Stake That! by Mari Mancusi

First published in 2006.

All I want to be is a vampire. But nooo - I have to be Rayne McDonald, vampire slayer . . .

Sisters. They'll swipe your clothes, your boyfriends, your destiny. But it wasn't exactly my twin Sunny's fault. Magnus, a vamp hottie and coven leader, mistook her for me last month and bit her instead. Now they're going the interspecies dating thing.

But back to me. Turns out for every generation (yes, just like on Buffy), there's a vampire slayer - and this time around, it just happens to be yours truly. My first mission: infiltrate a seedy vamp bar downtown and expose its vampire owner for purposely spreading a blood disease he created himself. A task almost harder than passing trig.

After going it alone once, I realized I needed help. So Magnus sent his sexy Goth buddy Jareth to go undercover with me. And let me just say I wouldn't mind going under the covers with him. Maybe boys don't bite after all . . . (book back blurb)

Aside from the fact that my dumb ass switched the order of the books (I should have read this one before Girls That Growl, dur), this book is total love. It leaves me wondering why Mancusi decided to get into Sunny's head at all (especially since she's "more of a Rayne girl"). Maybe because of the whole transformation thing but even then, I think telling it from Rayne's point of view would have made that first book a whole hell of a lot better.

Rayne's kind of like WTF? with the whole slayer thing, especially since she still really wants to be a vampire. You'd think that'd be a conflict of interest or something. Slayer Inc's got to have some loopholes for that. I mean, she's still out to get herself a blood mate but she's still expected to perform her slaying duties? Tough much?

Her budding relationship with Jareth starts off really similar to Sunny's reaction to Magnus, the whole "I don't really like him, he's an ass" route except Rayne gave into herself much, much quicker. Thank god. I don't know if I could have standed a whole 'nother book where the MC is constantly denying her true feelings. Rayne just kind of says fuck it at the end of the day which is an awesome relief.

I felt Jareth's character transition (or breakdown, not sure how you want to describe it) happened a little suddenly for me. He went from this very standoffish, get the hell away from me type person to calling Rayne Raynie what I thought was overnight. The shift itself felt kind of shaky and plot-serving but regardless of how I felt about that, the two of them are definitely a perfect fit. Very introverted people that don't get close to anyone, don't open up to anyone, just keep to themselves. They kind of wrapped each other into that solitude and each let one lean of the other since they both knew what the other was going through. It's not much of a balanced relationship, really it's very one-sided (which Girls That Growl proved), but they understand each other completely and it's hard to not be attracted to someone that knows you inside out without really knowing you because they are the same person.

The ending was very sweet and kind of heart-wrenching and I loved the change in demeanor Rayne had towards her father. I won't go into detail because I don't want to spoil it but I'll just say I had some tears going on there.

And as if I could review this book without mentioning the massive Lost Boys references? Holy crap weasels, that alone is the ultimate love! And it's Sunny that makes the references. So not expecting that one so slight redemption there. And how they mimic one of the great scenes from that movie to try and test their mom's new boyfriend to see if he's some evil vampire. OMG I was in heaven. Mari said she had to drop that movie in there just in case her younger readers hadn't been exposed to its gloriousness yet. Good call!

So yeah, you can pretty much skip Boys That Bite and read Stake That! and Girls That Growl because those two books kick ass. And keep your eyes open because Mari Mancusi will be making a guest post here soon. Hopefully she'll be talking about the rumored fourth book in this series. But I know she'll be talking about these books!