Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs

Pocket Star

Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs
Molly Harper
2009

The Summary
"Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge.  When children's librarian and self-professed nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed twenty-five dollars in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes on a bender that's sure to become Half Moon Hollow legend.  On her way home, she's mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead.  And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-colored cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladylike thirst for blood.

"Jane is now the latest recipient of a gift basket from the Newly Undead Welcoming Committee, and her life-after-lifestyle is taking some getting used to.  Her recently deceased favorite aunt is now her ghostly roommate.  She has to fake breathing and endure daytime hours to avoid coming out of the coffin to her family.  She's forced to forego her favorite down-home Southern cooking for bags of O-negative.  Her relationship with her sexy, mercurial sire keeps running hot and cold.  And if that wasn't enough, it looks like someone in Half Moon Hollow is trying to frame her for a series of vampire murders.  What's a nice undead girl to do?"

The Good
I enjoyed Molly Harper's novel pretty well.  I liked that it had a sassy female lead.  I mean, how can I not like her?  She's a librarian for crying out loud, and she's a genuinely nice (and, dare I say it, funny) character.  And I was perpetually intrigued by the authors take on vampires that come out into the open and try to live normal, fulfilling lives.

Yes, I realize this idea has been used before--Sookie Stackhouse, anyone?--but I actually enjoyed Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs a little better than Charlaine Harris' series.  Perhaps that's blasphemy, considering the outrageous popularity that True Blood found on HBO; however, there's something about Harper's style of writing and Jane Jameson's character that I found more appealing.

Jane is a little more fleshed out than the more popular Sookie Stackhouse, I thought, and she strikes me as a being a lot brighter if clumsier.  Sookie seemed almost too perfect, self-deprecating and unrealistic with her heavy southern accent; Jane is clumsy and, one might say, goofy, but she's equally intelligent and, while she has an intense love for southern food and makes note of her southern accent, it isn't...forced.  Her character seems more natural, her decisions more fluid.

And I liked her better for it.

Overall, Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs was an enjoyable book with a great protagonist.  It's a short, quick read, which I finished within a couple of days, and it's a short series that builds on the local vampire population without overwhelming me with information--or, more importantly, confusing me with all the vampire rules, like Sookie Stackhouse's strange and, sometimes, unexplained world.

The Bad
Admittedly, it's not a great story.  I mean, it had a decent plot, but I wasn't thrilled or sitting on the edge of my seat the entire time.  It was fun while it lasted, and I like that it played with the vampire myth a little more, utilizing both traditional and pop culture ideas; however, I wasn't smitten with the series.

I could keep reading it, and I could definitely enjoy it if I picked up another book.  It's sort of a paperback guilty pleasure:  lots of fun, good characters, but not a whole lot of substance.

The Ugly
Blood.  Unexpected violence.  Gore.  So on and so forth.

There are vampires involved.  What did you expect?