Review: Prom Dates from Hell by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Book One of the Maggie Quinn: Girl vs. Evil series

Tags: YA, paranormal, demons, prom

Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary

High school senior and aspiring journalist Maggie Quinn just wants to survive the last few weeks of high school without getting sucked into the prom madness. However, there’s more on her plate to worry about when strange and horrible things begin to happen to her grade’s “elite crowd,” lovingly called the Jocks and the Jessicas by Maggie. These boys and girls suffer accidents or lose what is most important to them, and Maggie, with the help of her friends, reluctantly admits that something sinister and distinctly hellish might just be happening, and it might take a trip to the prom for her to come get to the bottom of it.

Review

Oh, Rosemary, how do I love thy writing? Let me count the ways. Maggie is my kind of protagonist: smart, snappy, and always ready with a quip, even at the most inappropriate moments. Here is a girl who’s not afraid to bust out SAT words in her narrative, even as she’s demeaning her admittedly stereotypical but never uninteresting lower-intelligence classmates, or trying to kick evil’s butt. She’s a no-nonsense, smart-alecky girl thrown into a situation that’s quickly turning unbelievable and distinctly UN-funny, and yet Maggie keeps her cool—and her snarky comments—consistently throughout.

Because of Clement-Moore’s fantastic writing style, even characters such as Maggie’s two possible love interests—Brian Baywatch, the rebel Jock with the lifeguard looks, and Justin, a student of the occult at the nearby university—don’t dissolve into stereotypical shining white knights (even if that is their character type). I would like to see more dimensions in Maggie’s parents and her grandmother in future books in this series, but that is a minor complaint. The strength of Maggie’s character is the thing that carries this book by far.

If you’re looking for a paranormal read that puts a smart twist on a familiar setting, look no further than Rosemary Clement-Moore’s Maggie Quinn: Girl vs Evil series. I can’t wait to read the next books!

Similar Authors

Maureen Johnson (Devilish)

Megan McCafferty

Meg Cabot (The Mediator Series)

Writing: 4/5

Characters: 4/5

Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Cover discussion: 2 out of 5 - This style of art is just not my thing. It's rather...cartoonish for my taste, I guess. I do like the flames, though, and the cover. And this is one of those cases where I'd pick up the book regardless of the cover, because I now know how awesome Rosemary's writing is.

Waiting on Wednesday (13)

This is a triple-book WoW post because otherwise I will never remember to share them all with you!

The Uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones

Mimi Shapiro had a disturbing freshman year at NYU, thanks to a foolish affair with a professor who still haunts her caller ID. So when her artist father, Marc, offers the use of his remote Canadian cottage, she’s glad to hop in her Mini Cooper and drive up north. The house is fairy-tale quaint, and the key is hidden right where her dad said it would be, so she’s shocked to find someone already living there — Jay, a young musician, who is equally startled to meet Mimi and immediately accuses her of leaving strange and threatening tokens inside: a dead bird, a snakeskin, a cricket sound track embedded in his latest composition.

But Mimi has just arrived, so who is responsible? And more alarmingly, what does the intruder want? Part gripping thriller, part family drama, this fast-paced novel plays out in alternating viewpoints, in a pastoral setting that is evocative and eerie — a mysterious character in its own right.

Kirkus Reviews says that it's not a supernatural thriller but rather a suspenseful family drama, but hey! It sounds good. A fairy tale-esque setting, three siblings who didn't know one another, a mysterious threatening presence... count me in for this one.

The Uninvited will be released in hardcover by Candlewick Press on May 12, 2009.

The Splendor Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Sylvie's father's cousin is restoring a family home in a town rich with her family's history. And that's where things start to get shady. As it turns out, her family has a lot more history than Sylvie ever knew. More unnerving, though, are the two guys that she can't stop thinking about. Shawn Maddox, the resident golden boy, is the expected choice. Expected and presumed by everyone. But Rhys--a handsome, mysterious foreign guest of her cousin's--has a hold on her that she doesn't quite understand.

Then Sylvie starts seeing things. A girl down by the lake. A man peering into the window. And a graveyard with an oddly placed headstone.

A modern gothic romance set in the South, Rosemary Clement-Moore has created a heroine who will steal your heart, a house that will haunt you, and a love story that will leave you breathless.

I absolutely love Rosemary Clement-Moore's Maggie Quinn: Girl vs Evil series (as you will be able to see in a few days), and so I'm excited to see what she has in store next. This seems like something very different from the Maggie Quinn books, but I'd be interested in seeing whether or not Rosemary's sense of writing humor (wit! quips! snark!) appears in this book as well. The description and the cover seem a lot more somber than her previous books... but I hope Sylvie is also an intelligent and witty character!

The Splendor Falls will be released in hardcover by Random House on September 8, 2009.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

So I couldn't find an official description yet, but Wikipedia says, "It is the first in a young adult fiction trilogy set in an alternate-history World War I involving living airships, and the main character will be the teenage son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, and his love interest will be a cross-dressing Scottish girl." Wow-za! And if it's written by Scott Westerfeld of course it's going to be good, the man's a genius or something close to that. Plus, the cover looks ridiculous! Reminds me of old-school robot anime (and here I show the years' of influence my brothers have had on me).

I also like/dislike how Scott put a picture of all his ARCs up on his blog and the picture looks something like this:

Well then! Oh, author-taunt humor. It's the greatest. They (the ARCs) look incredible, even just from their spines. :) I wonder what's the chance of me getting an ARC of ANY of these books? Sigh.

Leviathan is being released by Simon & Schuster in October 2009.