Tuesday, September 8, 2009

The Taste of Night, or “Undead Bar Stars”


I seem to be continuing on my vampire theme for the next little bit. The Taste of Night is the sequel to Dangerous Girls. Click here to catch up on what those naughty quasi-vampire twins have been up to lately. I just have to say that this book is NOT written chronologically, but builds suspense by giving away the ending first. Ooh, R. L., way to use the big guns in this one. Maybe it’s because it’s not a Fear Street, and he wanted to be a bit fancier with this.

July

Destiny is all sad that her sis, Livvy, chose to become a vampire, instead of being a good little girl like her. She is also sad that Livvy stole her boy of choice and made him a vampire too – how very rude of her. Her dad (Dr. Weller) has been working into the night to find a cure for vampirism, because he is (rather randomly, I think), the “Restorer”. However, he really wears two hats in the community, because he is also the chief vampire killer in town. Lately, Dr. Weller has been feeling that his two roles conflict with each other, and has decided to concentrate on only one of them – killing. The vampires in town have been getting out of control, and the good townspeople have decided to ambush them in their apartment building, the morning of the full moon. (Sidenote: everyone knows the vampires live in this one building? Why don’t they just go burn it down? C’mon guys, think!)

The morning after the full moon, the vampire hunters go into the building to stake all the sleeping vampires, instead of doing something sensible like torching it. Dr. Weller finds his other daughter, Livvy, asleep. He’s all sad about the sacrifices he has to make, but is determined to kill her to. He goes to kiss her goodbye, but she wakes up and throttles him.

One Month Earlier

Vampire Livvy is hanging with her vamp besties, Suzie and Monica, in their apartment. They are going out clubbing that night, and getting ready, like all girls do before they go out clubbing, only without the use of mirrors. It is the night of Livvy’s graduation, and she’s kind of spun about it, but she won’t admit it.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, Destiny is being a mopey suck at graduation about staying in town to go to community college instead of going to Dartmouth. She feels she can’t leave her father and brother in the state that they are in. She goes home with her boyfriend, Ari. When they get to her place, they find all her walls are painted with images of black demons. Apparently, her little brother, Mikey, really lost it when Livvy became a vampire, and is convinced alternately that he is a demon, or is catatonically terrified of everything. Delightful little guy. D is convinced she needs to find Liv, to bring her home to provide some closure for her family.

Ari and her go out to a nightclub that night. Ari used to be a big fantasy nerd, but apparently finding out he was right about all that stuff snapped him out of it. Now he’s cool, and uses a fake ID to get beers. Destiny tries to have fun, but is still a huge Debbie downer. She’s so dull Ari gets drunk and leaves her to go have fun elsewhere – namely all over some cute redhead. D is now both mopey and pissed, and leaves the club.

Meanwhile, in same nightclub, Livvy realizes that Suzie has her vampire claws in Ari, and thinks it’s kind of funny. She is all over some hot college guy named Patrick. The vamp girls’ mantra is: The hotter the guy, the richer the blood. So, they are like total undead bar stars. Livvy decides that Patrick is too hot to die, and that Ross, her former lover she turned into a vampire, is history. She goes outside to wait for Patrick, and bumps directly into her twin.

D pleads with Liv to come home, while Liv tries to get her to fuck off. Eventually, she just goes to bite D, which gets through to her as she flees her undead twin. Patrick comes out then, and Livvy puts on her sexy face. They go to the woods and Liv goes for the bite – only to discover that Patrick is a vampire too. That must be a majorly embarrassing mistake for a vampire. Patrick tells Livvy he likes her, and he’s going to shake things up in town now. Liv is interested.

Destiny starts her new sad-girl job as a waitress, at a diner on the college campus. She gets even more depressing there. I really prefer her bad-girl twin. Seriously, D needs to lighten up. She goes to apologize to Ari after work, for being depressing I guess. She gets a pretty big shock, though, since Ari was found dead the night before, his body drained of blood. Destiny wonders whether it was her sister.

Two Weeks Later

There’s a new short order cook and the diner, Harrison, and he is HOT. He’s a sophomore at the college, and they immediately start seeing each other. Not everything is looking up, though, since Dr. Weller tells Destiny he’s going to kill all the vamps in town, including Livvy. D must do something, so she heads to the vampire apartment (that everyone knows about) and tries to warn Livvy. Instead, she runs into Ross. Ross is pretty depressing too. He hates being a vampire, and wishes he could see his family again, because he’s homesick. Awww. Destiny and Ross reminisce about the good old days – then she warns him that he and Livvy have to leave the apartment.

Livvy watches D leave, and is suspicious of what she was doing there. Actually, she thinks her twin is having an affair with her vampire boyfriend, until she goes to their room and finds his stake-riddled corpse (or, whatever it is that vampires have when they die). She’s pretty mad at D, and ready to go riddle her with stakes, until she runs into Patrick. They make out a bit, which is appropriate in the circumstances, I think. They plot revenge. Livvy spies on D, as a mouse in the diner. She gets lusty feelings for Harrison, and decides to turn him into a vampire to get back at her sister.

At a party at Harrison’s, Destiny is having an awesome time, thinking college won’t be so bad. Until Harrison is gone for awhile, coming back with the beer she had asked for, but hadn’t actually asked for. Dun dun DUN! Realizing Liv is at the party, she goes to talk to her, only to see a bat flying away. Livvy returns to her apartment, to find Patrick waiting for her. He tells her she will never be truly immortal until she can get rid of her human feelings. She must get over her love for her sister, and he has the perfect plan – he’ll turn Destiny into a vampire. So that he can have the hot twins to himself! I’m surprised that Livvy goes along with this plan, but he encourages her to go after Harrison, so she’s okay with sharing.

The next morning at the diner, Destiny meets a cute but intense TA from the college – named Patrick. He asks her out for Friday, and makes D feel all floaty and weird until she agrees that going out on Friday would be excellent. That same Friday night, Livvy goes out with Harrison, pretending she’s Destiny. She’s having more fun than Destiny, who has to break her date with Patrick because her brother’s babysitter cancelled. Patrick forces her to agree to go out on Sunday – the night of the full moon, the only night someone can become a vampire.

Saturday morning, Harrison comes skipping into work, raving about their awesome date last night. Destiny sees the pinpricks on his neck, and knows he saw her sister instead. It must sting a little that her sister got her boyfriend so worked up. I mean, she’s already stolen one guy from her, right? But there must be something to it – I suspect Livvy is way more fun to be around.

Saturday night, Livvy finds her friend Monica staked in her apartment. Patrick and Suzie are struggling, fighting to the death. Livvy watches in horror as he stakes her, for being weak like the rest of them. Liv immediately realizes that Patrick killed Ross all along. The plan to turn Destiny and Harrison is to test how bad she really is. If Livvy doesn’t go through with it, she’ll likely be the next to wake up with a stake in her heart.

The night of the full moon, Destiny stands Harrison up at the movies – he goes to her house to see what’s up. Meanwhile, Destiny is out with Patrick, dancing at the club. They decide to go on a romantic moonlit walk through the park. Patrick eagerly bites her, then reels back – it’s actually Livvy! She tries to stake him, but they struggle and he’s stronger than her. She transforms into a bat, then transforms back lightning quick to get the jump on him and stakes him.

On to Dr. Weller, killing vampires in the apartment. He sees Livvy, and goes to kiss her one last time, but she wakes up and grabs him. It’s actually Destiny – she took her twin’s place in order to save her life. Although, wouldn’t it have been better if neither of them had been in the apartment, so neither would have been in danger? No matter – the girls saved each other’s lives that night, because love is more powerful than death and vampirism.

The next night, Livvy comes as a blackbird to see Destiny. Mikey comes in to see her – Liv lies and tells him there’s no such thing as vampires, she just ran away from home. Destiny wants her to stay, but Livvy has had a taste of night, and can never go back. She flies away. Destiny and Harrison are reunited, with much explaining as to what happened. They live happily ever after, or at the very least hopefully a little less depressing.

Okay, I appreciate what R. L. did here, teasing us early with Livvy attacking Dr. Weller. I wouldn’t call it masterful, per say, but I like where he was going with it. Destiny is like the worst character ever, and would probably be much better off if she just loosened up a bit. Taste of Night did not live up to Dangerous Girls at all, I thought. I was kind of bored, and wanted the girls to get over themselves and do something interesting. Well, that’s a sequel for you – never as good as the real thing. I give this 23 richly-blooded hot guys out of 38.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woah Lots of vampires lately L.K.=]

HelenB said...

The hotter the guy, the richer the blood. That line actually made me squirm with embarrassment.

Anonymous said...

This sounded so lame I couldn't breathe.

L. K. Stine said...

What can I say? I heart Edward! No, just kidding.

A. M. Stine said...

Don't lie. I've watched Twilight with you. MORE THAN ONCE!

Amy said...

Twilight (the movie and the book)is cheesy crap. Even worser than R.L Stine. I hate the fact that it is overly overrated. Edward is an abusive, manipulative stalker. The book is completely misogynistic. If thats a word.

Great Blog, BTW

Anonymous said...

Edward is creepy. End of story.

Anonymous said...

What weirds me out is that nobody ever seems to have a problem with Jacob. Maybe it goes without saying.

L. K. Stine said...

Oh A. M. - you know I watched it, but didn't enjoy it. Well, I enjoyed all the wtf moments ... how is someone charmed by the fact that a man breaks into her house at night and watches her sleep? Sooooo creepy, I don't care how sparkly he is.

A. M. Stine said...

Are you saying that sparkily is a quality that you look for in a man? Because I'm gonna say: glitter on any boy I'm dating is a DEALBREAKER.

Do you think "Edward Cullen" will be a big Halloween costume this year?

L. K. Stine said...

Oh dear god. I hope so.

Tayyab Saeed said...

When this blog ends, try to make a list of the 10 Best and Worst Fear Street books and post it here.What do you think of this? Anyways, the reviews are really great.

megan s said...

the night of the full moon, the only night someone can become a vampire.


....since when??

Anonymous said...

Vampires are in themselves so hackneyed now that there is no "canon," so to speak, variant. Every single depiction of vampires in fiction is now different from the one before it, and obeys different rules. And most of those rules are of course fairly random and go unexplained. Like it or not, Twilight actually explained its vampire mechanics.

Anonymous said...

Werewolves are better. Team JACOB!