I usually love vampire books and most supernatural books in general. I have read an incredibly large amount of paranormal romances for young adults, and doubt I've found any that I haven't liked anywhere near as much as this. The main characters, twins Sunny and Rayne, are constantly aggravating. The writing style could have been much better, and there were a couple slips in the storyline where things didn't make sense. Some things were overly corny or simply overdone. It's sad, especially because I liked most of the plot and some of the ideas, and the poorer parts just make it ridiculous.
In Book 1, Sunny is your average high school girl. She's on varsity field hockey and is the understudy for the lead part in the school play. She is, unfortunately, twins with the only Goth in the school, Rayne. Rayne drags her to Club Fang, which does actually have vampires mixed in with the Goths. There, Sunny meets Magnus, who promptly bites her neck and starts the week-long transformation process into a vampire and Magnus's blood mate (supposedly like a soul mate, except for the fact that vampires don't have souls). Magnus was unfortunately supposed to bite Rayne, who was certified to become a vampire and went on waiting lists and everything. Of course, the final night of Sunny's transformation just happens to be prom night, and the hottest guy in school, the male lead in the play, asked her. She and the annoying but oh-so-hot Magnus (who is heir to the coven leader that just so happens to get killed off that week) have to find out how to stop the transformation before it's too late.
In Book 2, Rayne is the main character. Her sister's drama teacher or whatever you'd call him just informed her that she is the Vampire Slayer, the one girl chosen every generation to kill off any evil vampires. If she doesn't comply, Slayer, Inc. can kill her. So now vampire-obsessed Rayne has to stop a possible coupe that would kill Magnus by infiltrating the local blood bar. Magnus, of course, has the commander of his army working undercover in the same blood bar. And you can definitely figure out that Jareth seems just like Magnus in that he's hot but a pain to work with. There's a subplot with Rayne's dad, too, which helps explain Rayne a bit as part of the supernatural scene, rather than typical teen-parent drama and angst.
There were some flaws in the story. When Rayne goes into the blood bar, she uses a fake ID and ends up making friends with the bouncer at the door, who knows her as a different name. Someone refers to her as Rayne while talking to the bouncer, and the bouncer even calls her that name without letting on that he knows her by a different name. On the same page, after that, Rayne tells him, "By the way, my name is Rayne."
In the first book, Magnus says that vampires have to wait 1000 years before being able to apply for blood mates, but in the second, Jareth said that he was asked if he wanted a blood mate while also saying that he was turned in the time of the plague (think 13th century). The numbers aren't adding up for me, either. There's another of those slip-ups that to me seemed pretty major, but I'd be giving something away if I tell you.
I found both Sunny and Rayne to be incredibly stupid and annoying. Both of them seemed pretty oblivious to the fact that they were falling in love, especially Sunny. Sunny finds Magnus self-centered and Rayne and Jareth basically only fight the first couple times they meet (which makes her regret working with him). Of course the author decides to remind us of this every time they are mentioned (along with the fact that they are definitely hot and that it's such a waste to have such good looks and such a bad personality). Sunny, unfortunately, takes the cake because she was possibly even more self-centered and melodramatic about becoming a vampire. Magnus didn't seem anywhere near as annoying or self-centered or anything as he was said to be at first, and even was incredibly nice and helpful. After a while, it got aggravating.
Sunny and Rayne also seemed pretty similar. They always seem to try and show how they like different things, were completely different, and so on, with only their looks and their DNA the same, but they seemed to act very similarly. Come to think of it, their stories are also kind of similar.
Rayne's book also was meant to be her blog entries or something, which included comments left by people. It got a bit annoying, slightly off-topic, and seemed to make the author think it was okay to use a couple bits of shorthand like BTW and so on. Not much, but just enough to make the format a bit aggravating. You have to wonder if it's really necessary.
I enjoyed several parts of this book, definitely. For starters, the history of the vampire covens and the creation of Slayer, Inc. were new and interesting ideas, although some parts were a little souped up and over-the-top. Also, the fact that vampires and humans can get each other sick is suggested, as both vampires and the humans they drink from are checked to make sure they don't have any diseases. The vampire hierarchy isn't a new idea, and is only mentioned a little, but is still there and I think there may be more about it in the next couple books.
Overall, slightly annoying characters, overdone in a couple parts, has some mistakes, but some good ideas. I'm not sure if I'm going to read the next books. Probably if I find them in the library.
