Early Review: Slayed by Amanda Marrone

*This title will be released on October 5, 2010*

Title: Slayed
Author: Amanda Marrone
Series: Stand alone
Cover Art: N/A

Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Simon Pulse 10/5/2010
ISBN-10: 1416994874
ISBN-13: 978-1416994879

Review Copy Source: Simon & Schuster
Reviewed by: Abigail

 

Book Description

The Van Helsing family has been hunting vampires for over one hundred years, but sixteen-year-old Daphne wishes her parents would take up an occupation that doesn’t involve decapitating vamps for cash. All Daphne wants is to settle down in one place, attend an actual school, and finally find a BFF to go to the mall with. Instead, Daphne has resigned herself to a life of fast food, cheap motels and buying garlic in bulk.

But when the Van Helsings are called to a coastal town in Maine, Daphne’s world is turned upside down. Not only do the Van Helsings find themselves hunting a terrifying new kind of vampire (one without fangs but with a taste for kindergarten cuisine), Daphne meets her first potential BF! The hitch? Her new crush is none other than Tyler Harker, AKA, the son of the rival slayer family.

What's a teen vampire slayer to do?

 Review

SLAYED is a little like what Buffy might have been (with a Romeo & Juliet twist) if she’d partnered up with Cordelia and had to teach her the vampire slaying ropes.  There is shallow fun dialogue, a somewhat campy foe, and a forbidden romance that you root for from the start. 

This is an example of a great premise (the teenage descendants of the two most famous vampire hunters: Van Helsing and Harker, meeting up and falling for each other despite their feuding families) that turned out to be a good book. 

The characters were all very believable and pitiable in their own way. Daphne as the bitter slayer whose parents don’t seem to care about the danger they constantly put her in or the truly cloistered life she’s had to live.  Then there’s Kiki, the washed up former child star whose parents kicked off the family TV show when she put on weight at the age of five.  And finally Tyler, the slayer who has been living in a car with his disturbed father ever since his mother got turned and had to be staked. 

Everyone is a mess, but in a can’t-look-away-car-crash-on-the-side-of-the-road way.  Daphne cuts out magazine pictures of the friends she imagines having (and the prom date she fantasizes about getting to second base with), Kiki is a plastic surgery addict with serious promiscuity issues, and Tyler is barely hanging on to his father’s sanity. 

Compared to the more thoughtful character development early on, the ending of SLAYED felt pretty rushed and much too easy.  Another fifty pages would have gone a long way towards smoothing out some of the convenient plot developments and jumpy action sequences (not to mention the much too perfect epilogue).  But the feuding vampire slayer dynasties and fascinatingly damaged characters make SLAYED a fun, if flawed, read.  I believe this is a stand alone story (although there is ample opportunity for a sequel, so you never know), but Amanda Marrone has several other Paranormal YA’s under her belt that I plan on picking up.

Sexual Content: References to sex. References to homosexuality. A scene of mild sensuality.

My Rating:

3/5
Good - A fun read with minor flaws. Maybe read an excerpt before buying.

Click HERE to read an excerpt from SLAYED

Previous books in the series:

1. N/A

Also reviewed by:

•  Confessions of the Un-Published