Series Review: Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side

JESSICA'S GUIDE TO DATING ON THE DARK SIDE +
JESSICA RULES THE DARK SIDE
Beth Fantaskey
Paranormal Young Adult
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Available Now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (Book one only - from Goodreads)
The undead can really screw up your senior year . . .

Marrying a vampire definitely doesn’t fit into Jessica Packwood’s senior year “get-a-life” plan. But then a bizarre (and incredibly hot) new exchange student named Lucius Vladescu shows up, claiming that Jessica is a Romanian vampire princess by birth—and he’s her long-lost fiancé. Armed with newfound confidence and a copy of Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions, Jessica makes a dramatic transition from average American teenager to glam European vampire princess. But when a devious cheerleader sets her sights on Lucius, Jess finds herself fighting to win back her wayward prince, stop a global vampire war — and save Lucius’s soul from eternal destruction.

MY THOUGHTS
Quick and fun reads, Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side and Jessica Rules the Dark Side don’t necessarily bring anything new or innovative to the world of vampires, but they do give us characters who are vibrant and funny and who easily draw us into their world even if it is one we’ve experienced before. The first installment starts out a bit lighter in tone, Jessica vehemently rejecting Lucius’s presence in her home and his claims to her as his future bride, but as things progress the lighter humor gives way to more serious emotion, and we suddenly find our hearts in a vampiric vise-like grip we didn’t entirely see coming. Humor does persist throughout both books however, giving us a highly enjoyable combination of levity and heaviness as we watch Jess’s life change in ways she never thought possible.

While both books are entertaining, book one is definitely the stronger of the two, Jess and Lucius’s troubled courtship immensely more satisfying than we thought it might be based on the opening chapters. The beginning pages paint a rather familiar picture for us, a young woman suddenly becoming the object of complete and utter focus by the hot new student at school, but once Lucius moves into the apartment above her parent’s garage and more fully immerses himself in her life, the familiarity begins to wear off, replaced by genuine interest and increased emotional attachment. We watch with hearts a bit in our throats as Jess learns what it’s like to desperately want something she can’t have, feeling for her as she realizes she had the opportunity to reach out and grab him but she didn’t move quite fast enough and now he's danced seemingly out of her reach.

Book two introduces a new character in Lucius’s close friend Raniero, and gives us not only first person narration from Jess but also her best friend Mindy as well. The introduction of this new dual perspective in addition to the continuing presence of correspondence from Lucius and Raniero gives this second installment a different feel, detaching us slightly from Jess as we are now forced to split our attention between not only her and Lucius but Mindy and Raniero as well. Mindy also has a younger voice than Jess, her predilection for using the word “like” and her driving need for Raniero to be someone he doesn’t want to be to please her contrasting with the slightly more mature interactions prominent in the first book. Jess herself isn’t quite the same girl we met in the first book either, moping a bit around the castle and repeatedly telling herself she’s not cut out to be queen instead of focusing that energy on learning the rules and regulations governing her new life. It’s not until over halfway before Jess finally shakes loose of her uncharacteristic melancholy and begins to take charge of her own future instead of allowing it to be dictated for her.

Overall, this is an entertaining series, the first book highly recommended for those who enjoy paranormal young adult fiction that has a well-executed combination of humor and romance. The second book is slightly disappointing given our strong attachment to the first, but it’s still a quick read even though it lacks some of the elements that made its predecessor so strong.

Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side: 4/5
Jessica Rules the Dark Side: 3/5