I cut my reading teeth on The Babysitters’ Club books by Ann M. Martin, R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series, Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High books (which I understand are supposed to be getting a makeover— no, the Wakefields are still assholes, but HEY! They’re slimming down from a size 6 to a size 4! Schyeah, ’cause they were so fat before. Anorexia is sexy!), and the awesome teen paranormal romance books by Annette Curtis Klause. I abandoned those books in favor of Jayne Ann Krentz, Linda Howard, and Susan Elizabeth Phillips when I turned 13. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until I turned twenty-something that I re-discovered my love for Young Adult books. I mean, have y’all read Melissa Marr, the House of Night books by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast, Stephanie Meyer, and Libba Bray? These kids are reading heavy-duty quality stuff! A Great and Terrible Beauty was frickin’ brilliant! The teens in these stories are definitely not worrying about what flavor lip gloss to use, who Logan Bruno— BMOC, natch— is taking to the winter formal, or how to effectively pop zits… they’re having to face real world issues like a father dying in Iraq, mini existential crises, drugs, being sexually harassed by a step-parent… awesome real stuff… and six of these stories are compiled in this very entertaining anthology by some of my favorite writers, the motiff of which is staying up all night, when you’re supposed to be in bed, dreaming about Logan Bruno.

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Grade: A-

Here’s an anthology that totally made me squee like I was a teenage girl creaming myself all over the new Ben Jelen CD or something (Ben Jelen, btw? SUPER-HOT). Meg Cabot, Michele Jaffe, Kim Harrison, and Stephanie Meyer IN ONE BOOK? OMG!!!!!!! And all of these stories were sooooooo good! I even liked the one by the girl whose name I’ve never heard of (her last name is Myracle? *scoff*). My favorite? Stephanie Meyer’s, of course! She’s got a delicious good boy hero (very, very, very good) and a very, very bad girl heroine (very, very, very bad). And it worked! The rest of the stories… well, I can’t pick the second best, either! But if I had to definitely pick the one I liked the least… I’d have to say… Meg Cabot’s. While the story itself was good, I’m so not a fan of dueling first-person narratives and I had to get past that to be able to enjoy it. On the other hand, Myracle’s is creepy, yet oddly poignant; Jaffe’s is hilarious and clever; and Kim Harrison’s is suspenseful, scary, and sexy. And the theme that pulls them all together? THE PROM, of course! If you’re a fan of 80’s American teen flicks, you know how important the prom is! Everything gets resolved at the prom! Damn, I can’t quite remember my own, but if it’s anything like these prom stories, maybe I shouldn’t remember. Heh.

Meg Cabot’s The Exterminator’s Daughter is about a teenage vampire slayer named Mary stalking the mysterious, ridiculously handsome new boy hanging around her best friend Lila with a crossbow in her hand. There is a reason for this. Sebastian Drake, according to Mary, is a vampire. And Mary should know. She comes from a long line of vampire slayers and was trained by her mother who was recently incapacitated and is currently not in the game. Because of this, it is now up to Mary to stop this vampire on her own. Too bad Lila is not at all worried about her new boyfriend being a vampire and wants to become a vampire herself. Enter Adam, the cute best friend of Ted, the boy Lila dumped for Sebastian. When Adam saves Mary from being torn in half by Sebastian, Mary is forced to tell him about her vampire-huntin’ activities. And why she’s got personal beef with Sebastian Drake. Yes, it’s personal. Naturally, Lila wants to take Sebastian to the prom and Mary figures she should go to the prom too… only to watch over Lila, of course. And if Adam wants to take her…
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Grade: A-

Beauty and the Beast has always been my favorite fairy tale. I just liked the idea of a beautiful, innocent young woman falling in love with a creature that is a little less than human and is more of an animal than anything. I even liked the Disney version with the dancing teacups and everything. That part when Beauty comes back to the Beast and he’s near death and she begs him not to die because she loved him and couldn’t live without him… man, gets me every time. Which is why it always pissed me off, even as a little girl, when the Beast turned into a handsome young man. I mean, it totally negates the whole “look beyond the surface” lesson of the story. Beauty fell in love with the Beast, not some pretty boy. I gotta admit, though, that I always got a kick out of Beauty staring at the transformed Beast in the end, like she’s thinking, “Who are you? I want the man I fell in love with!” Can you just imagine falling in love with someone just as he is only to have him yanked away from you and replaced with a beautiful man just because The Powers That Be can’t have a beautiful, innocent, young woman settling down with a man who isn’t conventionally handsome… someone different? But that’s a rant for another time. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley, who wrote the beautiful, elegant Sunshine, is more in the vein of the Disney version with the dancing teacups, but this time around, Beauty is a little more than a simpering fool. The Beast, on the other hand… well, he could have been a little more beastly, but he was adequately charming. And kind of boring. I wish he’d gone a little nuts at least and tore up some furniture. But he doesn’t. Sigh.

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About three things I was absolutely positive:

First, Edward was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of him… that thirsted for my blood.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Grade: A

There hasn’t been a book in a while that really, totally slayed me like this one did. Everything in this book is just so absolute, so “love me forever or I’ll… just die, die, I tell you!” and so angsty and terrible and beautiful at the same time. Ah, young love. I’ve grown cynical in my old age and completely forgotten what it was like to have such a major crush on somebody that the very nearness of that person made me hyperventilate or throw up in nervousness. This book evoked that feeling in me and I found myself sighing over… nay, yearning… for the hero, Edward. For us veteran romance readers, the plot is pretty much old-hat: girl moves to a new town, becomes instantly attracted to the most mysterious guy around, is initially thwarted by mysterious guy “for [her] own good”, but the two of them get together anyway, and it becomes the ultimate “no one else GETS me like you do” story. But I have to admire the passion with which Stephanie Meyer imbues this story so that it doesn’t seem so old hat. You won’t care that you’ve read this same damned story a hundred times before… you’ll be so swept up with her two romantic leads and how in love they are with each other that you won’t even notice Meyer owning your ass for the next five hundred and something pages. Her prose is clean, nothing fancy… but evocative and beautiful in its simplicity. Damn it, I wanted to be Bella. I wanted Edward to be my boyfriend. He’s the new Derek Craven! I… I just love this book so much! *sobs*
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Grade: A+

All I can really say about this book is WOW. I just finished reading this book and can honestly say that it’s rare for me to be caught in the thrall of fan girl lust, but this little gem is absofuckinglutely fabulous. In fact, I don’t even know how to review it because I don’t want to accidentally reveal anything that will ruin the book for you. The heroine, a sixteen year old girl who still worries about stupid things like what to wear to school or why her classmates don’t like her, is honestly more mature than the so-called grown-ups that I usually encounter in the books that I read. This book was written by Annette Curtis Klause, who also wrote the classic and timeless, Silver Kiss, which I read when I was a fan girl in braces and Guess jeans (what, it was cool when I was a kid, alright?). The world that she has created here of werewolves who are struggling to adapt to world of Homo Sapiens is honestly more visceral and sexy than anything Laurell K. Hamilton has written in the past couple of years. There are no actual sex scenes and the gore is quite minimal, but there is just something about this book that is very primal, sexual, and violent in a very beautiful way. I know I’m babbling like a fool right now, gushing praises for this book, but WOW. I mean, WOW. Alright, before I make a bigger asshole of myself, let’s break this sucker down.

The heroine is Vivian Gandillon, a sixteen year old girl whose father was a pack leader who perished in a fire when the panicked masses of their town found out the truth about her people and burned down the inn where they lived. Her pack is forced to move to another town, where she is not having the easiest time adjusting, mostly because the people in school are intimidated by her (she is freakishly beautiful and knows it), and her slut mother would rather chase after a man young enough to be her son rather than sit down and talk to Vivian about her feelings. What’s worse is that she doesn’t feel that she fits in with her pack because the old ones are too set in their ways and the ones who are her age are nothing more than wild, rebellious, future convict materials who revel in making trouble for her. As a way of letting out steam, she likes to paint moonscapes and one of them is published in the school magazine, next to a poem about werewolves written by a boy from school. Wondering if the writer is a werewolf like her, she asks around and finds out the identity of the boy. At first, she is disappointed that he is a “meat-boy,” which is a derogatory term for a human male, but when she approaches him and he doesn’t shy away from her, she finds herself intrigued by him and decides to pursue him, much to the chagrin of her mother and pack leader wannabe, Gabriel.

And oh, Gabriel. What a hottie. Ever since Vivian’s dad died, Gabriel has become the de facto leader of the pack, using controlled violence to keep the wolves in line. Since this book was written strictly from Vivian’s point of view, we never really get to know how Gabriel thinks or what makes him tick. What’s awesome, though, is that as you read the book, you can feel Gabriel’s presence in every scene, even when he’s not around. He’s strong, virile, and every scene he has with Vivian honestly sizzles.

If you’re icked out about the idea of a twenty four year old man having sex with a sixteen year old, let me just ease your mind by saying that they don’t. They don’t have to. Every time Gabriel touches Vivian, you just know that he’s branding her as his somehow. His eyes follow her every move and every word he says to her is deliberate and loaded with meaning. That’s what’s awesome about Gabriel. He reminds me of that scene in Swingers when Vince Vaughn’s character is explaining to Jon Favreau’s character how a girl is like prey: “You know, you got these claws and you’re staring at these claws and you’re thinking to yourself, and with these claws you’re thinking, ‘How am I supposed to kill this bunny, how am I supposed to kill this bunny?’ You’re just kind’a gently batting the bunny around, you know what I mean? And the bunny’s scared, Mike, the bunny’s scared of you, shivering. And you got these fucking claws and these fangs, man! And you’re looking at your claws and you’re looking at your fangs. And you’re thinking to yourself, you don’t know what to do, man. ‘I don’t know how to kill the bunny.’ With this you don’t know how to kill the bunny, do you know what I mean?” I don’t know if that helps me describe how FUCKING COOL Gabriel is, but he totally reminded me of that scene. I don’t even know why.

Anyway, most of the book focuses on Vivian doing teenage stuff, like going out on dates, avoiding her mother, and hanging out with friends, but this isn’t your average Hilary Duff bullshit. Ms. Klause takes the “teenage werewolf as a metaphor for a girl’s changing body” and puts her own twist on it (kind of like Stephen King does for telekinesis and Carrie). I mean, Vivian KICKS ass. She’s tough, man. She’s sexually aware of her body, knows exactly how beautiful she is, and can manipulate a scene to her advantage when she needs to. When she starts dating Aiden, a human boy, her pack initially gives her shit, but she pretty much tells them to fuck off. Eventually, she begins to feel the strain of trying to fit into the human society, while trying to find her rightful place in her pack, but she deals with it. She does one stupid thing that fucks up the already tenuous hold that Gabriel has over the pack, but you forgive her because you remember that she’s a teenager. The cool thing about Vivian is that she won’t let anyone give her shit. Not her mother, not Gabriel, not anyone in the pack. She even does a pretty psychotic thing that had me cheering for her instead of being disgusted by her. Make of that what you will.

I don’t think I’m sufficiently describing how cool this book is. I can make fun of a book pretty easily if it sucks, but if I really like a book, I’m totally at a loss to describe how I feel about it and find that I can’t review it without sounding like a teenager gushing over Justin Timberlake. Annette Curtis Klause creates something magical here. Her prose, her description of Vivian’s world flows very smoothly and she writes dialogue that is powerful and sometimes, downright funny. There’s a scene in this book where Gabriel must fight every single potential alpha wolf in the pack in order to be officially declared the pack leader and Ms. Klause writes the scene with just the right amount of tension and suspense. During this scene, Vivian also accidentally declares herself as Gabriel’s mate, and it’s frickin’ awesome. I can’t say any more without ruining the book for y’all, but let me just say that it’s frickin’ brilliant. Go to the bookstore, the library, wherever, just get this book. Read it. Now.