Marrying a vampire definitely doesn't fit into Jessica's senior year 'get-a-life' plan.
Enter a bizarre new exchange student named Lucius Vladescu who claims Jessica is a Romanian vampire princess by birth and he's her long-lost fiancé. He's arrogant, officious, embarrassingly overprotective, and, well, incredibly hot.
Armed with a copy of Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire's Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions, Jessica tries to imagine the transition from average American teenager to glam European vampire princess. But just when things start to heat up with Lucius, a devious cheerleader sets her sights on him.
Soon Jess finds herself fighting to win back her wayward prince, stop a global vampire war – and save Lucius's soul from eternal damnation. All of which leaves her to wonder: Wouldn't life be easier if she could just fall for a nice mortal boy?
(Taken from Penguin Australia website)
I must admit first off that when I first saw this book in stores over a year ago I did judge it by it's cover. Actually, it was more by it's title. I was going through a slightly anti-vampire period and may have scorned and looked down at my nose at it. This was the wrong reaction. Attending Penguins BTL Live preview day spiked my interest in this book and I finally bought and read it. And it was not what I was expecting.
Yes, this is a book with vampires. And after reading so many books about vampires I certainly didn't have high hopes for this book to be unique. But it was. I think what I loved was that instead of trying to reinvent the perceived image of vampires like so many other authors have, Beth Fantaskey has managed to keep the traditional vampire but just give us a new story about them, painting them in a different light even .
Jessica's Guide To Dating On The Dark Side was a read with fantastic characters. They felt real and the wit and bite of a lot of the dialogue had me laughing out loud. What I loved most about this book I think is the fact that for once the protagonist wasn't just completely and mindlessly accepting of whatever supernatural occurrence they were being informed of. Jessica didn't believe what was happening instead choosing to see it as irrational. This simple thing sold me on her as a real character.
A fun read that had romance, humour and the supernatural I would definitely recommend this book. Even to those of you who are sick of vampires, give it a go, it genuinely kept me up until 1 o'clock in the morning!
4/5 for this book which kept me up all night. And now, I'm off to read the sequel!
-Laura Hanssen
