A review by bellatora
Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, by Beth Fantaskey
3.0
I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up this book. A Twilight wannabe? A deconstruction of Twilight? It ended up being kind of both.
The beginning was good. Regular farm girl Jessica is followed around by a hot guy who keeps staring at her and acting strangely. Her reaction? The very realistic, "Okay, he's hot, but OHMYGODCREEEEPY. STOP STALKING ME!" I liked that. I liked that she was presented as kind of the anti-Bella.
The guy is vampire Lucius. First off, Lucius as a name was all well and good in the Roman Empire but now it reminds me of (1) Harry Potter and gross Malfoy senior and (2) the word "luscious" and not in a hot way, but in a weird, campy way. So, poor name choice Fantaskey. But Lucius (I can't even type that name without giggling...I'm just going to call him "Luc") is totally an a-hole in the beginning. INCREDIBLY arrogant and condescending. And Jessica, in her stronger moments, recognizes that this is completely unattractive and refuses to accept their engagement (because, of course, they are both vampire royalty and were engaged since practically birth. Of course). The great thing about Luc is that he shows actual character growth. Over the course of the book the arrogance fades away and he turns into a decent person. Plus, his letters home are pretty hilarious.
Sadly, Luc's character growth only highlights the fact that Jessica doesn't grow as a character. She gets "stronger" or whatever, but really she just gets obsessed with Luc and kind of dismissive of her human boyfriend. I liked Luc a lot more as the book went on, but kind of liked Jessica less as she turned into a vampire book heroine cliche.
And the story arc in Romania was just dumb. Luc went from being realistically troubled to whiny and angsty (it is very hard to do a Oh noes! I'm doomed by my eeevvvilll nature! very well). And, I'm sorry, but Jessica makes a horrible leader. She REALLY needed to develop more over the book and show some kind of tactical or leadership ability in America (even just being captain of the soccer team or SOMETHING) for me to buy her as a potential vampire queen.
This is not the worst vampire book I've read by far, but it's not the best. It's bad when I like the hero overwhelmingly more than the heroine. I think if Fantaskey had concentrated more on the humor (and Luc's letters show that she has a knack for sarcastic humor) and mined the deconstruction of vampire novel cliches some more, this book could've been much better.
The beginning was good. Regular farm girl Jessica is followed around by a hot guy who keeps staring at her and acting strangely. Her reaction? The very realistic, "Okay, he's hot, but OHMYGODCREEEEPY. STOP STALKING ME!" I liked that. I liked that she was presented as kind of the anti-Bella.
The guy is vampire Lucius. First off, Lucius as a name was all well and good in the Roman Empire but now it reminds me of (1) Harry Potter and gross Malfoy senior and (2) the word "luscious" and not in a hot way, but in a weird, campy way. So, poor name choice Fantaskey. But Lucius (I can't even type that name without giggling...I'm just going to call him "Luc") is totally an a-hole in the beginning. INCREDIBLY arrogant and condescending. And Jessica, in her stronger moments, recognizes that this is completely unattractive and refuses to accept their engagement (because, of course, they are both vampire royalty and were engaged since practically birth. Of course). The great thing about Luc is that he shows actual character growth. Over the course of the book the arrogance fades away and he turns into a decent person. Plus, his letters home are pretty hilarious.
Sadly, Luc's character growth only highlights the fact that Jessica doesn't grow as a character. She gets "stronger" or whatever, but really she just gets obsessed with Luc and kind of dismissive of her human boyfriend. I liked Luc a lot more as the book went on, but kind of liked Jessica less as she turned into a vampire book heroine cliche.
And the story arc in Romania was just dumb. Luc went from being realistically troubled to whiny and angsty (it is very hard to do a Oh noes! I'm doomed by my eeevvvilll nature! very well). And, I'm sorry, but Jessica makes a horrible leader. She REALLY needed to develop more over the book and show some kind of tactical or leadership ability in America (even just being captain of the soccer team or SOMETHING) for me to buy her as a potential vampire queen.
This is not the worst vampire book I've read by far, but it's not the best. It's bad when I like the hero overwhelmingly more than the heroine. I think if Fantaskey had concentrated more on the humor (and Luc's letters show that she has a knack for sarcastic humor) and mined the deconstruction of vampire novel cliches some more, this book could've been much better.