Kiersten White: Slayer

In the first in a new series Kiersten White takes readers back to the world of The Slayers but from a whole new perspective:

Nina and her twin sister Artemis have lived a far from normal life and though they may look alike they are very different people. They are growing up in The Watcher Academy, or whats left of it since Buffy ended magic. Nina has carved out a place for herself as a Medic but everything changes in one instant when she places herself in danger to save others. Nina becomes a Slayer, the last slayer every to be, and now Nina has to wrestle with not only being a Slayer but questioning everything she knows not only about herself but the Watchers place in this new world. Things are never easy for a Slayer and as the bodies start to pile up Nina has to make some hard decision that could affect the world.

So this book is basically calling all Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans which I totally am but of the TV series, I was not into reading at the time of the end of the show so I never kept up with the graphic novels that followed. This is where White makes a few assumptions. First you’re here because you loved and enjoyed Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show, as stated that is why I picked up this book so you have the general understanding of the slayer and watchers, vampires demons etc, so if you never watched this series you may be a bit lost as to the world that was built and everything that really came before. Second it assumes that you continued on with the graphic novels/comic books after the tv series ended which I did not so there are plenty of events that happened in these media forms that I was not aware of. So there were times, especially at the beginning of the book, where I felt a bit lost.

This book was quite a bit darker than I thought that it would be; From the type of demons that are introduced, death of some of the characters and illegal demon fighting, this book does cover quite a bit of dark ground. These are all traits that were embraced by the TV show so I am glad that White kept to these traits. White also does a good job of integrating the mystery and teen genres in this books as well (though at times there was a little bit too much teen aspects for me).

There is a lot of Buffy bashing. To say the main character does not like Buffy and blames her for many of the wrongs in the world and her life is an understatement (She even makes this statement more than once throughout the book). However, Nina who is the main character of this book, does grow and develop as a character and begins to see a different side to the slayer aspect. I really appreciated that White had Nina grow as a character, this was one of the high points of this book.

I was able to figure out one of the big twists but did not see the second one coming which was a great surprise, so I appreciate that White was able to do this. Nonetheless, I am unsure if I will continue on in this series, there were aspects that I liked but there was a bit too much teen drama for me, which probably a teenager would enjoy but reading as an adult it was a bit much.

Enjoy!!!

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