BOOK REVIEW: Fang Girl

Title: Fang Girl

Author: Helen Keeble

Series: Fang Girl (Book One)

 

Description:

 Things That Are Destroying Jane Greene’s Undead Social Life Before It Can Even Begin:

1) A twelve-year-old brother who’s convinced she’s a zombie.
2) Parents who are begging her to turn them into vampires.
3) The pet goldfish she accidentally turns instead.
4) Weird superpowers that let her rip the heads off of every other vampire she meets.(Sounds cool, but it doesn’t win you many friends.)
5) A pyschotic vampire creator who’s using her to carry out a plan for world domination.

And finally:
6) A seriously ripped vampire hunter who either wants to stake her or make out with her. Not sure which.

Being an undead, eternally pasty fifteen-year-old isn’t quite the sexy, brooding, angst-fest Jane always imagined....

Review: 

How to start reviewing this book?
Easy. By saying it was a great and funny read!
I laughed for most of the time, especially for the first half.
Jane (or Xanthe if you like better) is a huge fan of everything vampire, starting with vampire books and ending with Buffy. Which made me like her immediately.
She's also witty and brave. A real heroine. With that funny side that you can't not like.
This book is simply too hilarious! I couldn't refrain myself from laughing.
The only flaw is that there's not enough romance in it as I would have liked. But I'm expecting some more in the next book. At least, by the way this book ended, I think there will be a sequel. Hopefully soon. 

Jane's parents are probably even more hilarious than Jane herself. They're really something. Craked me up all the time!
Her brother Zack is a really cute boy.
Van, the vampire hunter, is a nice character and although I could't find myself really liking him at first, I got to like him in the end. He's a really nice guy when he's not trying to kill Jane.
Ebon... is a character I don't like very much. From the biginning. Not that he's bad, but still... not an interesting character. For me at least.
Lily... well, I can't say much. She's one of the villains in the book.
And I knew it from the start that she was no good.

All in all. Nice characters. My favorites are Jane and her parents. And then Van.

SPOILER!
Here are some quotes/scenes/phrases I liked:

[Jane has just woken up in her coffin and learned she's a vampire, when a phone starts ringing]
I was a vampire, and... someone was trying to call me?
When my parents had said that not even death could pry me from my mobile phone, I'd thought they were joking. I wriggled around in the narrow coffin until I could reach the ringing handset.

[She's running, escaping, afraid of being chased by a vampire hunter]
I ran straight into the wooden fence at the foot of the field. [...]
I was lucky that it had been a rail fence, rather than a barbed wire, or I would have shredded myself into vampire linguine.

[Her first attempt at drinking blood]
Lorraine was curled into a tight ball under her purple satin duvet. [...]
I leaned in close, until my face was only centimeters from her skin. Feeling a little dumb, I opened my mouth, trying to work out how to extend any retractable fangs I might be hiding. Closer... closer...
[...]
Even with my nose practically pressed into her skin, she just smelled of kiwi shampoo and tea-tree oil face wash, with a slight undertone of sweaty socks. It would have taken a truly sick vampire to be provoked into an animalistic hunger by that scent.
Still, I had to be sure.
[...]
So I bit her ear. She already had four piercings; one more couldn't hurt.
Lorraine bucked, writhing against my hand, but I held her down with little effort. Feeling terribly perverted, I sucked on her earlobe. A tiny trickle of blood dripped down my throat.

[A funny scene when Jane returns back home]
Mum interrupted, thumping back down the stairs. She had her laptop balanced in one hand and was clutching a pink lady's razor and a screwdriver in the other. "In there, now." She shooed us through into the kitchen. [...]
She handed the laptop to Dad and started disassembling the razor with the screwdriver.
"Uh," Dad said, looking down at the screen. "Honey? This is a Wikipedia article on Phlebotomy."
"Exactly." Mum dropped the freed razor blade onto the table and rolled up her sleeve. "Where's the first aid kit?"
"Mum, what are you doing?" I asked suspiciously. "Making dinner," she replied as though it should be self-evident.

[An other scene at home. Jane wakes up in the closet and is talking to his little brother]
Something sneezed on my foot.
"There's something alive in here," I observed with all possible calm.
"Yes," said Zack "that would be toast."
"Toast," I repeated. "Sneezing toast."
"No toast, Toast!" He ducked into the closet, and emerged clutching a large wire cage. "I named her myself. Isn't she the greatest?" A fuzzy brown-and-white ball of fur looked back at me with round black eyes. Its pink velvet ears quivered. "It's a guinea pig," I concluded in the face of the evidence before me. "Zack, why is it a guinea pig?" "Dad got her for you." Zack gazed fondly down at the little fluffball. "I guess if you aren't going to eat her, I can keep her!"
"Dad got me a ... guinea pig?"
"For breakfast," Zack said. "That's why I named her Toast. You aren't going to eat her, are you?"
"No!"
"Woot!" Zack hugged the cage to his chest, carrying it off in the direction of his bedroom. "I hope you don't want to eat Marmalade or Sugar Puff either!"
"Marma-- oh, never mid."
[...]
Dad pulled me into a brief hug. "You're still my girl. Are you hungry? We got, um--"
"Yes, I already met Toast." I sighed. "Please tell me that Marmalade and Sugar Puff aren't a rabbit and a hamster."
He dropped his gaze sheepishly and mumbled, "Chinchilla."

***4 stars***