Review: Drink, Slay, Love by Sarah Beth Durst

From Goodreads: Pearl is a sixteen-year-old vampire ...  fond of blood, allergic to sunlight, and mostly evil ... until the night a sparkly unicorn stabs her through the heart with his horn. Oops. Her family thinks she was attacked by a vampire hunter (because, obviously, unicorns don't exist), and they're shocked she survived. They're even more shocked when Pearl discovers she can now withstand the sun. But they quickly find a way to make use of her new talent. The Vampire King of New England has chosen Pearl's family to host his feast. If Pearl enrolls in high school, she can make lots of human friends and lure them to the King's feast - as the entrees. The only problem? Pearl's starting to feel the twinges of a conscience. How can she serve up her new friends - especially the cute guy who makes her fangs ache - to be slaughtered? Then again, she's definitely dead if she lets down her family. What's a sunlight-loving vamp to do?

My Rating: 4 hearts  

Thoughts on the Novel: What happens when a heartless teenage vampire girl gets stabbed by a unicorn and ends up developing a conscience? Well, you get Sarah Beth Durst’s Drink, Slay, Love: a book with a fun plot and one that manages to be original despite revolving around the theme of vampires.

The main character, Pearl, is snarky and perfectly capable of kicking anyone’s butt, human or vampire. Looking at things through her perspective was really interesting and entertaining. For example, on her first day of school, Pearl tells her teacher that she’s not afraid to speak up in class because she’s superior to him. Her change from viewing her classmates as potential prey to friends was gradual and believable.

The other characters in Drink, Slay, Love were also enjoyable. Evan’s hero complex was sweet and even though I guessed his mysterious secret early on, it was still fun waiting for Pearl to try and figure it out. Matt and Zeke were amusing every time they showed up, and the popular girls in Drink, Slay, Love turned out to be as human as everyone else, which I really liked. As for Pearl’s family, in spite of how violent they were – hey, they are vampires! – there were incidents when they made me laugh too. Cousin Antoinette, for instance, teaches Pearl about school using Molly Ringwald movies as examples.

The thing that I found really great about Drink, Slay, Love was the way Durst set up all the different relationships. Pearl’s eventual romance with one of her classmates took time to develop and began only once the two got to know each other sufficiently well. Likewise, there were people Pearl hung out with at school that she doesn’t consider friends until much later. In real life, you can click with some people right away but establishing an actual friendship takes time and effort.

There is also a nice contrast between Pearl’s biological family and Evan’s adopted family. Just because you’re born into a family doesn’t mean that being around those people is healthy, and sometimes you need to move away or create a new family in order to get the freedom to be able to make your own choices.

A novel that’s guaranteed to make you giggle, but one that still has some serious undertones, Drink, Slay, Love will be released on September 13, 2011 by Margaret K. McElderry Books.  

Comments About the Cover: I love the cover! It clearly shows off that it’s about vampires but does so in a fantastically creative and cute way. The cover is a little misleading however because the vampires in Drink, Slay, Love don’t like drinking blood out of bottles or bags. 

In exchange for an honest review, this ARC was received from the publisher (Simon and Schuster) for free via Galley Grab.