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A review by shelvesofsecrets
Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey
4.0
Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side is a fun YA vampire book.
Lucius drove me nuts for a lot of the book. He was so arrogant, especially at the beginning before being "Americanized". And later on he is such a jerk to Jessica! If I were Jessica, I would have given him a piece of my mind way sooner!
I loved how much Jessica grew throughout this book. In the beginning she is just a plain-Jane high school girl, but by the end, she becomes very brave and total kick-butt! I was so proud of her!
The vampire lore was somewhat watered down, with Lucius being able to go out in the daylight and not sleeping in a coffin or anything like that. However, Fantaskey added some additional lore, such as that a female vampire's fangs won't descend until she is bitten by a male. I actually wasn't a fan of this addition as it comes off kind of sexist (males don't have the same restriction).
Finally, Jessica's Guide gets a ton of bonus points for having some horse scenes! As a fellow (former) 4H member, I was super excited for any scenes with horses. Although that part of the book was mainly forgotten in the second half of the story. I think I'm still looking for the adult version of Pony Pals. Although a minor, nit-picky thing that bothered me was that Jessica's parents didn't agree with drinking milk because the cows were being exploited, yet they were totally fine with their daughter riding horses and keeping her horse in a stall.It just seemed a little inconsistent (coming from a farm girl who grew up on a beef ranch, so feel free to comment on my potential biases here).
Overall, I enjoyed Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side. However, I wasn't a huge fan of Lucius. There were a lot of traits that were swoon-worthing, but there were others I couldn't quite get past.
Lucius drove me nuts for a lot of the book. He was so arrogant, especially at the beginning before being "Americanized". And later on he is such a jerk to Jessica! If I were Jessica, I would have given him a piece of my mind way sooner!
I loved how much Jessica grew throughout this book. In the beginning she is just a plain-Jane high school girl, but by the end, she becomes very brave and total kick-butt! I was so proud of her!
The vampire lore was somewhat watered down, with Lucius being able to go out in the daylight and not sleeping in a coffin or anything like that. However, Fantaskey added some additional lore, such as that a female vampire's fangs won't descend until she is bitten by a male. I actually wasn't a fan of this addition as it comes off kind of sexist (males don't have the same restriction).
Finally, Jessica's Guide gets a ton of bonus points for having some horse scenes! As a fellow (former) 4H member, I was super excited for any scenes with horses. Although that part of the book was mainly forgotten in the second half of the story. I think I'm still looking for the adult version of Pony Pals. Although a minor, nit-picky thing that bothered me was that Jessica's parents didn't agree with drinking milk because the cows were being exploited, yet they were totally fine with their daughter riding horses and keeping her horse in a stall.It just seemed a little inconsistent (coming from a farm girl who grew up on a beef ranch, so feel free to comment on my potential biases here).
Overall, I enjoyed Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side. However, I wasn't a huge fan of Lucius. There were a lot of traits that were swoon-worthing, but there were others I couldn't quite get past.