My
Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Betsy Taylor (nobody calls her Elizabeth!) is a damn
good secretary, but her boss is an idiot, so he fires her. Worried about how
she will continue to pay for her designer shoe habit, she is a little
distracted while rescuing her cat from the snow-covered road and gets run over
and killed. However, this is nothing compared to waking up inside her coffin only
to find that her evil step mother has selected an ugly pink dress and a pair of
cheap shoes as her ‘going away’ outfit. Once she comes to terms with her state
of undeath, Betsy then has to deal with her new, and decidedly unappreciated,
need to drink living blood. Plus it seems that she fulfills some crazy prophecy
about the Vampire Queen, which makes her a threat to the local Bela Lugosi look-a-like
head vampire, Nostro and the potential savior of the rebels, led by the
devilishly attractive Sinclair.
From the very beginning, this is a very funny book.
It is told from Betsy’s perspective, and she has a wonderfully witty and snarky
voice. I found myself laughing out loud at Ms Davidson’s turn of phrase and the
ludicrous situations that she puts her characters into. Betsy herself is a very
flawed character, being vain and more than a little dumb, but still very
likeable. Her attempts to rid herself of her undead status are hilarious, as
well as obviously unsuccessful, but she is stubborn to a fault and just keeps
on trying because she is convinced that she is a zombie. However, her encounter
with a woman and child being attacked makes her realize that she is a vampire:
one who lisps when her fangs grow! So she runs to the nearest church to end it
all, but finds herself surprisingly not burnt into a pile of ash. Indeed, the
usual anti-vampire things have no effect on her, which she assumes is because
the movies and books have got things wrong.
The plot is somewhat formulaic, but the ways in which
Betsy deals with her transformation into the most powerful vampire on Earth are
really what sets this book apart. She runs to her parents to tell them that she
isn’t actually dead: much to the disgust of the evil step mother who had taken
her death as an opportunity to steal all of Betsy’s designer shoes. There are
the faithful sidekicks: Betsy’s childhood friend Jessica, who is amazingly rich
and rabidly anti-racist, and Marc, a gay doctor that provides a useful snack at
one point. The banter between these characters is worth the cover price alone. The
obligatory stud muffin is every girl’s dream: tall, dark, handsome, wealthy and
immaculately dressed. Even better, he understands her shoe-obsession and
exploits it to get her cooperation. Admittedly, she does see him having sex
with three women at once, which puts her off a bit, but we know that they are
destined for one another. The token villain is the wonderfully pathetic Nostro.
Although he is a ruthless and psychotic despot, he has the most appalling
taste. He wanders about in stereotypical dress and even talks like a really bad
Hollywood vampire, although I always had the image of The Count from Sesame
Street in mind when he appeared.
I agree with Ana at The Book Smugglers: this is a
very silly book, but laugh out loud funny, which makes it very readable. Love Vampires’ reviewer agrees that it is great fun, suggesting that it would be a
good read for a woman who likes fashion and looking good: I am neither of
these, but I still enjoyed it! :D
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please let me know what you think, because comments make me happy!
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.