I found the book kind of dull, actually. It's not terrible, but it's not great either, and not at all requred to use or even play the source material. It borrows heavily from Fatal Addiction, while also adding a bithereand there to the mix, some of it good and some not so much. It also seemed the writers where not too clear on the differences between Ghouls and Revenants, or just didn't differentiat between them enough in the text.

I was not a fan of Ghoul weaknesses, and in particular the fact that a few of them actually just translate into some Clans getting a new FREE power when they make a Ghoul, which is intended to be a weakness for the Ghoul if you choose to play one. However, as most of them either easily identify the Ghoul as a Ghoul of a certain Clan, it also really defeats a lot of the point for Ghouls.

I also found it very questionable that the book enforces that 99% of vampires are jerks, mistreating their Ghouls, if not purposefully abusing them in various ways, (physical, mental, social, sexual, body horror other), just because, which sort of reminds me of the old school mentality that all Clans are monoliths of thier stereotype. I'm sorry, that's dumb.

I don't want to come off as sounding like it was all bad, which it wasn't, and there are a lot of good little bits in there. I wish that there was a lot more development on Cleavers, Animal Ghouls, and some more Ghoul groups. Mention of Thin-Bloods would have also been appropriate and cool. And I really liked the idea that, in the Camarilla, a Ghoul could potentially hold a better position of authority than some vampires.

Except for the chapter headers and a few other choice pieces, I didn't care for the art.

Please go back to Black and White. Color, but color art especially really breaks the mood for Vampire. Color is not an upgrade in this case.

Merits and Flaws seemed very odd to me, but didn't like the idea that unless you buy a 3 Point Merit, your Domiter doesn't like or care about you.

All in all, 2 Stars seemed to low. 2.5, if it where an option seems about right, but I went with 3.