A Review of The Girl's Guide to Vampires

.5
I give The Girl's Guide to Vampires three and a half fangs

On the heels of the Twilight Phenomenon comes The Girl's Guide to Vampires, an everything guide for the YA set who wants to know more about vampires beyond Meyer's Twilight series.

The Girl's Guide to Vampires: All You Need to Know About the Original Bad Boys by Barb Karg is a fun and information packed vampire resource that not just teens and tweens will enjoy.

I am pretty far away from being a tween or teen but being a huge vampire fan I still thoroughly enjoyed this book. And now I can pass it on to my almost tween daughter who is also into all things vampish and spooky (that's my girl), she's going to flip over this book. Many books I read can't be passed a long to her until much later (due to extreme sexual content). This one though is a keeper that can be put on the bookshelf.

The Girl's Guide to Vampires contains a bit of everything vampire related: vampire lore throughout the ages and around the world, early writings about vampires, myths and legends about vampires (how they are made, their powers, etc), vampire characteristics, how to fight an immortal bad boy (channel your inner Buffy girls), literary vampires, early screen vampires, legendary vampires, movies and TV shows about vampires, and the pros and cons of being a vampire.

Thoroughly entertaining but lacking a bit. Karg's lists were a bit short and missing some vampire fan faves. For instance her television section listed Forever Knight, Buffy, Angel, and True Blood and the earlier shows like Dark Shadows and the Munsters. She skimmed over Moonlight and Kindred the Embraced and did not even mention Blood Ties. Though these shows did not do well with ratings they all had (have) a loyal fan base that still loves them and wishes the shows could be resurrected, especially Blood Ties.

And her section on current vampire books and their authors....definitely lacking but the subject matter is huge and could fill an entire book itself. I have to remind myself YA Book! Many vampire books currently out have loads of sexual content, Laurell K Hamilton anyone? Yet she did mention the Anita Blake series. Though I love, love, love Laurell's books-I don't want my daughter reading them anytime soon.

Karg's bio claims she is a vampire aficionado and I'm sure she is but many of the basic vampire topics like shows, movies, and books that she discusses in the book come off as sounding like she wrote them from research not personal knowledge. Maybe that's just how she writes because she must be super into vampires as she is also the author of The Everything Vampire Book and she is currently working on a vampire novel. Cool.

Of course maybe the text and discussions are simplified because it is a YA book. I forget what's it is like to read YA books, it's been along time, longer than most since I was reading Stephen King and Dean Koontz by the time I was 9. Hmmm....Anyway, after my daughter reads the book I'll post an update of what she thought.

All in all I recommend this book for vampire fans. It is totally suitable for your teenage daughter to be reading this vampire book, it's all fun and if she's into Twilight she'd probably like this handy little vampire resource book.