Author: Beth Fantaskey
Release Date: February 1st, 2009
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages: 351
Age Group: Young Adult
Source: Finished copy for review

Rating: ★★★★

The undead can really screw up your senior year ...

Marrying a vampire definitely doesn’t fit into Jessica Packwood’s senior year “get-a-life” plan. But then a bizarre (and incredibly hot) new exchange student named Lucius Vladescu shows up, claiming that Jessica is a Romanian vampire princess by birth—and he’s her long-lost fiancé. Armed with newfound confidence and a copy of Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions, Jessica makes a dramatic transition from average American teenager to glam European vampire princess. But when a devious cheerleader sets her sights on Lucius, Jess finds herself fighting to win back her wayward prince, stop a global vampire war—and save Lucius’s soul from eternal destruction.

This book is a fine example of that I like to see in a Vampire book. I am not a huge fan of how some YA book portray Vampires, I much prefer the dark and sinister type. I am really pleased that Beth went that route with this book. It was nice to have the story and everything have a dark feel to it. While I feel like there are some little things that could of been done better, which really aren't worth going into.. I think Jessica's Guide really embodies everything I like to see in a well written Vampire story. Beth did a fantastic job.

The story was surprisingly complex. You have the relationship between Jessica and Lucius but I didn't feel like it was overpowering or anything, I felt like it was actually quite subtle compared to a lot of the other things going on through out the story. It does play an important role though in my opinion, so it was nice to see that it wasn't just some meaningless romance that was added in for flavor. I really enjoyed the whole idea behind the vampire war, and what could and couldn't be done to prevent it and how things eventually play out. A lot of choices have to be made, good or bad and you're still not positive of where things will go as you're nearing the end. I always enjoy books where you can't just figure things out really early, and you have to actually pick things up along the way to piece together the outcome. I was just really impressed by how dark and rich this story really was. I honestly wasn't expecting it to be.

I'm not going to linger to long on the characters. As I mentioned, Jessica's and Lucius's relationship was pretty subtle in my opinion which was enjoyable because it allowed me to focus more on other points in the story. I enjoy romance, but in a story like this I felt like it was much better the way it was written. The elders, and all of the other side characters were alright to.. some of them weren't very memorable, although I guess they aren't really meant to be. I just found that there was really only a small group of characters throughout the book that I was interested in.

The end just reinforced how much I like about this book being darker than a lot of your YA vampire books. I didn't expect some of the things that happened, but there were a few obvious moments. All in all I think Beth did a great job wrapping up the story though, I feel like there was a lot of little plot strings to try and tie into the ending of this book but it was done nicely.

If you're looking for a great vampire book that isn't extremely sappy and actually has a pretty dark undertone then this book is one you'd want to read. I wasn't as happy with it as I thought I would be, but I still found it really enjoyable especially since it was a lot darker and sinister than I had first expected. I know I have probably mentioned that a lot, but it was one of the best things about this book.

Thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing me with a copy of this book for review.