Book 1: Claire is sixteen, perky as hell and a genius. She wants to go to MIT. However, her totally lame parents (boo!) are making her attend college in nearby Morganville as a “starter” school. But OMG, Morganville is totally overrun by vampires! Humans are their slaves! This is totally whack, but if Claire leaves college, she will lose valuable time at a facility of higher learning! Better stay and stick in out with her three plucky roommates. Because having to wait a year and a half to get into MIT is waaay worse than being murdered by vampires!
Book 2: More of the same, but with a lot of attempted rape. Oh, and lots of not-so-heavy petting.
Okay, here are my major beefs with this book. Oh yes, because with Total Crap Recap, it’s less about trying to glean deep understanding from these tomes and more about mocking the crap out of them. Also, spoiler alert! But if you have stumbled across this blog while reading Morganville Vampires, you have bigger problems than a ruined ending.
Beef #1 : Claire is a “genius.”
For a genius, Claire sure does some stupid shit.
1)Claire initially has to move out of the dorms because she has made “hottie” Monica look bad by insulting her intelligence and Monica is out for blood. The insult: Monica has referred to WWII as “that dumbass Chinese War thing.” Claire embarrasses her by mentioning how the Japanese were involved in WWII and then there was the Korean War. Now, I’m no history professor, but please correct me if I am wrong and China was NOT involved in WWII. You know, Japanese invasions, Bataan Death March, “comfort” women…I’m not saying Monica’s smart, but maybe she’s just a little less American-centric than you, Claire.
2)In Book 2, Claire sees her arch nemesis and the new big bad in town having COFFEE together. As the reader, it was the kind of “oh, I see” moment that feels like the author smacked you upside the head. Oh, they’re WORKING together. Claire, however, doesn’t put two and two together. EVER. Not until someone else tells her what’s going on. We might want to have her re-take that IQ test.
3)When she finds out Morganville is run by vampires, she STAYS IN TOWN.
Beef #2: Can’t we all get along? No, we CAN’T.
The aforementioned Monica really has it in for Claire. She pushes her down a flight of stairs, slaps her, punches her, threatens her with a knife, abducts her in a van, chokes her, has a crony pour acid down her back, sets fire to her house, sets her up to be drugged and almost gang raped by some frat boys (it’s apparently what they go to college for) and I may have missed some stuff in the barrage of death threats. Anyway, yadda yadda, some stuff happens and Claire saves Monica’s life by dragging her out of a burning building. Below, an excerpt of the lovely conversation Monica and Claire have after the fire:
“Claire…bitch!” Her voice sounded raw and hoarse. “You…think this…makes us…friends?” “God, no,” Claire said. “But I think you kinda owe me.”
Um, she kinda OWES you? She tried to have you raped and murdered. And she murdered your boyfriend’s sister. I may be a bit cynical, but if you try to murder me I am not going to send you flowers after. I probably am not going to rescue you from a burning building either. Sorry.
Beef # 3: Whooo, rape! Boogety boogety!
You know the book has a problem when it is filled with vampires and the scariest fucking sections are the ones where a bunch of bikers/frat boys try to rape some teenage girls. So far, the vampires and their curfews are not really frightening and are just really annoying. I’m sure they must be sucking blood and murdering people, but it must be happening in another section of town or something. Claire almost gets raped at a party, then something happens, and she has to hide in a closet with her would-be rapists. And she’s so scared; she ends up holding one of the rapist’s hands. Please see Beef #2.
Beef #4: Hiding in closets
Boy, there sure is a lot of action in Book 2. That is, I think there is a lot of action in Book 2. I can’t be sure, because Claire spends an inordinate amount of time hiding in a damn closet. I understand, she’s underage, not a fighter, blah blah. But it seems the height of laziness to have your characters hide in closets when something happens so you don’t have to describe the action.
Beef #5: Hot semi-sex scenes (that YOU should be ashamed of reading!)
Claire is in love with this guy named Shane. He’s “over 18.” Um, so would he be 19? 21? There’s a lot of ways to interpret “over 18.” Claire and Shane have several make out sessions. An example:
She wasn’t absolutely sure who was kissing whom this time. Maybe it was gravity tilting, stars exploding. It felt like it. His hands were free this time and they cupped her face, stroked her hair, her neck, down to her shoulders…
After each time the author describes Claire and Shane making out, both characters warn each other (and you the reader) that if they go all the way it would be illegal because she’s under 18. Um, I have to seriously doubt that the average teenager would take the time to remind her boyfriend after each time they kiss that they could at any moment be breaking the law. More likely they’d just already be going at it. And it seems somehow icky to create such an intimate moment and then scold the reader. At least Twilight had a legitimate reason for why the characters couldn’t go past first base (he’d kill her).
Beef # 6
Their hands clasped, finger laced and parts of her—parts she’d only ever warmed up alone—were going full blast.
Most vague description of masturbation---ever.
