Release date: September 13th 2011
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 5/5 stars
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 thoughts:
Drink, Slay, Love attracted me by its cover – that is, until I read the synopsis. The concept of a vampire going to High School intending to lead all the students to a slaughter was way too interesting and, after shopping in Amazon – thank God for Kindle for Android – I was happily reading the book.
The main character, Pearl, is awesome in a level of awesomeness you don’t see much. She’s not a wimpy girl who falls in love with a vampire and looses the 1% of personality that she had. Oh, no, Pearl is the vampire, the predator, and seeing things through her point of view was fascinating at worst and mind-blowing at best. Humans are sheep, dinner, bags of blood not worthy of Pearl’s time, except for when she’s hungry. She doesn’t care if they get sick after being bitten, about their lives… until she’s stabbed in the heart by a unicorn.
After that, things go straight to hell for Pearl. She’s able to walk in the sunlight, and – big surprise – she starts to develop a conscience. But it doesn’t take too long for her Family to use her “gifts” to their own advantage. Pearl is supposed to go to High School, befriend the humans, and lead them straight to the Fealty Ceremony, a ball in which the King of the vampires will attend, and is expecting a big feast (her new classmates being the steak).
But killing is a lot easier when you don’t know your prey, and as Pearl begins to infiltrate in the human world, her new conscience rises and makes her feel guilty about what she has to do. Feeling more like a human each day, Peal has to balance the importance of Family and of friends, and think about her morals, her previous way of life, and if humans are really just food.
Pearl’s sense of humor and constant sarcasm was enough to make me laugh at every dialogue. Her inexperience with humans and their habits were hilarious and really well developed. I just loved Pearl as a vampire and as vampire-with-a-conscience. It’s simply fantastic to see a born predator starting to feel remorse and regret over her victims, like a lion afraid to slaughter the sheep.
Aside from that, the secondary characters were fantastic, both humans and vampires. Pearl’s friends in high school and her Family made her double personality, so to speak, even more enjoyable. One character that I particularly liked was Evan. As a romance lover (how ironic does that sound? xD), Evan was the perfect match for Pearl. His hero complex and sweetness made me swoon at the pages, but even with his charms being unleashed, Pearl still wore her sarcastic and indifferent mask.
However, the ending left me slightly disappointed. Not that it was bad, but I wanted one more chapter, at least, just to make things clearer about Pearl’s future. But then, maybe this sense of incompleteness is intentional, to make the readers wonder where Ms. Snarky will get herself into next.
Even the POV of a predator didn’t stop this book from being cute. Drink, Slay, Love is perfect for those who wish to take a break from clichés and go deep into a light and snarky story. Highly recommended.
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