Undead and Unwelcome (Queen Betsy, Book 8)
by MaryJanice Davidson
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Book Reviews of Undead and Unwelcome (Queen Betsy, Book 8)
Book Review: Undead, Unreadable and Unlikable
Summary: 1 Stars
I hated this book. I will explain my reasons for feeling that way, but what it comes down to in the end is that one line. If I had to add one more, it's that I'm all done spending any money, or time, on MJD's books. The series has been in trouble more than once and I stuck with it. No more, I'm done.
Those who've read the books know the score. How Betsy came to be the Queen of the Vampires, and Sinclair her husband. They know her best friends, her sister, her brother and they even know why she's at Cape Cod. So will you if you read the first few pages. After that comes problem number one. She repeats herself over and over and over and over again. Did you know Betsy is the Queen? Ooh look at that lamp, shiny! Betsy is the Queen. Oh shoes! Betsy is the Queen. Did we mention shoes? Oh let me look down on the poor Payless wearing shoes people. I'm Betsy and I'm the Queen.
Now that might be a somewhat bad example, since often in life people repeat titles over and over again, but what I'm saying is that past facts, like curing Jessica's cancer which never made a damn bit of sense and was a cop out in the series, get brought up over and over again, in the span of a few pages. Same for her sister's origins. It's mentioned again and again inside of a handful of pages. As well as repeated over and over throughout the book. It's padding to drive up the total word and page count. If most of the padding were cut, the book would probably be 50 pages.
But the padding, Dear Lord the padding. I don't know about you, but I don't care for over description of rooms, people, objects and so on. Why not just say, "A brilliant shade of deep red" Oh no...we must beat the point to death of how this red carpet is better than all other red carpets out there. And ooh and have you seen this desk? We'll take a paragraph to describe the desk! And this persons hair, well I'll compare their hair to mine and then tell you all about my hair, and then tell you more about their hair and how humidity probably affects it! The point is it gets annoying, and over description is either tedious, or padding, or both. In this book, both.
To a degree Marc says what we've probably all thought at one time or another, that Betsy is a PIA and needs a reality check. But her stupidity, and demand to be the center of attention at all times, is wearing very thin. As is her inability to not say stupid things. Several of the things she says when talking about Antonia with her pack made me want to slap her. Insensitivity like that isn't funny. It's just stupid and mean. In the past, I've had moments when I thought that just maybe, Betsy was growing as a character. Now I don't think she ever will. When you're primary character is that self centered, and everyone around her is one dimensional, never expressing thoughts, feelings or emotions, you're going to be in trouble in the long haul. Even Tina and Sinclair come and go only when they need to annoy or babysit Betsy. They're now boring and uninteresting. Everyone is just so flat. Betsy comments that she doesn't care what they do, and since it's from her point of view, the readers don't get to follow up.
Plus the woman is to stupid to live. Or be undead. She keeps making the same mistakes. She doesn't think things through. She leaves everything up to Sinclair and then when she doesn't like how he does things, she has a hissy fit. The whiny brat routine has worn thin too. Well if you've read the series, you get it. With the last two books, which I read back to back, I'm starting to think Paris Hilton comes off as a lot more intelligent.
I used to enjoy these books for what they were, fluff. I love fluff. And I don't mind the idea of a darker storyline. What I do mind is excessive filler, lack of real character growth, which is inexcusable when you're this many books into a series, stupidity in thought and action, extreme unbelievability that goes into the "Jump the Shark" mode, as with BabyJon (and for the love of God why can't she type his name as Jon? BabyJon, cause we might have forgotten he was a baby!) And a main character that has gone from being annoying to being unlikable.
Plus the shoes thing? Getting really old. Not just in this series, but all of them. Being a shoe lover just isn't unique or quirky, or cute anymore. Not that it ever really was.
Book Review: Unwelcome visitors
Summary: 3 Stars
The climax of the seventh Queen Betsy book ended in a shocking way for such a light'n'frothy series: the death of one of Betsy's friends.
And "Undead and Unwelcome" is all about the fallout between the vampires and werewolves, and all the problems that Betsy has to deal with when she takes Antonia's body home. MaryJanice Davidson manages to infuse her latest adventure with the vampire queen with plenty of pathos, a tinge of weirdness (what is UP with BabyJon?) and gentle humor, but the subplot involving Betsy's devilish sister somehow doesn't fit into this puzzle.
Betsy and Sinclair fly off to the castle-like citadel of the Pack, with Antonia's body in tow -- and they're rather surprised that the Pack immediately starts showing great grief and/or resentment about Antonia's death, since they almost drove her out. Betsy isn't too happy about the situation, particularly since the unfriendly werewolves outnumber them by thousands -- and they're all too happy to blame Antonia's death on her.
But Betsy being Betsy, she doesn't intend to take all this unjustified criticism lying down. And to make matters a little weirder, she's lunching with a pregnant crazy woman who claims to be Morgan le Fay's reincarnation, babysitting little alphas, facing down a werewolf council, and wondering what's up with Babyjon. Said infant causes Derik to utterly freak out, and Michael keeps forgetting that he's even there. Very weird.
In the meantime, Marc is left home with Betsy's saintly-yet-demonic sister Laura, who is being stalked by gangs of roving Satanists (no, I am not making this up). Marc tries to help Laura with her ongoing problem... but he unwittingly triggers a change in Laura, showing that there is nothing more evil than an obsessive do-gooder...
I have to give MaryJanice Davidson credit -- not many authors of urban-fantasy would adopt a frothy, slightly ditzy chick-lit approach, and even fewer would use that frothy ditzy approach to handle the subject of death and grief. But she does a pretty good job blending her tongue-in-cheek vampire queen's antics and problems even as she deals with the messy aftermath of Antonia's death.
And though the main story is about the overhanging possibility of a werewolf/vampire war, Davidson keeps some focus on Betsy's oft-comedic antics (fanging out during a playground brawl) and amusing dialogue ("What, are you a superstar pregnant ninja warrior or something"). Even a tense showdown with the devil worshipers has an edge of humor ("I want you athholth out of my houth!").
The problem? Well, quite honestly the subplot about Laura LHM (losing her mind) and GITTPOE (giving in to the forces of evil feels rather clunky when slapped next to the main storyline. It does admittedly lead to a (literally) smashing finale, and some plot threads left hanging for future books.
Betsy's still managed to be a likable vampire queen -- she's kind of flaky and a bit self-absorbed, but she shows plenty of guts (telling off the Pack) and quite a bit of maternal warmth. The supporting characters are also warmly likable, including Betsy's delicious husband Sinclair, her sassy buddy Jessica, and the wide array of werewolves -- from the mellow Michael to the prickly Derek. And Laura has some serious soul-searching to do after this, given how scary she can get.
"Undead and Unwelcome" explores what happens after a werewolf death, and fortunately MaryJanice Davidson writes it like a good souffle -- neither too light nor too heavy. The subplot feels rather tacked on until the climax, but it's still a pleasant light read.
Book Review: JESUS SAVES. HE PASSES TO NOAH. NOAH... DOES NOT SCORE.
Summary: 2 Stars
Just one of the many lines that, I suppose, were intended to be funny but failed miserably... I would like to say that this book was a let down, because it sucked, but after the last one there was nothing much to screw up left.
--SPOILERS--
So Betsy, Sinclair and Jessica head to Cape Cod to deliver Antonia's body to the "grieving" pack. Of course, Betsy's sole concern is Betsy. Once or twice along the way she mentions how painful it was to think about what happened in Undead and Unworthy, but after that goes on and on about some juvenile, completely unrelated subject with, you probably guessed it, her in the center of it all. At the end of chapter two she shoves away the thought of her friend only to rant about Jessica sending her employees memos without Betsy's knowledge, gasp! In chapter nine when they are discussing the funeral, Betsy, of course, does not give a cr@p and does not even pay attention. There is a moment there when she is happy that she is finally going to learn about werewolf burial rituals, again why would she be sad about Antonia? The woman only sacrificed her life to save Betsy's, after all. All in all I was extremely disappointed with the way Antonia's death was handled both in Undead and Unworthy, and in Undead and unwelcome.
The story arc that started with the Ant in the previous book was mentioned once in passing in this installment. With or without it the last two books would have been exactly the same, so why even created it?
Laura is once AGAIN a single maraschino cherry short of a fruitcake, spreading chaos around the place via her group of devoted devil worshipers(lame). Tina, one of my favorite characters from the first books, seeing as I don't particularly like anyone in the last ones, could have been completely absent for all the role she played in this story. Marc is portraited like a complete imbecile.
Especially irritating was the way they explained why all vampires, be they Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Atheist were hurt by crosses and such, because IT DID NOT MAKE ANY SENSE! Why even attempt it if you have no way of explaining it? Bah.
But what is really disappointing about this series as of late is that there is no character growth or development. For the last few books all we see are the same damn things told in a slightly different fashion. But Undead and Unwelcome was the worst of the bunch because half of it was retelling, sometimes over and over again, what we have already been told in the previous books. It was BORING. the book was BORING, everything about it was BORING, BORING, BORING. I am only giving it two stars because I liked Lara, the future pack leader ( I mean, who wouldn't like a six-year-old who sizes up the vampire queen if she needs to fight her one day?), and Sara, Derick's wife.
And like the previous book, I did not buy Undead and Unwelcome, but borrowed it from a friend. I am no longer even interested in waiting for a paperback after seeing that the paperback for Undead and Unworthy was a large print and just as expensive as the hardback, which will most probably be the case with this installment as well. That is just poor marketing strategy.
And finally, what is up with these covers??? Whoever created them needs to be shot. Bring back the funny cartoonish style!
Book Review: On a downhill slide.
Summary: 3 Stars
The eighth installment in the Betsey the Vampire Queen series, is like a prettily frosted yet sadly empty cake.
The story line for this episode is that the self-sacrificial death of werewolf Antonia in the previous book meant that Betsy, Sinclair, and Jessica, along with Babyjon, travel to New England to bring Antonia's body back to Wyndham Manor and her werewolf pack.
The conflicts between the pack and the vampires over Antonia's death, the oddities that arise with Babyjon, and Betsy's normal self-centered stance and her desire to still do the right thing, make for a good story, but the best ingredients in the world cannot make a satisfying dish when the technique is slap-dash, the good ingredients are diluted, and the spicy seasonings are going stale. Even the quick dialogue is a bit tiresome. Maybe because Betsy now doesn't age, she doesn't grow up either. Yes, she's accepting her responsibilities more than in the beginning, but there isn't the internal character development that, hopefully, most people have as life experiences make their impact on us.
The book has 282 pages. But most of the pages are filled with white space. An hour and a half read, max. Even with store discounts, etc., it amounts to a lot of money for a quickie. The 300+ pages of Lynn Viehl's intense Darkyn books are still only $7.99. I realize that a short really, really terrific read that might cost a lot is worth it, to me anyway. But the hardback Betsy books are not a really, really terrific read.
Oh, about the Marc and Laura subplot. I got the feeling it was just pasted in to provide the ties to whatever will happen in the next book. Will Marc find love? Will Laura destroy the world? It isn't a bad subplot. Just seemed to be a bit as if one adds a bit of walnut paste to a vanilla cake batter. May not be a truly bad thing in the proper setting, but hasn't really been blended in very well. Could I have done as well with it? Heck no, but I'm not a commercially successful writer whom I know can do very much better.
Do I still like the series and the characters? Yes. Are they getting a bit stale? Yes, kinda. Do the last two books' new cover design do anything for the stories? No. Will I buy the next Betsy book? I'll wait for the paperback, probably, unless there is more writing and substance and less white space. You know, it just occurred to me. These books are striking me more as Young Adult than paranormal romances. Almost down to the Juvenile classification, the limited amount of sex, notwithstanding. Hmmm, I just looked back to my old copy of Secrets Vol 6 which had the short story, Love's Prisoner, and realized how drastically MJD's writing has simplified. Now that was a story that has had me still thinking about the concepts in it, even to today. Light and frothy are fun, but to make them into hardbacks just doesn't work anymore. I am sorry, and I hate having to make a negative review of an author whom I have always liked, but MJD's publishers need a wake-up call or she'll lose the loyal audience she has been enjoying.
Book Review: I seem to have liked it better than most.
Summary: 3 Stars
MaryJanice Davidson, Undead and Unwelcome (Berkley, 2009)
There's been a lot of grumbling about Undead and Unwelcome, the eighth book in MaryJanice Davidson's once-popular Queen Betsy series. (Actually, it must still be popular, or there wouldn't be enough of us left to gripe about it every time there's another release.) And unlike in previous episodes, I can kind of understand it. Davidson has set herself up a monster premise here, no pun intended. This is a book that should feel weighty, or at least as weighty as a chick-lit book can feel. This is a turning point in the entire series. And yet... it's not. It's just business as usual. Which leads me to the obvious recommendation here: if you like business as usual, MaryJanice Davidson flavor, you're going to like this book. If you don't, then you won't. Simple, isn't it?
The events of the last book have left Betsy and Sinclair with a rather large problem: Antonia is dead, and they have to take the body back to her pack for burial on Cape Cod. Jessica insists on tagging along, and Betsy doesn't protest too much when she realizes she's getting a built-in sitter for BabyJon. They head out to Cape Cod, and what a surprise, things are tense, but there are a number of opportunities for Betsy to discover things about her family, as well as about herself. Speaking of her family, the main flow of the narrative is interrupted periodically by frantic emails from home; Marc is keeping her (and us) updated on Laura's activities, which are becoming increasingly dangerous as she attempts to go to extremes to put her demonic nature to use for the Church. But since neither Betsy nor Sinclair speak text, they have no idea what Marc is saying and ignores the emails...
...which are actually the best part of the book, assuming you can read text. (There's some clarity offered in Marc's diary entries. I'm annoyed that Davidson took such a cliched route to get where she wanted to go in this book, but am willing to cut her some slack since, again, the Marc/Laura storyline is the best part of the book.) Still, that's not to say the rest of it is awful. I know I'm in the minority on this one, and I am more than willing to admit that if I'd actually bought the book, I'd probably have had the scales tipped slightly the other way (I got it from the library, as usual), but I found it enjoyable enough, in that empty-calories-marshmallow-fluff-chick-lit sort of way I always find MaryJanice Davidson's books enjoyable. Just know that, given a number of the other reviews to be found on Amazon for this book, your mileage may vary. Widely. *** ½