Jane Jones: Worst. Vampire. Ever., by Caissie St. Onge
Jul 23
2013
Caissie St. Onge's novel Jane Jones: Worst. Vampire. Ever. is an entertaining but uneven take on the joys—and many, many sorrows—of life as a blood-sucking perpetual teenager. Jane Jones has been a high school student for decades, but it never gets any easier. Her parents are still ridiculously overprotective (even though Jane is actually ninety-odd years old), she has nothing in common with her human classmates, and her vampire peers despise her for having a blood allergy. So when Jane encounters a shady doctor offering a cure for vampirism, she's tempted to try it, even if it means leaving everything she knows behind.
The best scene in St. Onge's book is the first one, which features Jane being peer-pressured by the most popular girl—and vampire—in school to drink the blood of an intoxicated JV football captain. The scene is cringe-inducing but hilarious, particularly when Jane's mother shows up in her nightgown, determined to take the other “kids” to task for endangering her daughter. Unfortunately, the rest of the book is less amusing, and St. Onge's take on vampire mythology, while creative, has way too many holes in it. (For example, Jane lacks sufficient bodily fluids to cry or sweat, but triggering her blood allergy apparently results in terrible diarrhea, even though she lives off of a single drop of blood per day. That doesn't make sense, and I resent the fact that the author made me think this hard about the tummy troubles of vampires.)
My biggest complaint about this book, however, is that it came out in 2011, and I see no signs of a sequel. There are several plot threads left dangling in Jane Jones, and while I wasn't totally sold on the first installment, I was sufficiently interested to want to see the story's loose ends tidied up. If the book simply didn't sell well enough to justify a sequel, that's one thing, but if it was actually intended as a one-off I'm knocking off several Wordcandy points for half-baked storytelling.
Review based on a publisher-provided copy.
The best scene in St. Onge's book is the first one, which features Jane being peer-pressured by the most popular girl—and vampire—in school to drink the blood of an intoxicated JV football captain. The scene is cringe-inducing but hilarious, particularly when Jane's mother shows up in her nightgown, determined to take the other “kids” to task for endangering her daughter. Unfortunately, the rest of the book is less amusing, and St. Onge's take on vampire mythology, while creative, has way too many holes in it. (For example, Jane lacks sufficient bodily fluids to cry or sweat, but triggering her blood allergy apparently results in terrible diarrhea, even though she lives off of a single drop of blood per day. That doesn't make sense, and I resent the fact that the author made me think this hard about the tummy troubles of vampires.)
My biggest complaint about this book, however, is that it came out in 2011, and I see no signs of a sequel. There are several plot threads left dangling in Jane Jones, and while I wasn't totally sold on the first installment, I was sufficiently interested to want to see the story's loose ends tidied up. If the book simply didn't sell well enough to justify a sequel, that's one thing, but if it was actually intended as a one-off I'm knocking off several Wordcandy points for half-baked storytelling.
Review based on a publisher-provided copy.
Posted by: Julianka
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