Slayed

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy

SLAYED is a little like what Buffy might have been (with a Romeo & Juliet twist) if she’d partnered up with Cordelia and had to teach her the vampire slaying ropes. There is shallow fun dialogue, a somewhat campy foe, and a forbidden romance that you root for from the start.

This is an example of a great premise (the teenage descendants of the two most famous vampire hunters: Van Helsing and Harker, meeting up and falling for each other despite their feuding families) that turned out to be a good book.

The characters were all very believable and pitiable in their own way. Daphne as the bitter slayer whose parents don’t seem to care about the danger they constantly put her in or the truly show more cloistered life she’s had to live. Then there’s Kiki, the washed up former child star whose parents kicked off the family TV show when she put on weight at the age of five. And finally Tyler, the slayer who has been living in a car with his disturbed father ever since his mother got turned and had to be staked.

Everyone is a mess, but in a can’t-look-away-car-crash-on-the-side-of-the-road way. Daphne cuts out magazine pictures of the friends she imagines having (and the prom date she fantasizes about getting to second base with), Kiki is a plastic surgery addict with serious promiscuity issues, and Tyler is barely hanging on to his father’s sanity.

Compared to the more thoughtful character development early on, the ending of SLAYED felt pretty rushed and much too easy. Another fifty pages would have gone a long way towards smoothing out some of the convenient plot developments and jumpy action sequences (not to mention the much too perfect epilogue). But the feuding vampire slayer dynasties and fascinatingly damaged characters make SLAYED a fun, if flawed, read. I believe this is a stand alone story (although there is ample opportunity for a sequel, so you never know), but Amanda Marrone has several other Paranormal YA’s under her belt that I plan on picking up.

Sexual Content: References to sex. References to homosexuality. A scene of mild sensuality. show less

Daphne's family is in the vampire slaying business. She has never had been to school, to a prom or had a best friend or a boyfriend. Daphne would really like to have a home to come home to. Her parents won't listen. It is time for her to take a stand.

I enjoyed this book. It was very different than I expected. It was more about a young girl dissatisfied with the choices her parents made for her. There are vampires but the focus seems to be on finally breaking free of the chains placed on them by their parents.

Slayed was a fun, cutesy type of pre-teen novel centering around the ancestor of the Van Helsings.

Daphne Van Helsing is not your typical teen - she is a vampire slayer! If you couldn't tell by the title. This book centers around her family and the trouble they get into being vampire slayers. It's very cute, and the plot is fun, but it's not made for the older YA audience. This one seems more appropriate for the pre-teen audience - it's kind of teeny bopper cute, with lots of little antics that happen more so in the Percy Jackson-esque young audience (not to say that older YA don't read that to, but it wasn't directed towards the more mature YA audience).

Overall, I really enjoyed it! It was a cute novel! I would definitely like to read show more more by Amanda Marrone!

There is definitely some parts of it that the mature YA audience won't like - protective parents letting their daughter fight deadly creatures? They must keep in mind the pre-teen audience would identify with that - protective parents but wanting to go out on their own and be "adults".

Three out of five stars! Definitely cute! show less

Reviewed by Andrea for TeensReadToo.com

Daphne has grown up in a vampire slayer family. Her family history of slaying vampires goes way back - in fact, one of her distant relatives was the famous Van Helsing. Now, she has to travel around with her parents, helping to rid cities and towns of the vampires.

All Daphne wants is the normal life of a teenage girl. She even has a binder with pictures of imaginary best friends and pictures cut out of magazines of her dream prom. But considering she doesn't even have a home, since she and her parents stay in cheap motels, she knows that this will never be an option.

But one night, while on patrol, she meets Kiki, who witnesses a vampire slaying. And Kiki wants in on the action.

As a condition for show more not telling the world about vampires, Kiki wants to go with Daphne on vampire hunts. At first, Kiki is annoying, but soon Daphne has her very first best friend. And not only that, but she is also introduced to a guy, Tyler, who could be her first real kiss. The only problem is that Tyler is the son of a rival vampire-slaying family.

This was a cute and fun slayer story. I liked Daphne and how she was a kick-butt girl but still wanted a normal high school life. And Kiki, Daphne's new friend and trainee, is great fun, too! I loved her personality! She was bubbly but had vulnerabilities.

The plot was pretty good, although it did get a little weird at one part involving the father of the rival slayer family. But I'll leave you to read that and find out why. I hope there is a sequel to this book so we can get to know more about Daphne and Kiki! show less

This was a well-appreciated and fluffy read; just what I needed. I enjoyed the book, but the ending was a bit sudden. It's like... BANG! But I still liked it.

Meh

Daphne e i suoi genitori, discendenti di Van Helsing, sono cacciatori di vampiri. Durante il loro ultimo incarico sono costretti a lavorare con gli Harkers, padre e figlio anche loro cacciatori di vampiri e rivali dei Van Helsing.
Inoltre a loro si aggiunge anche Kiki, una ragazza che Daphne ha salvato dall’ attacco di un vampiro.
Quando il lavoro inizia effettivamente il gruppo si rende conto di doversi scontrare con dei vampiri molto particolari, che non avevano mai incontrato prima, e con qualcosa di molto più pericoloso dei vampiri stessi.
Libro molto carino, misterioso e un po’ inquietante, ma anche divertente, grazie soprattutto al personaggio di Kiki, che rende tutto più “leggero” e molto piacevole.