting David and lifting the veil on this secret world, Tatiana leaves him for a period of one year. During this time of apprenticeship, David, with help from his mentor, Mozart, must learn to control his insatiable hunger, develop his vampiric talents, and fend off both attacks and invitations from The Ripper, one of the most brutal and twisted members of Borgia’s network. It is crucial that David resist the temptations of evil because he plays a key part in The Illuminati’s scheme to stop Borgia. If he succeeds, he will be reunited with Tatiana and formally admitted to The Illuminati. But does David have the discipline to be a member of this prestigious group? Is he strong enough to choose good over evil or will Borgia seduce him with promises of unlimited power and pleasure?


In general, I don’t like vampire collectives like The Illuminati and the Disciples of Darkness because I think that isolation brings out the best in vampires and offers writers a wider range of affective possibilities; it gives them license to fully plumb the depth of their characters’ interior lives without getting tangled in group politics. Untrammeled by their species’ consensus on best practices, solitary vampires can leave victims dead or alive, hunting as gently or as savagely as they wish. If their unpredictable violence is compelling, so too is their utter desolation. Lonely vampires yearn for companions, and they contemplate existential questions about their numbers and purpose. I prefer that there’s no one to provide the answers, and no higher authority to whom they can appeal because, then, it’s all frustration, thwarted desire, and endless speculation–the raw ingredients for tragedy and drama!! Best of all, without a society of vampires to establish behavioral norms, unaffiliated vampires become eccentric and strange, their gestures flamboyant, their passions overdeveloped. Iconic personalities like this are crushed by the bureaucracy of the pack. This is best illustrated by Interview with the Vampire: Louis and Claudia attempt to kill Lestat, the most fascinating character in the book, so that they can seek out the vampires of Europe. What they find in their search for community is a joyless theatrical troupe (same show every night, folks!) that, acting as a deliberative and governing body, sentences them to death. These hierarchies, rules, and regulations are why I lost interest in the Vampire Chronicles, True Blood, and so many other stories that focus on the politics of vampire clans.

Romkey avoids this bureaucratic tedium by relegating the organized forces of good and evil so far into the periphery that you can forget about them. The novel’s first page had me preparing for the worst: An opening email between Thomas Jefferson and Leonardo Da Vinci refers to a staff that indexes electronic records and maintains employee profiles. Thankfully, this kind of administrative minutia is absent from the rest of the book. Instead, we get a record of David’s private struggle and suffering. Whether in Chicago, Las Vegas or Paris, David spends almost all of his time alone or with mortals. His mentor, Mozart, makes a brief (albeit spectacular) appearance in the desert but, for the most part, David is left to try new things, make mistakes, and learn from them. As a company strategy, it’s not efficient, but it is entertaining.

Like all of the best vampires, David is too self-absorbed and melodramatic to be a good team player. Forever expounding on art, music, women, and wine, he’s pompous to the point of being insufferable until you realize that Romkey is poking fun at his protagonist. He inflates the young vampire’s pretensions to enormous size before comically bursting his bubble. As readers, we ride the wave of florid language as David describes his all-consuming devotion to Tatiana only to find, in the next paragraph, a post-coital scene with a random hook-up. David’s contradictions and exaggerations are best captured when he contemplates suicide. While he wants his farewell letter “to strike a note of high tragedy, of love scorned, of musical genius thrown away for nothing,” he fears that it “might sound pathetic and self-serving” (67). You think? With an ego this large, David can’t be a cog in the vampire machine. And for the sake of entertaining fiction, I am glad.

Like David, Romkey’s other vampires are eccentric artists, though of a different kind. They are masters of self-fashioning, whose carefully crafted first impressions provide some of the most stunning passages in the book. When David initially spies Tatiana, she is wearing a billowing white gown and running barefoot past a fountain, her dark hair streaming. Absorbed as he is by her beauty, he also recognizes that the scene is contrived ”like an advertisement for an expensive perfume in Vanity Fair” (48). Designed, I assume, to attract his attention, her theatrical production is dwarfed by Mozart’s elaborate opening gambit. The musician lures David into the Nevada mountains where he conjures an abandoned Victorian town complete with a once magnificent opera house. As David enters the hall, the building magically reverts to its former opulence, the footlights come up, and Mozart appears upon the stage. How’s that for an introduction! Not to be outdone, The Ripper choreographs a sensational performance in a Paris restaurant. Meticulously curating these sensory experiences, the vampires choose each sound, color, and movement to achieve a specific effect. Though agents of larger groups, they have the space and freedom for radical self-expression. It’s exciting to read.

While I love the sheer grandeur of their work, I think it creates a plot problem that is increasingly common in vampire fiction and movies. If Mozart can think a city into being, why can’t he think the Disciples of Darkness out of existence? When David learns how to neutralize enemies with his mind, the story ends abruptly because where can it go?. Plot relies on oppositional forces which can’t exist in the presence of a nearly omnipotent being. That’s why I prefer vampires who are limited by the traditional constraints of the genre: stakes, sunlight, crosses, garlic, etc. Without these checks to their power, vampire narratives can get boring fast. Romkey maintains momentum and delivers angsty vampire fun in this novel, but I am hesitant to read the rest of the series.

[Debra Jeakins · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite re-re- reads is this book I , VAMPIRE THE CONFESSIONS OF A VAMPIRE H LIFE,HIS LOVES AND HIS STRANGEST DESIRES BY MICHAEL ROMKEY. It never fails to entertain & as a re read novel,still holds the attention!

David Parker, lawyer,husband,pianist and yes, vampire! David tells his life as well as his story of becoming a vampire. David is forced to, by himself at first learn what is like being a vampire. Along the way he encounters evil at its worse in the shape of a vampire,Jack the Ripper. David must not only learn to become a vampire but defeat the evil side of the race as they try to take over the world.

Along the way we get to meet Tsarina Tatiana ,daughter of Tsar Nicholas,Mozart, Rasputin as well as Jack the Ripper and the Borgias .

Many people may find I,Vampire a silly novel but time and again it has entertained me and will always be , in my humble opinion a very good novel.

[Courteney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was intriguing. It was difficult to start reading as the style of writing was completely different from what I have ever seen before and the journal entries were hard to decipher. It was a very good read but at times it was difficult to know if the narrator was writing about his past or the present, there could have been a more definitive way to present the change in setting to the reader. A classic vampire tale of romance, mystery, and gore with interesting and surprising plot twists along the way. The background characters could have had more depth to the reader than solely being there for the narrator's purpose but they were well rounded none the less. I would recommend this book to those who have some historical knowledge about powerful figures in history otherwise many characters and plot points would be incomprehensible. Would possibly read again.

[Sean Sexton · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a world that has amazing vampire fiction written by Anne Rice and mediocre vampire fiction written by Stephenie Meyer, it doesn't seem like we need yet another set of novels told from the vampire's perspective. That said, Romkey joined the vampire party in 1990 with this story, of a young man becoming a vampire and then struggling to understand his humanity and his place in the world. i.e. Yadda yadda yadda.

Yet another vampire series would be okay, if the writing or story was amazing. Neither are. The writing is passable, the story predictable and somewhat silly. Our main character meets other vampires, most of whom just happen to be famous people from history--Mozart, Rasputin, and Jack the Ripper, to name of few. It's all rather tiresome.

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

This sucks.
I am connived that this book was written to feed the authors ego. I wouldn't even be surprised if he imagined himself being the main character as he wrote this. Every single character is made to just further inflate his ego and make him as look good as he can. Almost all the known female characters in this book die at the end. The other characters deserved to have the book be about them, not some yuppie white boy lawyer who fell to the age old cliche of love at first sight. This book started getting mildly interesting at the last 120 or so pages. At 360 pages, that is a long time to read backstory after backstory. Waste of time. Read twilight instead.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have had this book on my TBR for quite a while, and I finally got to it. I am not sure the subtitle really fits this story (strangest desires??), and overall, I think it was trying to be an Interview with the Vampire, and I just didn't think this explored enough about our main character (who felt a bit more ancient than a 1980's guy). There are lots of famous folk who have been and are vampires, not sure we really ran into anyone that wasn't a historical figure. I can't say I hated this book, but it wasn't my favorite either.

[Julie Ann Dunham · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading this book. Absolutely LOVED it! Now, a little back ground. I found an advertisement in another book for this book and the 2 that followed. I've kept the article for 30 ish years. Last month I found I, Vampire and to my surprise instead of 3 books, there are now 6. I ordered them all on Amazon. I started reading I, Vampire last Wednesday. A week ago today I started watching The Borgias on Netflix. Which made reading this that much more fun and interesting. If you enjoy stories about vampires and remember the early 90's, wellthen, this is the series for you.

[Amri H · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just personally found it a little dry. Not something I would read again. And overall I just couldn’t get through it very easily. Kept having to take breaks.
Edit
Actually now that I’ve sat on this
This book sucks and wasn’t enjoyable and the main protagonist is a loser. I’m being mean and this review gives no insight into the book. But I am actually so mad this is something I read now.

[Steven R · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not even very far into the book he references the famous buried in Montmarte Cemetary in Paris. And in that list he includes Jim Morrison. Jim is buried in Pere Lachaise cemetary NOT Montmarte. How about a little research? It turned me off immediately DNF.

[WayBackWhen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really fun book that almost feels like a classic in its style and writing. Very gothic and dark and though the protagonist and some of the characters can make you role your eyes, occasionally, they're all still very fun to follow. I recommend it.

[Eric Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this several years ago. It was the fifty cent pick up at a book sale. Enjoyed it thoroughly...it's stuck with me over the years...i'm currently tracking down the rest of the series

[Gwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off well, was rather drawn out and a little over long in the middle and positively bizarre at the end.