Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side

Author: Beth Fantaskey
Year: 2009
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Pages: 351
Reading Level: Young Adult

Genre: Fantasy/Romance
Location: Pennsylvania and Romania
Time Period: Present Day (2009)

Plot: On the first day of her senior year, Jessica is surprised to meet Lucius Vladescu, the prince of a powerful Romanian vampire clan, who claims that Jessica is Antanasia, his betrothed vampire princess. A mathlete with an exceedingly rational mind raised by hippies, Jessica finds Lucius' claims hard to believe. She couldn't be a vampire princess--she doesn't even have fangs! Besides, what about Jake Zinn, the cute farm boy next door? As she gets to know Lucius, Jessica struggles with her budding attraction to him and with the idea that vampires are real. SPOILER! When Lucius is severely injured by a horse, Jessica sees Lucius healed by drinking blood. She can no longer deny that he's a vampire, and she can no longer deny that she cares for him. On seeing Jessica's reaction to his injuries, Lucius realizes that Jessica is too tender-hearted to be a vampire princess and that she would be an easy target for their enemies. He tries to push Jessica away in a number of ways: by dating the most popular girl at school, deciding he's not going to honor the betrothal, and eventually returning to Romania without her. Jessica, knowing the horrors that await Lucius if he returns to Romania without a bride (a war between his vampire clan and hers), follows Lucius to Romania. Jessica forces Lucius to acknowledge his love for her by proving that, although he is a ruthless vampire, he could never harm her.

Comments: I didn't realize how dark this book was until I started writing the plot down--and I skipped the attempt the high school kids make to stake Lucius. When I finished the book, my overall reaction was that it is one of the better Twilight knockoffs out there. Then, as I wrote this review, almost talked myself out of that idea.

As much as I liked the story's sense of humor and I liked the chemistry Jessica and Lucius share, there is the glaring problem of the fact that the Jessica/Lucius plot comes to a dead stop right in the middle of the book. I liked Lucius for the first 150 pages. I thought he had a good sense of humor (mostly revealed in his letters home) and I liked how his respect for Jessica actually encouraged her to have some respect for herself. Then, right in the middle, he declares that he's no longer interested in Jessica and thus starts 150 pages of Lucius being a jerk and Jessica trying to get him back. This sudden switch made the plot come to a screeching halt for me, and it took awhile to get going again.

Also, for some reason, some of the names were hard for me to read. I kept reading "Antanasia" as Anastasia. And Jessica's kind-of boyfriend, Jake Zinn, will always be Zake Jinn to me.

Despite the glaring plot problem, this may still be one of the better Twilight knockoffs out there. The writing is still smarter than most. The dialog is witty, and the characters are fleshed out. Lucius is funnier than Edward ever could be, and Jessica is much smarter and more self-confident than Bella. This book is also shorter, which is a mercy.

Red Flags: Some swearing, fighting, an attempt to stake a vampire, vampires biting each other.

Multicultural Elements: Lucius is a Romanian vampire.

The Graveyard Book

Author: Neil Gaiman
Illustrator: Dave Mckean
Year: 2008
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 320
Reading Level: Intermediate (ages 9-12)

Awards: 2009 Newbery Medal, 2009 ALA Notable Books for Children, 2009 ALA Best Books for Young Adults, 2008 Horn Book Fanfare Award

Genre: Gothic fantasy
Location: A forgotten graveyard in Britain
Time Period: Present Day (2008)

Plot: When a baby boy hides in a graveyard while a man named Jack murders the rest of his family, the inhabitants of the graveyard agree to adopt him. They name him Nobody (Bod) Owens, and bestow on him the power of the graveyard, which allows him to fade from sight, walk through walls, and see in the dark. Bod spends the next fourteen years in the graveyard. He makes friends with the inhabitants, learns to read by deciphering gravestones, and learns English history from people who lived it. While Bod wants to learn all he can about the world, his not-quite-dead and not-quite-living guardian, Silas, warns him that the man Jack is still out there, searching for him. SPOILER! When Jack discovers where Bod is, he and his band, the Jacks of All Trades, infiltrate the graveyard. It will take all that Bod has learned and the help of all of his friends in the graveyard to defeat this mighty foe. However, when this is done Bod no longer needs the protection of the graveyard, and he is allowed to leave the graveyard and seek his fortune in the world.

Comments: I did something I don't normally do when I read—instead of actually reading the book, I listened to the book on CD, which is narrated by the author. Gaiman is a great storyteller, and it was fun to hear the story come to life in his telling of it. He gave different inflections to most of the characters in the book, sounding young and youthful whenever Bod spoke, ghostly and ethereal when a character from the graveyard spoke, and deep and harsh whenever the man Jack spoke. My favorite voice, however, what the Scottish accent Gaiman used whenever Bod's only living friend, Scarlet, was on the scene.

The story itself is interesting, and it grabs your attention from the very first sentence: "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." Although the wording and the setting are both dark and tense, Gaiman keeps this book light, allowing the reader to experience Bod's wonder and pleasure in the world around him. The book follows Bod's adventures as he grows up, and for awhile I wondered if the tense scene at the beginning with the man Jack would ever be referred to again. The time Gaiman takes in telling the story pays off, however, when Bod uses the knowledge he gained from almost every chapter before when the man Jack finally makes another appearance.

It's the small touches Gaiman adds to this book that really make it great. With every new character introduced, the epitaph on their gravestone is read. Bod is a precocious main character, and he learns life lessons that even adults will find interesting and applicable. Even though Bod is in a situation that would never really happen, it seems completely natural that a boy in this situation wouldn't find death scary or frightening at all, which makes the book more believable. Oddly enough, despite all that happens in this book, the scenario I had the most trouble accepting was that fact that Bod was allowed to leave the graveyard and seek his fortune at the young age of 15. This is a fact that will be appealing to younger readers, however, and it's not a hinderance to the story.

I really enjoyed this book. My only regret from having listened to the book instead of reading it is that I missed Mckean's dark, jagged drawings, a few of which I have seen and which I think would add just as much character and life as Gaiman's inflections added. I'll just have to read the book again, won't I?

Themes: Murder, Family, Definition of Home, Seeking one's Fortune, Destiny, Standing up for what you believe in.

Red Flags: Bod deals with bullies, Silas gets run over by a car (but that's okay, because he's not alive), the book contains (good) werewolves, goblins, ghouls, murderers, and other creepy things that go bump in the night.

Coraline

Author: Neil Gaiman
Illustrator: Dave McKean
Year: 2002
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 162
Reading Level: Young Adult

Awards: 2003 ALA Notable Children's Book, 2003 ALA Best Books for Young Adults

Movie Adaptation: Coraline

Genre: Suspense/Adventure/Horror
Location: A large house which has been renovated into apartments
Time Period: Present Day (2002)

Plot: When Coraline goes exploring in her new home, she finds a door that leads to nothing—the room behind it has been bricked up. However, weird things are happening, and Coraline is hearing strange noises coming from that door. When Coraline investigates, she finds that the door is suddenly not bricked up any more. Instead, what's behind it is an exact replica of her own house, only better and more exciting. An exact replica of Coraline's mother and father are there too, and they're happy to see her. There's just one problem. Coraline's Other Mother and Other Father and all of the other living beings in that world have black buttons for eyes. Coraline thinks this other world is wonderful, but in order to stay, she must replace her eyes with buttons too. SPOILER! When Coraline refuses the Other Mother's offer, the Other Mother takes revenge. She kidnaps Coraline's real parents, and is keeping them and the souls of other children she has captured in hidden places throughout the Other house. It is up to Coraline to find the souls of the other children and her parents before the Other Mother successfully steals Coraline's soul as well. With every soul Coraline finds, the Other Mother gets more and more vengeful. And when Coraline succeeds, she still must get through the bricked up door before she gets trapped in the Other World forever.

Comments: I have never read Alice in Wonderland, but this seems like a more menacing version of the Alice series. With that said, this may seem like an extremely terrifying book, but the scariness factor was mostly okay for me, and I don't do very well with scary. It obviously helped me that this is a horror book written for children, but I think older children should be fine with it as well. Coraline is definitely a braver, pluckier heroine than I would ever be, but that's the point. You have to be that strong when you are facing evil forces.

If this book was all about the scariness of the situation (see below for examples), I definitely would not have liked it. However, there were a few good morals/important points that helped me like the book and helped me see a point for the strangeness of it all:

1. Coraline realizes that the witch and the scary things around her don't really have any power. In the words of the book, the Other Mother "could only twist and copy and distort things that already existed" (p. 118).
2. Coraline realizes that giving in to the Other Mother will not make her happy: "I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn't mean anything" (p. 120). Ah Coraline, you are so wise.
   

Themes: Importance of Family, Sticking up for What You Believe In, Confronting Fears, Learning that Immediate Happiness is not always the Best Kind of Happiness, Using Your Head to Think Through Problems

Red Flags: Battling a Witch, Humans turning into Blobs, Disappearing Parents, A Man who always has Rats up his Sleeves/Under his Hat, Sinister Plots, People with Buttons for Eyes, An Animate Yet Disembodied Hand Chasing Coraline. (For the Movie: A Claymation/Digital Lady who is Mostly Naked)