Crap Book Reviews, just add vampires!
So, my bookshelf has been breeding again (and, in possibly the most niche genre I’ve ever heard of- humorous Regency paranormal romance- more on this in later entries) and in the spirit of doing crap book reviews, this one is called Wicked Game, by Jeri Smith-Ready. It’s about a vampire radio station. Yes. Our novel opens with hapless heroine, a girl named Ciara, desperately needing a summer internship to graduate college. In the interview process with radio station WMMP, she accidentally lets it slip that she comes from a family of con artists and thieves, but the radio station needs cheap labor almost as badly as she needs a job, and so they ignore her 18 point font resume and kleptomaniac tendencies. Ciara then has to meet the DJs before she’s hired, presumably to see if they will eat her like her, because they’re coincidentally all only at the station at night (when they’re not cowering in fear from the sun. Wait, I mean, sleeping). Hmm.
DJ #1 plays ‘50s music, DJ #2 is a hippie who a) reeks of pot, b) sniffs Ciara and c) struggles with the concept of computers because in his day they did it all by hand. Even though he looks Ciara’s age. There’s also reggae DJ and 80’s goth-punk pseudo-British bitchy female DJ and cute shy grunge DJ aka Designated Love Interest. The DJs, who are all sitting around playing poker and drinking tequila, approve of Ciara, and she’s hired, mostly because the station’s about to be bought out by a giant media conglomerate and they need all the help they can get. Even though Ciara claims to have this street-wise “bullshit alert”, when asked about the DJs, “do you know what they are?”, she doesn’t answer anything starting with ‘v’ or ending in ‘-ampires’. The guy who hires her drops heavy hints like “it’s important that you know what we are- I mean, who we are, so that you can be one of us”. Yes, he actually breaks out that phrase, but blondie here doesn’t get it. So she goes home with books they gave her to brush up on her rock savvy and stumbles on this pamphlet from the fifties called “the truth about vampires”. Ciara notes that the info “sounds like rehashed clichés to me, warmed-over Anne Rice, but hey, I scarf those trendy vampire novels like they were heroin-soaked potato chips, so I’ll play along”. Judgmental, much? She finds out that vampires have to maintain ties to the time in which they were vamped, like dressing retro and pulling out old slang. Thus, the DJs who look like they’ve stepped out of a time machine. Oh, and they’re OCD, super-seductive, blah blah blah. Ciara comes to the brilliant conclusion that they’re not vampires or crazy people, just trying to play a prank on her, but she doesn’t like their sense of humor and so promptly quits her job.
At the bar that night, drowning her sorrows, she runs into grunge vamp and decides that it would be a smart idea to take him home with her, because even though he thinks he’s a vampire, he’s really hot. So they alphabetize her CD collection together before he sorrowfully comments that he doesn’t blame her for not believing he’s a vampire. Then Ciara pulls out this brilliant one-liner: “Hey, I know: I’ll tie you to my bedpost until sunrise and if you burst into flames, it’ll prove to me you’re not kidding!” It’s a wonder he doesn’t run out of the room screaming, but instead, Ciara grabs grunge vamp and they furiously make out. Everything’s heading toward sex when, yep, he bites her thigh and she kicks him in the head and it all sort of goes to hell from there. So he’s a vampire, she’s no longer horny, and she just enraged a dangerous predator by- I repeat- kicking him in the head. He apologizes and gets out of Dodge as soon as he calms down.
And that’s where I’m at right now. More updates on Ciara’s astounding stupidity as I read. Now for a show of hands: who bets it’ll go all Empire Records and she’ll have to save the radio station from imminent destruction while maintaining a steamy yet angsty relationship with grunge vamp? Anyone?
DJ #1 plays ‘50s music, DJ #2 is a hippie who a) reeks of pot, b) sniffs Ciara and c) struggles with the concept of computers because in his day they did it all by hand. Even though he looks Ciara’s age. There’s also reggae DJ and 80’s goth-punk pseudo-British bitchy female DJ and cute shy grunge DJ aka Designated Love Interest. The DJs, who are all sitting around playing poker and drinking tequila, approve of Ciara, and she’s hired, mostly because the station’s about to be bought out by a giant media conglomerate and they need all the help they can get. Even though Ciara claims to have this street-wise “bullshit alert”, when asked about the DJs, “do you know what they are?”, she doesn’t answer anything starting with ‘v’ or ending in ‘-ampires’. The guy who hires her drops heavy hints like “it’s important that you know what we are- I mean, who we are, so that you can be one of us”. Yes, he actually breaks out that phrase, but blondie here doesn’t get it. So she goes home with books they gave her to brush up on her rock savvy and stumbles on this pamphlet from the fifties called “the truth about vampires”. Ciara notes that the info “sounds like rehashed clichés to me, warmed-over Anne Rice, but hey, I scarf those trendy vampire novels like they were heroin-soaked potato chips, so I’ll play along”. Judgmental, much? She finds out that vampires have to maintain ties to the time in which they were vamped, like dressing retro and pulling out old slang. Thus, the DJs who look like they’ve stepped out of a time machine. Oh, and they’re OCD, super-seductive, blah blah blah. Ciara comes to the brilliant conclusion that they’re not vampires or crazy people, just trying to play a prank on her, but she doesn’t like their sense of humor and so promptly quits her job.
At the bar that night, drowning her sorrows, she runs into grunge vamp and decides that it would be a smart idea to take him home with her, because even though he thinks he’s a vampire, he’s really hot. So they alphabetize her CD collection together before he sorrowfully comments that he doesn’t blame her for not believing he’s a vampire. Then Ciara pulls out this brilliant one-liner: “Hey, I know: I’ll tie you to my bedpost until sunrise and if you burst into flames, it’ll prove to me you’re not kidding!” It’s a wonder he doesn’t run out of the room screaming, but instead, Ciara grabs grunge vamp and they furiously make out. Everything’s heading toward sex when, yep, he bites her thigh and she kicks him in the head and it all sort of goes to hell from there. So he’s a vampire, she’s no longer horny, and she just enraged a dangerous predator by- I repeat- kicking him in the head. He apologizes and gets out of Dodge as soon as he calms down.
And that’s where I’m at right now. More updates on Ciara’s astounding stupidity as I read. Now for a show of hands: who bets it’ll go all Empire Records and she’ll have to save the radio station from imminent destruction while maintaining a steamy yet angsty relationship with grunge vamp? Anyone?