Drink, Slay, Loveby Sarah Beth DurstSummary: 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?
Source: I purchased a Kindle copy.
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Review:
One day, as I scrolled through Facebook, author Lauren DeStefano posted a humorous status about how there are never any were-unicorns in paranormal YA fiction and someone should fix that. Someone commented about the book Drink, Slay, Love and how it’s a humorous book that includes unicorns as part of a paranormal YA plot, even though it sounds like it’s just a vampire book. Unicorns… and vampires?! Naturally, I just had to check this book out and see for myself!
Drink, Slay, Love was awesome! It was light, entertaining, and quite humorous. There was so much to love! Pearl was a 16 year old vampire who was pretty great at hunting. She belonged to a quite ruthless and scary vampire Family and had an equally ruthless boyfriend. And then she got stabbed by a unicorn on the way home from a successful hunt. Except unicorns didn’t exist, so her family refuses to believe her. After being captured by two hilarious, but somewhat idiotic teenagers and left outside, Pearl discovered she had the ability to walk in the sun. Instead of killing her, the Family decided to use her “talent” to good use. She had to enroll in public school as part of a mission to gather up a large group of unsuspecting humans and present them as food for an upcoming royal feast.
As soon as Pearl started walking in the sun, she started changing. She was feeling guilty, starting to like humans, starting to see her reflection in certain things, and she was not at all happy about it. I loved the conflict because Pearl was raised to not just feed on humans, but to disregard them as an intelligent species. They were beneath vampires. But once she was around humans in the daytime, especially once she was enrolled in school, she started to actually like them and see how funny, smart, and witty they could be. But she couldn’t disappoint her family. They would kill, torture, punish, or hurt her if she failed in the mission.
Evan was the first human she encountered during the day and the first person to notice her at her new school. She found him pretty intriguing. I loved Evan because I sensed he was a laid back and sweet guy who could potentially balance Pearl out. His friend Bethany also befriended Pearl and she was extremely sweet. She was one of those shy and studious types of people who benefited greatly from having a friend as confident and outspoken as Pearl. Zeke and Matt, the two idiots who captured Pearl in the beginning, were also students at the local high school and I loved their characters so much. They were hilarious and charming at the same time. They made me laugh so many times. Not a single character in the book was filler or a waste. They were all great in their own ways.
Drink, Slay, Love was like The Addam’s Family mixed with Vamps and Mean Girls. There were tons of great elements and themes in the novel that were more serious, like abusive relationships, acceptance, understand social hierarchies in high school, friendship, and morality. And then there were the awesome paranormal aspects, namely the fact that unicorns exist in a non-fairy tale and they actually matter to the plot in a major way. And vampires, which will always be awesome IMO. The dialog was full of wit and humor, as the characters really made the novel what it was. I expected a ridiculous and humorous story after seeing this was a novel with vampires and unicorns, but I didn’t expect it to be so witty and sweet. I definitely recommend the book, especially if you’re in the mood for some light and refreshing paranormal plot.
