Vernal Vampire

Still Sucks To Be Me by Kimberly Pauley

This book gets a very non-sucking 4 gnomes and a gnome hat out of 5 gnomes for more great humor and a new setting that's just as fun as the original. 

I like the formatting of these books like how you see Mina's emails, text messages and journal entries throughout both of these books and the truth and myths about vampires at the start of chapters.  I think seeing this makes you picture the character even better. 

This book continues Mina's story after she becomes a vampire and goes through the whole Vampire Relocation Agency process.  Officially she is now dead and has to move to a very small town.  She has to pretend her Dad is her brother and her Mom is her sister-in-law.  That itself would be pretty weird not getting to refer to your parents as Mom and Dad in public.  

Another great bit of information given is why the last name Smith, which is now Mina's last name, is so popular.  Lots of vampires are given this name when they have to relocate.


The small town vampires and people you meet are very interesting.  Some of the vampires of the Carter clan seem a bit hillbillyish (if that's a word).  The people are also almost aggressively friendly like Eugenie and Grady her son who takes an immediate interest in Mina.  Mina is popular in town because she's new and Grady takes an interest in her. Even the new vampire council they have to deal with is more easy going then the previous one.

There's another trio of love interests in this book.  There's Grady who likes Mina a lot but has a psycho named Kacie who is obsessed with him and doesn't like other girls to talk to him.  George is kind of flaky in this book, he goes to Brazil and doesn't contact Mina for quite a while.  Cameron is the new love interest who "smells" very good to Mina but also happens to be a part of the Carter clan.  Cameron is someone who I really want to know the whole story about.  Not sure that Cameron is really a bad vampire or not because he does end up helping Mina so much.  I have a feeling that he's pretty old in vampire years because he seems pretty powerful.

Mina picks up some cool vampire skills too.  She's very good at shape shifting into other people and she has a knack for mesmerizing people.  This learning how to mesmerize people leads her to get close to Cameron.  Mesmerizing is also vital in this book and has possible implications for the future of the series. 



The Carter Clan of vampires are up to bad stuff usually according to Dr. Jonas, the historian Mina's Dad works for.  Jonas has a theory that the Carters and the Black Talon (a group of really bad vampires who kill humans for initiation into their group).  Cameron was turned by the Carter clan so it is hard to know if he should be trusted. Mina still has an enemy out there, some craziness when Serena shows up and of course high school to deal with.  


The conclusion has hard decisions being made and it looks like a new direction will be part of the future.