Catherine M. (Catherine1) reviewed on 6/4/2010 + 60 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

This book is kind of hard to rate. I enjoyed it and read it quickly, but I felt kind of let down when I finished it.

Jane Jameson is fired from her job as a librarian. After going out and getting drunk she wakes up to find that she's a vampire. The circumstances that lead to her being turned are like none I've ever read. I thought it was hilarious. After she wakes up Jane has to learn how to deal with her new life. There's a lot of funny supporting characters throughout the book. I particularly like her friend, Zeb. I liked that he didn't wholeheartedly embrace her becoming a vampire. I thought it was a lot more authentic that he had to work at not being freaked out by her.

I think the most stand out quality of this book is the humor in it. Jane makes for a very hilarious narrator. At times her schtick wore thin and I just wanted her to take things seriously and think. As I was reading I was strongly reminded of Mary Janice Davidson's Undead series and the Lynsay Sands Argeneau Vampires series. Jane is not like Betsy, but the slapstick quality of the humor reminded me of both those series.

I really enjoyed the excerpts from The Guide for the Newly Undead. I thought that was a fun way to start each chapter.

Even though I enjoyed Jane I also couldn't help but question her intelligence at times. ***Begin Spoilers*** She is being investigated by the Council because they suspect her of killing someone. Instead of going to the Council when bad things start happening to her, she just ignores it. Maybe if only one of those things had occurred I could understand it, but all of them put together should have made Jane conclude that someone has it out for her. Especially when she was shot! But no, she thought it was smarter to just ignore what was happening and hope the council found some other reason why someone put her purse at the crime scene.

Also, she felt someone watching her house while these things were happening to her. Shouldn't she have connected the dots and figured out they might be connected? Why didn't she ask her Aunt Jettie (who's usually there anyway) to hang around the house and watch for anything suspicious. If something happened her aunt could have passed on who was doing it. ***End Spoilers***

I didn't really get the attraction between Jane and Gabriel. They had witty banter going on, but he seemed like another Zeb to me. By that I mean just a platonic good friend. I never felt any sexual tension between them. I found the parts that dealt with their attraction to be pretty boring because it truly seemed out of the blue. Why are they hooking up? Because they're both there? I didn't see many other reasons. I did like how Jane was honest about the oddness of some of her actions. Toward the end she has an... encounter with Gabriel that I thought came out of nowhere. It didn't really seem like the ideal reaction to the discussion they were having. I liked that afterward she admitted that it was a stupid reaction and that it didn't change anything.

I'll probably read the next one. I'm unsure if I like this series or not, so I figure book 2 will help me decide one way or another.

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