Monday, March 18, 2019

Slayer (#1) by Kiersten White-- Newest (and LAST) Member of the Hairy Mole Club!!!

Slayer (#1)

Artemis and Nina are twins living at the Watcher's Academy, but their roles couldn't be more different.  Artemis was chosen to train and fight, while Nina was sidelined as a medic.  Nina doesn't mind though, because she'd rather heal than hurt.  Until....

Nina finds out she's a Slayer-- the last Slayer ever.

Now, she's training with her new Watcher, Leo-- a boy she's had a huge, embarrassing crush on-- while also growing distant from her twin, getting no necessary info from her mother, and having demons pop-up more and more frequently.











DISCLAIMER: I am a big fan of the movie, but have only watched a few episodes (here and there) of the TV show.  This may have impacted my opinions.

A few of my friends are huge Buffy fans, so when they were thinking of reading this book, I thought it would be fun to read it as an outsider to the Buffy-Fandom.  It was pretty easy to pick out the parts in the book that were referencing the show (there are even some references to the movie as well), and I only felt the need to Google two things to figure out what it was they were talking about.  I think it's totally do-able to read this not knowing much about the Buffy World.

This story is about twins Artemis and Nina (real name: Athena).  They're part of the Watchers, tasked to help train the Slayers of the world.  Right now they're not helping anyone because magic is broken and Buffy did something that turned all the Potential Slayers into actual Slayers-- so now there are hundreds (thousands?) of them running around.  The Watcher population has been severely depleted and they are living in a state of hiding, trying to regroup.

Artemis is the chosen twin.  Her mom tapped her to train to be a Watcher, while Nina was forced to sit on the sidelines and learn to be a healer/medic.  That's all fine and dandy until Nina realizes she's a Slayer and the whole dynamic is sent into a tailspin.  Artemis is protective and jealous of Nina-- she's supposed to be the strong twin who is tasked with protecting Nina, not the other way around!!  It's all very complicated and pushes the twins apart.

This book was very uneven to me.  At times I would be super into it, and at times I was so bored.  The book is over 400 pages and it really didn't need to be.  It's written in first-person POV and the main character just goes over and over things we already know to fill up some of the pages.  It also suffered from that thing where if someone (anyone) would just say something (anything), the problems could be solved so easily.  I hate when a simple conversation can make a book not need to exist.

I did like getting to know some of how the Watcher organization worked, and some of the characters were really interesting (Rhys & Cillian, mostly).  I probably would've liked this 100 x's better if it weren't so obvious who the bad people were.  SO OBVIOUS.  If that wasn't bad enough to make the ending anticlimactic, there was also a chain of events that just infuriated me.  Something happens and then the author is just like: SIKE!!! 🙄

OVERALL: Not my favorite.  I enjoyed parts of this, but other parts dragged and dragged.  It really felt like I was reading fanfiction, and that is NOT what I was expecting out of this.  I really enjoyed The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, but this one didn't feel as refined as that one.


Quotes:

"Cillian snorts. "Sorry, I just. I can't get over her name. Buffy."
I fold my arms glaring. "What, she has a girly name, so she can't destroy the world?""


"What would a good Slayer do? I have no idea. Probably start punching things."



"I'm a healer. I've dedicated my life to it. Fixing bodies is all I've ever wanted to do. But now? I have a body count."



Date Published: 1/8/2019
How I got this book: Purchased
Publisher: Simon Pulse

Add this to your To-Read List!!

My Rating: 3/5









Character: Artemis Jamison-Smythe
Book: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

  • Complicated twin relationship-- should really be read by both sisters, but Artemis seems to have a harder time with the change.













7 comments:

  1. Hah! I had to google "hairy mole club" because I've never seen Buffy, either. LOL

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    Replies
    1. Hahaha! It's from the movie, which is the only Buffy stuff I really know!

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  2. I felt the same! Honestly, I think I was bored because a lot of the explanations of what "happened" I knew about from watching the show. I don't think theres a good in between there

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    Replies
    1. I could see that. I'm sure there was some explanations that I didn't even realized were show-related.

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  3. Thanks for the heads up. I think it's cool this book was written in a way that people who haven't seen Buffy can still enjoy it.

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    Replies
    1. Definitely. The things I Googled were more out of curiosity than not understanding what they were talking about, so I think non-show watchers can definitely enjoy this book.

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