Title: Drink, Slay, Love
Author: Sarah Beth Durst
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry (Simon
& Schuster)
Pages: 320
Publication Date: September 13, 2011
Format: eGalley via S&S Galley Grab
Pearl is a sixteen-year-old
vampire... fond of blood, allergic to sunlight, and mostly evil... until the
night a sparkly unicorn stabs her through the heart with his horn.
Oops.
Her family thinks she was attacked by a vampire hunter (because,
obviously, unicorns don't exist), and they're shocked she survived. They're
even more shocked when Pearl discovers she can now withstand the sun. But they
quickly find a way to make use of her new talent. The Vampire King of New
England has chosen Pearl's family to host his feast. If Pearl enrolls in high
school, she can make lots of human friends and lure them to the King's feast—as
the entrees.
The only problem? Pearl's starting to feel the twinges of a
conscience. How can she serve up her new friends—especially the cute guy who
makes her fangs ache—to be slaughtered? Then again, she's definitely dead if she
lets down her family. What's a sunlight-loving vamp to do?—Goodreads
When I first started reading the
unfortunately titled Drink, Slay, Love, I was very dubious—I really like the vampire genre and wasn't too crazy about throwing unicorns in with them.
But, Sarah Beth Durst's unconventional take on the genre wooed me and I ended
up having a really good time with this book. And by good time, I mean that I laughed out loud (on a plane) A LOT.
To create her vampire-infused version of Connecticut, Durst takes a little vampire lore from the vast canon of vampire
literature (she even names one of the characters Charlaine, surely in
"honor" of Charlaine Harris. I say "honor" because
Charlaine in the book isn't treated with very much care.), as well as from Buffy,
adds in a unicorn, and churns out a witty romp of a novel.
The main character, Pearl, is a lot of
fun. She's vampy (in both senses of the word), intelligent, great with sardonic
one-liners, and is all kinds of kick ass. And unlike other teenage vampires who
have gone to high school, she relishes the opportunity and treats it like an
anthropological study rather than sulking about and staring at humans until
they love her. In fact, Durst does a great job in channeling Mean Girls and
Heathers into the book via Pearl's "I am superior to all of
you and you WILL bow to me" attitude, which is obviously problematic for
the Queen Bee of the school and her adoring minions. It's not so problematic
for Pearl. *grins*
While Pearl's mission from her
vampire-mafia type family is to find entrées to feed to the King of New England
when he comes a'calling, she ends up making friends, especially in Evan, the
teenage boy who is practically perfect AND has a hero complex (le sigh), and the overly-eager, but cunning Bethany (This is the first time I've encountered my
name in a book. It was weird.) who is described as a "demented
kangaroo." (I'm pretty sure people might STILL describe me that way. They definitely would have in high school. I'd like to think I've settled down a bit since then.) Rounding out the human cast are two guys, one of whom is named
Zeke (which is the name of my dog. No lie.), who fancy themselves amateur
vampire slayers. Unfortunately for Pearl, she realizes that she actually likes these humans and doesn’t really
want them to be snacks. But she also loves being a vampire and doesn’t want to
disappoint her family. And thus the internal struggle/central crux of the plot
is born.
Durst does a really great job of
creating both a human and vampire world that are believable, and I really loved
the idea of the vampire family that operates like a mafia. It keeps Pearl on
her toes and provides a lot of drama to a novel that would have otherwise
probably been so clichéd that not even Durst's incredible wit could save
it.
Overall, Drink, Slay, Love plays into every high school convention and trope
you can think of—including a big climactic scene that takes place at, yes, the
[junior] prom. While there are moments that feel a bit cheesy and perhaps a
little too formulaic, it's never so heavy-handed that you're rolling your eyes
or throwing the book across the room in protest. So if you have it in you to
get past the awful title, idea of unicorns in your vampire lore, and vampires
who do more than just brood and bite, you’ll probably end up charmed by Pearl,
Evan, Bethany, and the rest of Durst’s hilarious cast. Take it from the girl
who was skeptical at first—this book is wickedly, deliciously fun.
