Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey

Jessica has been leading a normal life in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania for seventeen years. It's the beginning of her senior year, though, when things turn weird. A foreign exchange student, Lucius Vladescu, arrives and claims to be Jessica's betrothed. He says that her real name is Antanasia Dragomir, and that she is a vampire princess. The biggest kicker is that Lucius and Jessica have to get married to stop the feuding of rival vampire families. There is no way that Jessica is going to buy into this nonsense. Vampires aren't real, or are they? As she spends more time with Lucius and learns about her heritage, Jess realizes that being a vampire might not be so bad. But as a hot cheerleader and Lucius's blood-thirsty uncles impede upon their romance, Jessica must find a way to win Lucius back and save the world from a vampire war.

I actually really enjoyed reading this book, even though I found the main two characters annoying. The plot was interesting, even though this is another one of the endless vampire novels being written. This is the first book I've read that has featured a vampire princess, so kudos to Beth Fantaskey for an original plotline. I liked the idea that Jessica and Lucius were forced to be together, and then ended up falling in love. Though, the fact that they were "in love" was hard for me to see, mostly because I found the characters obnoxious.


Lucius on one hand, has been raised as a prince and has a very luxurious lifestyle. So when he comes to a farm town in Pennsylvania, he has a lot of complaints and is extremely arrogant. I understand that he has been raised this way, and eventually becomes more tolerant, but it was still annoying. He flip-flops his attitude towards Jessica: sometimes he treats her like a child, and others he's saying how she has the traits to be a princess. Lucius also has an inner struggle: he thinks he's that his evil and is undeserving of being happy. That was annoying, too, because everyone knows that deep down, Lucius wasn't a bad guy. He also did that annoying thing where he wouldn't tell Jessica what was happening and instead treated her like crap, thinking it was to keep her safe. It reminded me a lot of when Edward leaves Bella in New Moon, because he wants her to have a normal life.

Then we have Jessica. She completely hates Lucius at first, because she finds him infuriating (as do I). She also refuses to accept that that Lucius is a vampire. Let me rephrase that, she refuses to believe that he is a vampire. Jessica's parents even say, "Look he's a vampire," but it takes her half-way through the book to have the revelation, that yes, he sucks blood. And then she starts falling in love with him, even though I still don't really know why. Sure he's handsome and rich and smart...but that's about it.

So it sounds like I hated the book, right? I actually didn't. Even thought it wasn't the best I've ever read, I kept wanting to read it and see what happened. Of course, the writing was pretty good, so that helped a lot. This just goes to show that obnoxious characters does not equal bad book.

7 out of 10.