Jane Slayre: The Literary Classic with a Blood-Sucking Twist

Jane Slayre: The Literary Classic with a Blood-Sucking Twist by Sherri Browning Erwin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've long been a fan of monster mash-ups; you get all the fun of rereading the classic, plus the fun of the supernatural twist. This is an especially good one. I started reading this around Halloween.

I love that it includes the whole Jane Eyre story - unlike the erotica mash-up Jane Eyre Laid Bare: The Classic Novel with an Erotic Twist, which disappointingly excludes the St. John Rivers story. In Browning Erwin's telling, St. John is the Daryl Dixon of the tale, slaying vampires and werewolves with a crossbow of his own invention. Zombies have also come into play, but their fiercest slayer is Jane herself. Saving people and hunting things is the Slayre family business.

This book does include the line "Reader, I buried him," causing me to laugh out loud - but fear not, the happy ending is still intact. In short, this is the monster mash-up done right.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

I purchased this book with my own funds from Better World Books and was not obligated in any way to review it.

Next, I'm going to read Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead. It's the fifth book in the Vampire Academy series.

I think this is supposed to be Adrian and Rose, but keep in mind Rose is half Turkish and described as being olive-skinned. 

Vampire Academy

Frostbite

Shadow Kiss

Blood Promise

Sadly, the Frostbite movie campaign failed to find funding, so even if I enjoy Spirit Bound (doubtful, since I hate Strigoi!Dimitri), I'll never see it reach the big screen. 

You know what I think could have saved the Vampire Academy movie franchise? Letting Misha Collins play Dimtri. He already answers to the name Dimitri, because it is his name. I don't even care that he's 40 and not 25. Let Dimitri Belikov be older; let his relationship with Rose seem that much more inappropriate. 

No offense to Danila Kozlovsky (age 29); I still think he's gorgeous. 

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It's just that American audiences aren't all that familiar with Russian actors, even if I really wouldn't mind getting familiar with Danila. 

Oh, well, Maybe the Vampire Academy series can do what A Series of Unfortunate Events is doing and continue on as a Netflix web series. (Squee!)

#BookReview 'When Did You See Her Last?' (All the Wrong Questions, Book 2) by Lemony Snicket

A little over a year ago, I was in Venice Beach, California, browsing Small World Books, petting the bookstore cat Conan the Librarian and wishing I wasn't traveling on such a tight budget so that I could spare the cash to buy the first book in Lemony Snicket's All the Wrong Questions series, Who Could That Be At This Hour? I never did buy a copy, but I did borrow it from my local library.

On Wednesday of last week I walked over to my library and picked up a copy of the series' second book, When Did You See Her Last? The "her" in question is the brilliant young chemist Miss Cleo Knight, missing from her family's home in the mysterious town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea (once known for its octopus ink). Our protagonist, 13-year-old Lemony Snicket, must search for her despite adults like his guardian S. Theodora Markson.

As you probably recall from A Series of Unfortunate Events, adults in Lemony Snicket's books are generally ineffective at best and downright wicked at worst. S. Theodora Markson is the ineffective type (at least, from what we know at this point). Snicket gets more reliable help from local teen journalist Moxie Mallahan and underaged taxi cab drivers Pip and Squeak, the Bellerophon brothers.

I finished this book Saturday morning. I find this series delightful, not only as a companion series to A Series of Unfortunate Events, but also in its own right. One of my favorite things about it is the way Snicket makes humorous and pithy observations in his narrative. This book contains several memorable quotes, as Snicket's books often do. Several of these I added to Goodreads myself, including:

“I'm not a stranger," I said, and pointed to his book. "I'm someone who reads the same authors you do.”

“Complimenting someone in an exaggerated way is known as flattery, and flattery will generally get you anything you want...”

“[I]t was the color of someone buying you an ice cream cone for no reason at all.”

“Of course you can trust me," Jake Hix said. "We read the same books.”

“I don't know why wicked places generally look wicked. You'd think they'd look nice, to fool people, but they hardly ever do.”

“Anyone who thinks the pen is mightier than the sword has not been stabbed with both.”

Another favorite thing? Dashiell Qwerty, the sub-librarian who always wears a studded black leather jacket and has wild, spiky hair. 

Another fictional crush for me? Yes, I'm afraid so.

The literary references fly fast and furious as well. I don't even know all of them (I can't have read everything), but Pippi Longstocking is discussed at some length, Jane Eyre is mentioned, and we discover that Lemony's sister Kit enjoyed reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond. When Snicket must go to the lighthouse, it reminds him of a book he's been meaning to read. When he suffers an unfortunate tadpole bite, Snicket says, "It might be little, but it's fierce," which you and I know is a paraphrase of a famous Shakespeare quote from A Midsummer Night's Dream. 

If you enjoyed A Series of Unfortunate Events and haven't picked up Who Could That Be At This Hour? yet, I encourage you to read the All the Wrong Questions series. The questions may be entirely wrong, but the writing is oh so right.