Book Review: Girls That Growl - Mari Mancusi

Rayne McDonald thought getting into the Blood Coven was the hard part. But now there's a new breed of trouble in town... and the former slayer and her vampire boyfriend may be the only ones who can stop it.
Now that she's an official member of the Blood Coven, Rayne assumes her vampire-slaying days are over. Sure, she doesn't have any vampire powers, thanks to a mutated blood virus, but she and Jareth can go out in the sun, which is a pretty good trade-off.
But just when Rayne's beginning to enjoy her afterlife, she' contacted by Slayer Inc. once again. It seems that a member of her high school's football team has disappeared - and the powers=that-be think the cheerleaders had something to do with it. Now Rayne has to infiltrate the quad before the cheerleaders have a chance to sink their teeth into someone else...

Girls That Growl is the third book in the Blood Coven series by Mari Mancusi. In this one, Rayne has to find out what has happened to the football team's best quarterback, and find out why the cheerleaders have been heard growling. It's funny, it's good, and you won't be able to stop reading!

In this book, Rayne is finally a vampire, though she has no vampire powers. She has no super strength, no vampire powers at all, apart from immortality and the ability to send out telepathic messages to other vampires. She can go out in the sun though, so it's not all bad. She's still got all her Goth glory, still snarky and sarcastic, and she's a cheerleader. Yes, you read that right. Rayne McDonald, the vampire vampire slayer, is a cheerleader.

The plot of this story has a few holes, though it's still engaging and entertaining. It still has a lot of parallels to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but this doesn't ruin the story. The story moves fast, and the plot holes get forgotten, so they don't really matter. They just get skipped over with no explanation.

The pace is very fast, and one minute they're in the USA, the next they're in England, much like when Sunny went to England in Boys that Bite. You never get bored, and I quite happily read the whole book in one sitting. The teen audience it's aimed at will love this book,though adults and more mature readers may find it a little lacking in substance.

I give it 4 Feet!