Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Still Sucks to Be Me: The All-true Confessions of Mina Smith, Teen Vampire
Fiction
For ages 14 and up
Mirrorstone, 2010 ISBN: 978-0786955039
Mina Hamilton is not longer human, technically speaking. Instead, she is a vampire like her parents, and her life will never be the same again. She quite likes her new “undead” state except for the fact that the Vampire Relocation Agency insists that Mina and her parents have to “die,” so that they can disappear and build a new life for themselves with new identities in a new place. Mina thinks that perhaps they will be moved to Los Angeles, and if so, it won’t be hard for her to keep in touch with her BFF Serena.
Mina is therefore horrified when she finds out that they are moving to Louisiana. She is even more upset when she realizes that they are moving to a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were New Orleans, but Cartville? If you blink while driving through town, you miss downtown altogether.
This is quite bad enough, but there is more. Mina’s boyfriend, George, has decided to go to Brazil to reconnect with the parents who abandoned him when he was little. So, while Mina has to have a friendless existence in Cartville, George will be surrounded by gorgeous Brazilian beach babes in tiny bikinis. As far as Mina is concerned, her whole life well and truly “sucks.” What Mina does not know is that it is going to suck a lot more in a very short period of time.
This hilarious sequel to Sucks to be me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (maybe) will have readers laughing out loud. Poor Mina has one unfortunate experience after another, and her efforts to stay out of trouble are, to say the least, rather unsuccessful. With humor and a keen sense of fun, Kimberly Pauley perfectly captures the voice of someone who is, for the most part, just like most teenage girls. Except that this teenage girl drinks blood, never sleeps, has super keen hearing, is incredible strong, can hypnotize people, can shape-shift…okay so maybe she is a little unusual!
