It's a shame I have to downgrade it from my original read and review, because I hate the male love interest, and because of problematic content surrounding gender and consent, which said love interest is linked to.
Evan actually slut-shames Pearl on pages 54-55, saying she's dressed like a hooker, with a too-short skirt for the whole world to see her legs. Err, fuck you, dude. She can dress however she damn well pleases. This is made worse by the fact that he knows far more than he is letting on at this point. He fucking knows. While he does apologise once and admits he was out of line, the books frames his comments as helpful, when Pearl is deciding what to wear for human high school; she doesn't want to look like a "hooker".
Evan is a grand scale manipulator, violator, and stalker who destroyed Pearl's entire life, but that's spoiler territory and I won't reveal too much. Just know that Evan is alpha-male scum, but it's ok because he's ridiculously, godlike hot, like all YA male love interests, and he's "right" about everything, in the way of the ends justifying the means. Because the female victim's life, thoughts, feelings and agency don't matter, right? She never knows what's best for herself, or how much better she can be unless a boy comes along to coerce and dictate her choices - her very being - for her. Effing gag me.
And if I ever see the words "luminous eyes" again...
Pearl is also far, far too forgiving of the two wannabe vampire hunter boys, Matt and Zeke, who try to kill her forty pages into the book. Like, they hit her with a car, kidnap her, and put her in a cage (where did they get one big enough to hold a teenage girl? Never explained, and I'm not sure I want to know the answer anyway) for the intent of letting her burn to death in the sun. Her newfound daywalking abilities are what save her. Not once does the usually badass and vengeful vampire Pearl think of retaliation against the human boys, bloody or otherwise. They are her natural prey, and they bested her without a fight! No, Matt and Zeke are relegated to comic relief à la Bulk and Skull, and are goofy friends with Pearl! As I was reading, all the while they were being funny and stupid, I kept thinking, "They tried to kill the female protagonist. That is how they were introduced." Not good.
I wonder if Pearl would be so lenient towards her would-be murderers if they were girls...
'Drink, Slay, Love' has serious girl-on-girl hate issues, and problematic mother-and-other-female-authority-figures in contrast to the "nicer" and "more reasonable" male figures, to top the archaic YA clichés. Most of the girls that Pearl knows, in her family and at school, are catty and shallow stereotypes who hate her, either out of jealousy or the belief that she's a "freak". Pearl talks of "power plays" within hierarchies, in both vampire families and in high school, and they usually involve female rivalries and frenemies. These "bitchy" and imbecilic girls often meet horrific fates.
Infringing on free will "for the greater good" is another issue the book barely justifies. Additionally, I can't recall a mention of a POC character or a queer character. No, wait, there's "coffee-colored"-skinned Sana, but she's a token minority and a sporty stereotype. Hardly positive representation. How did I ever think that 'Drink, Slay, Love' was clever and subversive?
At least the hint of a love triangle is downplayed to the point that it's not really registered.
'Drink, Slay, Love' is one of the better examples of YA vampire literature, especially for the early 2010s. The writing isn't bad, though there are padding and pacing issues (the book did not need to be nearly 400 pages long). Pearl can be genuinely funny and witty sometimes, too.
But I'm sorry, I've had enough. I've had enough of the paranormal genre, whether it's YA or older, with its heteronormality, whitewashing, girl-on-girl hate, manipulative alpha male hot love interests whom the "strong female protagonist" falls for anyway, and consent and boundaries being carelessly violated (just because it's fantasy and sci-fi it doesn't make it any less evil!), to last me a lifetime.
To conclude, I merely expect better now.
Final Score: 3/5
Original Review:
Quite possibly the best modern vampire novel I've read so far, period.
'Drink, Slay, Love' is a delightfully fun read, and being aware of its own genre, the humour hits the mark in a subversive sense. The comedy is also brilliant and well-placed throughout the story. 'Drink, Slay, Love' takes everything relative to 'Twilight' and flips it on its head - some of the twists are subtle (the girl being the bloodsucking monster integrating into the human world through school), while others are more obvious ('Twilight' movie memorabilia being used as decorations for a deliberately bad vampire party). It's like the author had a checklist of the major plot points and themes (or lack of) in the first few 'Twilight' books and found ways to subvert each of them.
Such as, say, vampires and werewolves? How about vampires and unicorns? How about giving an immortal vampire a legitimate reason for attending a human high school? How about making the school setting and the students major key players in a vampire takeover plot? Edward and Jacob? How about Evan and Jadrien to inspire girls to make teams out of over a war for a lead girl's affections? First-person narration? Overdone. Sucks. Let's do third-person from the lead girl's perspective for a change.
Most of all, unlike 'Twilight', 'Drink, Slay, Love' is totally bizarre but knows it. It revels in craziness but doesn't lose its heart, intellect and purpose for existing along the way. It's immensely entertaining (mostly), clever and warm.
Sixteen-year-old Pearl Sange - a precious, valuable and useful stone in the eyes of her Family - is just your average, heartless vampire. She's a predator and sees humans as nothing more than food to be chowed on whenever she needs to. And she's happy this way.
Until a unicorn materializes out of nowhere and stabs her in the heart. Most inconvenient.
But even more so when she suddenly finds she can walk in the daylight, and starts seeing her own faint reflection on glass.
Instead of staking her for being an abomination, Pearl's assertive Family sees an advantage in her new abilities and enrol her for Greenbridge High. The plan is for Pearl to gather up a feast of young humans for the king of New England (no name given) who will be arriving soon for a coming-of-age Fealty Ceremony for Pearl and other young vampires. Failing the king's satisfactions means certain death, so Pearl cannot fail her mission.
But what happens when she goes too far undercover, and gets to know her prey a lot more intimately than she ever did before? Humans in the daytime interest her, they make her feel things. They're nice and friendly, and she likes that! While she's always seen herself as superior to mortals - and she has a talent for spotting social and hierarchy dynamics in groups - what happens when Pearl starts to feel sickening guilt over her victims' fates? Her bloodlust fades, and she starts to develop a conscience for the first time in her young vampiric life.
A dilemma is born, and the solution is a matter of life and death for either the vampires or the humans.
Being close to 400 pages long, some scenes in 'Drink, Slay, Love' do require the reader's patience for things to really get going, although there're plenty of meaningful action-packed moments (such as the practice fights between Pearl and her vampire boyfriend Jadrien). Not every chapter is laugh-out-loud hilarious, but some of Pearl's witticisms and observations of human culture are side-splitting and ring so much truth.
I like the high school parts better than the parts with Pearl's vampire Family, because, ironically, the human teens - Bethany, Ashlyn, Zeke, Matt, Tara and Sana - are much more interesting than the dark, solemn and mysterious vampires. I don't know if this is intentional. Zeke and Matt are Tweedledee and Tweedledork: wannabe vampire hunters, and this is played for laughs. Pretty much all the high school elements in this book are played for laughs, but not to an extent where the drama and high stakes (pun intended) are undermined. I really grew to care for these teenagers.
I love the humour, the characters, and the development Pearl goes through. She falls in love with the sun and the light at first sight, before she falls for a boy. The two scenes where she admires the rays coming in through the school library's stein glass windows are beautifully written. The dawn and sunset change her in more ways than one, however they add to her feeling of loneliness in a family of nocturnal vampires. She may yet realize she has more friends among the sun-loving humans than she thought she had...
Among other relationships, Pearl also learns about families. Families other than her own who might be more accepting of her than the vampires are. She learns about the prism spectrum that is the bonds of love, and how and why human compassion is formed.
'Drink, Slay, Love' is at all once colourful, lovely, slating, suspenseful and macabre.
I don't usually mention a book's cover in my reviews, but I feel I have to talk about the one for 'Drink, Slay, Love'. It is the most ingenious and fitting I have ever seen. The girl's head is cut over her smiling lips so you only see her sucking on a glass bottle of blood through a straw. This is done possibly to give an impression to an outsider that the book's reader, while holding it up to his or her face, is the one drinking the blood! The glass bottle itself also looks a little like a unicorn's horn. Nice touch. The cover is delicious (in a dark and twisted way) and reflects the tone of the novel within its pages perfectly.
'Drink, Slay, Love' has the fundamental ingredients for an excellent high school vampire parody that takes jabs at 'Twilight' and its popularity. However it never forgets about plot and the need for urgency and action in a story. Humour is not its only worthwhile feature - there is a beating heart within the book's spine and the narrative blood flows out within the pages with the help of the protagonist Pearl's wonderful third-person perspective.
But the one character in 'Drink, Slay, Love', who I'm not sure about, is Evan Karkadann. He has a hero complex (easily crossing towards stalker tendencies) which is played for laughs, and this trait might become his downfall. But his relationship with Pearl could have been written more believably, I think. It seems that even authors of subversive supernatural romance find it difficult to write a romance that doesn't revolve around one's looks and beauty. Evan is handsome, helpful, a poet, and a sweet-talker. Translation: a walking cliché. His face is even once described as being perfect (aaarrrgggg!!! That tells me absolutely nothing about him!!!). Granted, his "perfection" and ridiculous knight-in-shining-armour persona is twisted and explained three-quarters of the way in, but Pearl still could have been more self-aware and resistant to his charms.
And by Grandma's pumpkin pie, does Pearl need to keep mentioning his big, luminous eyes? Love interests having unusual eyes is mentioned in every romance novel ever written, I'm convinced. I find it annoying; for I'm positive that even a vampire couldn't see the extent (meaning: goodness and beauty) of a whole person just by looking into his eyes! Windows of the soul, yes, but a means of deceit and manipulation. Ever heard of Hypnotic Eyes?
I'm relieved that Pearl is smart enough to lampshade this, and she acknowledges that pretty eyes and acts of chivalry do not make Evan an instantly good person on the inside. She calls him an idiot several times. But it doesn't change the fact that he is described as ridiculously handsome.
Why can't we have a supernatural romance where the love interest isn't drop-dead gorgeous? Can he be conventionally unattractive? That would have been a really remarkable subversion that kicks other books of its kind in the fangs.
But on the plus side, 'Drink, Slay, Love' doesn't really have a love triangle. Pearl's boyfriend Jadrien is shown clearly to be a reckless and thoughtless idiot after Pearl's transformation into a vampire with a soul. He flirts with another vampire girl called Laurie, an object for a disturbing girl-on-girl hate match. Oh dear. Pearl fights Jadrien and wins multiple times, and she is not interested in him anymore when her feelings for Evan grow. She thinks Evan is tasty, so she has to suppress her fangs whenever she's near him. This is actually a clever gender-swapping element taken from 'Twilight' - where the vampire boy has to resist the urge to bite his human female love interest. In a way Pearl has already broken up with Jadrien before getting to know Evan, so the romantic elements are not at all convoluted to extremes or take over the plot which is much more interesting anyway. Jadrien doesn't appear much during the middle of the book, in fact. It makes me want to say, "That's my girl (Pearl)!".
The ending of 'Drink, Slay, Love' is a bit anticlimactic as well, like there's a sequel in the making. But there are good points to it that make up for the shortcomings. Without spoiling anything, the themes of friendship, family, making your own choices in life, and sticking to your new heart's resolutions are not forgotten about.
And what happened to Pearl's school guidance counsellor? A wrap-up to that plot thread would have been nice. Oh well.
Slick, clever, dangerous, outrageous, funny, and when it's good it's brilliant. Imperfect, but I don't really care. I enjoyed 'Drink, Slay, Love' and I probably would have loved it unconditionally if I'd read it as a teenager amidst the 'Twilight' craze.
Sweet stuff.
Final Score: 4/5
Final Score: 3/5
Original Review:
Quite possibly the best modern vampire novel I've read so far, period.
'Drink, Slay, Love' is a delightfully fun read, and being aware of its own genre, the humour hits the mark in a subversive sense. The comedy is also brilliant and well-placed throughout the story. 'Drink, Slay, Love' takes everything relative to 'Twilight' and flips it on its head - some of the twists are subtle (the girl being the bloodsucking monster integrating into the human world through school), while others are more obvious ('Twilight' movie memorabilia being used as decorations for a deliberately bad vampire party). It's like the author had a checklist of the major plot points and themes (or lack of) in the first few 'Twilight' books and found ways to subvert each of them.
Such as, say, vampires and werewolves? How about vampires and unicorns? How about giving an immortal vampire a legitimate reason for attending a human high school? How about making the school setting and the students major key players in a vampire takeover plot? Edward and Jacob? How about Evan and Jadrien to inspire girls to make teams out of over a war for a lead girl's affections? First-person narration? Overdone. Sucks. Let's do third-person from the lead girl's perspective for a change.
Most of all, unlike 'Twilight', 'Drink, Slay, Love' is totally bizarre but knows it. It revels in craziness but doesn't lose its heart, intellect and purpose for existing along the way. It's immensely entertaining (mostly), clever and warm.
Sixteen-year-old Pearl Sange - a precious, valuable and useful stone in the eyes of her Family - is just your average, heartless vampire. She's a predator and sees humans as nothing more than food to be chowed on whenever she needs to. And she's happy this way.
Until a unicorn materializes out of nowhere and stabs her in the heart. Most inconvenient.
But even more so when she suddenly finds she can walk in the daylight, and starts seeing her own faint reflection on glass.
Instead of staking her for being an abomination, Pearl's assertive Family sees an advantage in her new abilities and enrol her for Greenbridge High. The plan is for Pearl to gather up a feast of young humans for the king of New England (no name given) who will be arriving soon for a coming-of-age Fealty Ceremony for Pearl and other young vampires. Failing the king's satisfactions means certain death, so Pearl cannot fail her mission.
But what happens when she goes too far undercover, and gets to know her prey a lot more intimately than she ever did before? Humans in the daytime interest her, they make her feel things. They're nice and friendly, and she likes that! While she's always seen herself as superior to mortals - and she has a talent for spotting social and hierarchy dynamics in groups - what happens when Pearl starts to feel sickening guilt over her victims' fates? Her bloodlust fades, and she starts to develop a conscience for the first time in her young vampiric life.
A dilemma is born, and the solution is a matter of life and death for either the vampires or the humans.
Being close to 400 pages long, some scenes in 'Drink, Slay, Love' do require the reader's patience for things to really get going, although there're plenty of meaningful action-packed moments (such as the practice fights between Pearl and her vampire boyfriend Jadrien). Not every chapter is laugh-out-loud hilarious, but some of Pearl's witticisms and observations of human culture are side-splitting and ring so much truth.
I like the high school parts better than the parts with Pearl's vampire Family, because, ironically, the human teens - Bethany, Ashlyn, Zeke, Matt, Tara and Sana - are much more interesting than the dark, solemn and mysterious vampires. I don't know if this is intentional. Zeke and Matt are Tweedledee and Tweedledork: wannabe vampire hunters, and this is played for laughs. Pretty much all the high school elements in this book are played for laughs, but not to an extent where the drama and high stakes (pun intended) are undermined. I really grew to care for these teenagers.
I love the humour, the characters, and the development Pearl goes through. She falls in love with the sun and the light at first sight, before she falls for a boy. The two scenes where she admires the rays coming in through the school library's stein glass windows are beautifully written. The dawn and sunset change her in more ways than one, however they add to her feeling of loneliness in a family of nocturnal vampires. She may yet realize she has more friends among the sun-loving humans than she thought she had...
Among other relationships, Pearl also learns about families. Families other than her own who might be more accepting of her than the vampires are. She learns about the prism spectrum that is the bonds of love, and how and why human compassion is formed.
'Drink, Slay, Love' is at all once colourful, lovely, slating, suspenseful and macabre.
I don't usually mention a book's cover in my reviews, but I feel I have to talk about the one for 'Drink, Slay, Love'. It is the most ingenious and fitting I have ever seen. The girl's head is cut over her smiling lips so you only see her sucking on a glass bottle of blood through a straw. This is done possibly to give an impression to an outsider that the book's reader, while holding it up to his or her face, is the one drinking the blood! The glass bottle itself also looks a little like a unicorn's horn. Nice touch. The cover is delicious (in a dark and twisted way) and reflects the tone of the novel within its pages perfectly.
'Drink, Slay, Love' has the fundamental ingredients for an excellent high school vampire parody that takes jabs at 'Twilight' and its popularity. However it never forgets about plot and the need for urgency and action in a story. Humour is not its only worthwhile feature - there is a beating heart within the book's spine and the narrative blood flows out within the pages with the help of the protagonist Pearl's wonderful third-person perspective.
But the one character in 'Drink, Slay, Love', who I'm not sure about, is Evan Karkadann. He has a hero complex (easily crossing towards stalker tendencies) which is played for laughs, and this trait might become his downfall. But his relationship with Pearl could have been written more believably, I think. It seems that even authors of subversive supernatural romance find it difficult to write a romance that doesn't revolve around one's looks and beauty. Evan is handsome, helpful, a poet, and a sweet-talker. Translation: a walking cliché. His face is even once described as being perfect (aaarrrgggg!!! That tells me absolutely nothing about him!!!). Granted, his "perfection" and ridiculous knight-in-shining-armour persona is twisted and explained three-quarters of the way in, but Pearl still could have been more self-aware and resistant to his charms.
And by Grandma's pumpkin pie, does Pearl need to keep mentioning his big, luminous eyes? Love interests having unusual eyes is mentioned in every romance novel ever written, I'm convinced. I find it annoying; for I'm positive that even a vampire couldn't see the extent (meaning: goodness and beauty) of a whole person just by looking into his eyes! Windows of the soul, yes, but a means of deceit and manipulation. Ever heard of Hypnotic Eyes?
I'm relieved that Pearl is smart enough to lampshade this, and she acknowledges that pretty eyes and acts of chivalry do not make Evan an instantly good person on the inside. She calls him an idiot several times. But it doesn't change the fact that he is described as ridiculously handsome.
Why can't we have a supernatural romance where the love interest isn't drop-dead gorgeous? Can he be conventionally unattractive? That would have been a really remarkable subversion that kicks other books of its kind in the fangs.
But on the plus side, 'Drink, Slay, Love' doesn't really have a love triangle. Pearl's boyfriend Jadrien is shown clearly to be a reckless and thoughtless idiot after Pearl's transformation into a vampire with a soul. He flirts with another vampire girl called Laurie, an object for a disturbing girl-on-girl hate match. Oh dear. Pearl fights Jadrien and wins multiple times, and she is not interested in him anymore when her feelings for Evan grow. She thinks Evan is tasty, so she has to suppress her fangs whenever she's near him. This is actually a clever gender-swapping element taken from 'Twilight' - where the vampire boy has to resist the urge to bite his human female love interest. In a way Pearl has already broken up with Jadrien before getting to know Evan, so the romantic elements are not at all convoluted to extremes or take over the plot which is much more interesting anyway. Jadrien doesn't appear much during the middle of the book, in fact. It makes me want to say, "That's my girl (Pearl)!".
The ending of 'Drink, Slay, Love' is a bit anticlimactic as well, like there's a sequel in the making. But there are good points to it that make up for the shortcomings. Without spoiling anything, the themes of friendship, family, making your own choices in life, and sticking to your new heart's resolutions are not forgotten about.
And what happened to Pearl's school guidance counsellor? A wrap-up to that plot thread would have been nice. Oh well.
Slick, clever, dangerous, outrageous, funny, and when it's good it's brilliant. Imperfect, but I don't really care. I enjoyed 'Drink, Slay, Love' and I probably would have loved it unconditionally if I'd read it as a teenager amidst the 'Twilight' craze.
Sweet stuff.
Final Score: 4/5
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