I feel conflicted about this book. At times I thought it was amazing and at others I kept wondering why I was still reading this junk.The concepts are really fun and put to goo use (vampires, werewolves, ghosts, etc). Owen Pitt is a good protagonist that is not too this or too that. The story of this first Monster Hunter novel is well paced and manages well to introduce the characters and the universe while moving the plot along.
Now for the drawbacks: If I have to read another sentence about how amazing and cool guns are, I will shoot myself! (Yes, pun intended). We get it Mr Correia, you like your guns and know a lot about them but are those long descriptions and metaphors really necessary? I don't think so... Same thing for the personal comments about government. Yes, we get it, you think governments are all evil and you hate them all. It is however quite annoying to have to read about it so often. You get the feeling the author is working really hard to push his political views down your throat. Not cool.
Then is the ridiculousness of Owen's interactions with his love interest, Julie. I mean I felt in most of these sequences that I was actually reading a YA girly novel. Every single scene (and I mean EVERY SINGLE SCENE) between these two was stereotypically adolescent to the point of irking. I get that the author was trying to be funny by showing a protagonist that was able to kick monster butt and yet unable to speak to a woman, but here too there is such a thing as pushing it too far
I'm usually not too harsh with my ratings, especially when I did enjoy the setting and the story. But the low points were extremely irritating and took away a lot of my enjoyment.