"Here, honey, you left your skank book in the kitchen." The book landed on my desk: crumpled, dismissed, even insulted if that's possible for a book. Skank? Drake's hero Mira isn't a skank! She's the baddest mofo who ever, ever hit the town. In fact, let's together run down the list of just how unspeakably incredible she is.
To start with, she's got a great body: the author goes to great pains to describe her slim frame, red hair, above-average height, revealing black leather clothing and rampant sexuality.
Then there's the vampire part--but not just any vampire but a six hundred year old vampire, which makes her one of the oldest left around.
But, hmmm... there's still something missing. Too many vampires: she's not special enough yet. So she also gets an extra power: she's a natural pyromancer, because fire is good. Are we getting the idea yet?
How about making her fantastically fast and strong: we can't get out of chapter three before she's thrown down with the toughest werewolf anywhere and tried very hard not to break him like a toothpick. Oh, and she's regenerative: at some point she gets her throat torn out, but that's okay because if she can just get a little sleep she'll be fine in the morning.
Oh, and she's fabulously wealthy of course, forgot to mention that: private jet, personal bodyguards (with sex thrown in, naturally), recognition as a high roller in all the clubs.
And did I mention that she has to wear red-tinted sunglasses (vampire, only around at night, remember) because her eyes glow red sometimes? Only the really tough characters get glowing red eyes.
Is anyone else following along in the Mary Sue checklist?
Honestly I'm sure there's a plot in here somewhere, and I suppose the review should probably touch on it--but why bother? It's clear where the author's priorities are, and it's not the storyline. Drake's self-lust for her own character drowns out any possible story with an indecipherably bad signal-to-noise ratio.
I think I'll let the skank-book just sit there for a while; I'm not sure my stomach is up to handling the sequel.
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