TITLE: Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side
Book 1 in the Jessica series
AUTHOR: Beth Fantasky
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: vampires, drama, romance, urban fantasy
PREMISE: A girl learns that she is betrothed to a vampire and that she herself is a vampire.
MY REVIEW: Well, the good news is I liked this a hell of a lot more then Jekyll Loves Hyde. Why couldn't Jekyll have been written in the same humorous tone as this? I would have liked it a lot more and have been able to tolerate it.
This is funny, endearing and I get why people liked it so much. Granted I still have issues with it like I did with Jekyll. Things in it make no sense, the MC is rather annoying once she and the guy get over the fun snarky phase (why couldn't they have kept that up? I would have liked Jessica so much more by the end...), and I'm sorry but it is faux-feminist. I hated how the girl was cool on her own but of course she got sexy by the end but naturally needed the guy to tell her it was okay to be sexy and accept help from the male because you know feminists are never girly. Spare me the damning of tomboys please. Why can't a female protaginist enjoy being girly AND be tomboyish at the same time? Why does it always have to be one or the other?
Still, those are just annoyances for me. The average reader should get a kick out of this if they don't take it too seriously and look at it as the fun vampire novel it intends to be. I may be checking out the sequel that came out in January now.
WHO SHOULD READ: vampire fans, Twilighters who have a sense of humor about the series
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five gothic novels
Nice review! I can't believe I didn't pick up on the feminist angle, as I'm usually all over that! I enjoyed the humor, but wish she could have been stronger towards the end as I didn't like how she moped around without him. Looking forward to reading the next one!
ReplyDelete