Books I've read: The Lost Girls

 

This one was a ton of fun.  If you know me at all, you'll know I'm a huge fan of vampires and have been since I discovered Anne Rice as a teenager.  Not such a fan of Twilight though...  Those vampires just didn't do it for me. Or maybe it was just the writing.  Anyhooo.  This one was kind of a hoot and turned all kinds of vampire lore on its head.

Holly has been a 16-year-old vampire for over 30 years and has the unfortunate crimped hairstyle to prove it.  Living in her hometown again after being dragged around the country by her maker's whims, she's surviving by working part time at Taco Bell, the only job a teenage vampire can really get.  She's not enjoying life and hasn't much from the start even though she did enjoy being the apple of her maker's eye for a time.

When she meets two of her maker's older paramours who have been just a cruelly discarded in favour of newer models, the trio plan to get their revenge on Elton before he has the chance to turn another girl.  The problem is, to actually kill their maker, they need some things that are not going to be easy to get.

Not to mention, the girl Elton has his sights on just might be the kind of girl Holly could fall in love with...

I really enjoyed this book.  It was incredibly violent in places, but because these vampires heal like lightning, the ripping off of limbs and breaking necks had little effect on them and played out like cartoon violence.  I would have liked to have seen more of Elton to understand the pull he has on these girls - his compelling nature was all hearsay here, and it would have been nice to have some firsthand experience of his thrall.

I did have a few questions about how a town this small could sustain this number of vampires without the entire community being hysterical about serial killers on the loose, but that was a small niggle...  Mostly this was a fun twist on vampire lore with a bunch of spunky undead girls kicking ass and taking names.

So I'd recommend.  Just be wary if you're a bit squeamish about decapitations and the like.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Sonia Hartl’s The Lost Girls is laced with dark humor and queer love; it’s John Tucker Must Die with a feminist girl gang of vampires.

When Elton Irving turned Holly Liddell into a vampire in 1987, he promised her eternal love. But thirty-four years later, Elton has left her, her hair will be crimped for the rest of immortality, and the only job she can get as a forever-sixteen-year-old is the midnight shift at Taco Bell.

Holly’s afterlife takes an interesting turn when she meets Rose McKay and Ida Ripley. Having also been turned and discarded by Elton—Rose in 1954, and Ida, his ex-fiancée, in 1921—they want to help her, and ask for her help in return.

Rose and Ida are going to kill Elton before he turns another girl. Though Holly is hurt and angry with Elton for tossing her aside, she’s reluctant to kill her ex, until Holly meets Parker Kerr—the new girl Elton has set his sights on—and feels a quick, and nerve-wracking attraction to her.