Still Sucks to be Me is the very recently released YA sequel to Kimberly Pauley's 2008 Sucks to be Me.Personally, I cannot be more ecstatic to have our insanely likable, hilarious Mina back! How about you?
And if you can't answer that because you haven't read the first novel Sucks to be Me - check out my review on that one here: http://bibliophilesupportgroup.blogspot.com/2008/05/sucks-to-be-me.html and skip this review. Trust me, you don't want to get any spoilers!!! :)
For the rest of you, I promise to have next to no spoilers on Still Sucks to be Me in this review, as I am an avid avoider of spoilers myself!!!
Now that Mina has taken the plunge and become a teenage vampire (after being threatened by the Northwest Regional Vampire Council with either doing so or losing all her memories - and having a four-week deadline for making the decision), she and her parents are unexpectedly killed in a car accident (or so everybody is led to believe), uprooted from her home and life and sent to a tiny Louisiana town with a new identity (she knew it was coming, but she was hoping for some notice first). And since Serena isn't even supposed to know about Mina's new, "undead" status, Mina is also sadly without her BFF.
Without wanting to give anything more away, I'll tell y'all what I thought of it.
I just love how Kimberly Pauley makes being a vampire so bureaucratic and controlled with stuffy brochures and paperwork. It's super funny and breezy, so unique from the usually dramatic, angsty vampire novels out there (not that I'm slamming those, because I adore those as well!). The pages of Still Sucks to be Me rush by very quickly, thoroughly entertaining and full to the brim with real laugh-out-loud moments.
Having Mina's larger than life personality banished to such a blip of a town with crazy, eccentric neighbors and strangely melodramatic southern belles is bad for her, but great for the readers! :)
There's also more plot developments along the lines of interesting, intriguing new vampire history - not to mention new hotties (does George have competition??? Gotta read to find out!) and a brand new nemesis (Bethany, who?).
Still Sucks to be Me is tons of fun (have I said that already? Just shows ya how fun it is!) and Mina is shockingly normal and modern (despite being, ya know, a vampire). Her sidesplitting (yes, I said sidesplitting, lol - have to use my thesaurus sometimes!) nicknames add to the fantastic voice she brings as a narrator.
Some surprisingly creepy and rather nerve-wracking stuff happens later on in the book, with a bunch of unforeseen (at least for me) twists. The story constantly mutates further into a well-plotted finale, with higher stakes than Sucks to be Me (no pun intended).
I found the end of Still Sucks to be Me to be awesome and satisfactory, but still open just enough for the possibility of another sequel. I have no idea of one is planned or not - but I'd look forward to it! Definitely not a disappointment! Highly recommended, especially if you'd like a read with quite a few laughs!!!
Comments
I do hope to write a third book. There's a plan for it (and there'll be some really big choices for Mina to make in it). It'll be set in France and be called "Sucks to Be Moi" (probably).