Novel Review: Fang Girl by Helen Keeble

Rating (Out of 5): ~3 (maybe 3.5)

Genre: YA Paranormal Comedy

Publisher: HarperTeen (HarperCollins)

Publish Date: September, 2012

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Goodreads Synopsis:

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 psychotic 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....

Helen Keeble’s riotous debut novel combines the humor of Vladimir Tod with Ally Carter’s spot-on teen voice. With a one-of-a-kind vampire mythology and an irresistibly relatable undead heroine, this uproarious page-turner will leave readers bloodthirsty for more.

Something Specific:

Quotes:

• "'I’m not going to drink blood from family. That would be like incest.’ They all stared at me with uncomprehending expressions, and I remembered too late that none of them had my experience with vampire erotica.” (Paperback, pg. 33)
• "People may have been sad about my accident, but… fandom went on. […] Four months was like a year, in internet terms.” (Pg. 56)
• "'I can also help you dispose of bodies?’ ‘Okay,’ I said, still feeling a bit shell-shocked. ‘You sound very useful. Um. Who are you, exactly?’” (Pg. 87)
• "'Ebon, that’s fiction. Everyone likes Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dead in fiction.’ I shrugged. ‘But, y’know, brooding angstmuffins are like Majorca. Awesome fun for a holiday, but heck, you wouldn’t want to live there.” (Pg. 139)

The Cover:

I honestly really like the cover. It's funny, it's cute, it fits the book pretty well, particularly in feel.

Review:

I was honestly a little disappointed with this book. Maybe I had too high of hopes for it, though.

I was expecting it to be very funny, and cute, with some nice romance even if it did take a small role. It was funny, but not as much as I thought it would be. The romance was almost nonexistent, with a little bit kicked in near the end, and I was disappointed by that.

Jane was entertaining, a fun heroine to follow. I liked that she was such a fan of vampires before she turned, that she was a fangirl of it all. I also liked that her family played such a big role in the story, and they were fun, and odd.

The vampire lore part of the story was interesting, and did have a nice comedic twist, particularly their orderliness. There were some vampire fights, some difficulties between choosing a side, and that was nice.

Then there were vampire hunters, and those are always kind of fun to me. There was a tiny inkling to romance with one of them near the end, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of real chemistry between the two, more like it was just thrown in later. I would have liked more of that, particularly since the synopsis makes it seem like there is.
It also left with a rather open ending, and it seemed liked there should be a second book. I don't know if I'd want one or not, though. But I do feel like Keeble will get better, her humor will come out more naturally, her characters will get better, as she keeps writing.

Overall, this ended up being rather mediocre for me, sadly. I was really hoping to like it. I plan to give Keeble another try sometime in the future, although I’m not sure when.