You Suck?

Ok, I’ll admit it, everything that I know about vampires, I learned from Buffy. Back around 2002 or so, I often heard my co-workers Scott and Lisa review the Buffy that was on the night before and rave about how clever the show was, how well it was written, and so on. It sounded like a quirky show, but really, what educated adult over the age of 20 watches a TV show about vampires?

Then one day Scott comes up to me and asks, “Are you going to watch the Buffy musical tonight?” I had no clue what he was talking about and he explained that an episode of Buffy was being made as a musical, and knowing my affinity for musicals, he thought I might watch. I was hesitant, but watched anyway. They had me at “Hell-Mouth”.

As luck would have it, a few days later, FX started re-runs of the show in episode order from the beginning – 2 episodes a day. I had the TiVo fired up and quickly fell in love with the “Scoobies” and that cute little hamlet of Sunnydale. I became obsessed, watching every episode two or three times and learned that the Slayer’s not only concerned with vampires, but also with demons, gods, and everything in-between. But I’m off the subject – this is a book review.

Let me set the stage. I have a conference in Miami and I’m en route. I get on the Metro headed for the airport, I put on my iPod and dig in my backpack for the book I’m currently reading, “Next” by Michael Crichton (talking monkeys anyone?). What? It is not there? What am I going to do on that 2 ½ hour flight to Miami? So without pause, I enter the Borders at National Airport and instinctively grab a book about Afghanistan or Sudan or Mongolia or some other country that is suffering and some author wanted to make a buck on it. As I’m standing in line, I hear the little voice of my friend Chris who criticized me for reading too many “heavy” books. I turned around and a vampire book was before me. With the knowledge that Joss Wheadon gave me concerning vampires and my affection for them, I picked up the book “You Suck” by Christopher Moore. I remember Chris recommending him as an author of the lighter fare. I picked it up and I was on my way to South Florida.

I have to say, it was an decent read. Something you’d find in the “easy reading” section of your high school library, only with a few more f-words and a great deal of violence. The beginning was quite slow, the middle got better and the end was just downright… well, lets put it this way, I felt he was given a quota of 266 pages and at page 230 he said “crap, I need to wrap this thing up”. Strangers who were nameless and never referenced earlier just showed up, and single-handedly wrapped things up in about 10 pages. Not to mention the character Steve and his light-machine that was somewhat convenient. It definitely was no Buffy.

The one true bright spot in the book was the chapters that shifted from third-person to first-person from the perspective of Abby - the teenage, goth-ish minion who wanted nothing more than to be a vampire herself. As she wrote in her journal, her observations were so funny that I was caught many times laughing on the train, the plane or wherever else I was huddled.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 5. I don’t regret reading it, but I wonder if I’d have been happier reading about pain and suffering in some far-off land. As for Buffy, my interest has faded somewhat over the years since cancellation. I heard that most of the cast recently re-united for a roundtable discussion at some television convention in LA that might have been fun to see. And I do really wish they’d start back up with the Buffy, the Musical sing-a-longs… “they got, the mustard out!”