Book Review: Prom Nights From Hell

Title: Prom Nights From Hell
Author(s): Meg Cabot, Kim Harrison, Michele Jaffe, Stephenie Meyer & Lauren Myracle
Released: 2007

Five bestselling authors offer five stories on prom nights gone terribly wrong in one out-of-this-world collection. They take bad prom nights to a whole new level--a paranormally bad level.

Meg Cabot starts off the collection with The Exterminator's Daughter.
Armed with a crossbow Mary is on a mission to kill Sebastian Drake, the son of Dracula. But things are about to get complicated; Sebastian is influencing Mary's best friend to love him, and he discovers Mary before she has the chance to shoot him. But Mary gets help from an unexpected person, her classmate Adam.

Told from both Mary and Adam's point of view this is a cute story which contains Cabot's trademark humor and romance. I liked it immediately.

In Lauren Myracle's The Corsage everything Frankie wants is that her best friend, and secret crush, Will asks her to prom. To accomplish that goal she drags Will and her best friend to a fortune-teller. The fortune-teller doesn't say much, but does end up grudgingly handing over to Frankie a dried up old corsage, which she says will grant her three wishes. Over the next few days Frankie will learn that she really should be careful about what she wishes for. . .

This is definitely the creepiest and saddest story in the book. The ending was really abrupt, I finished the page, turned the page - and suddenly the next story began! I thought I was far from the end!

Madison Avery and The Dim Reaper by Kim Harrison is the longest and most complicated story in the group.When Madison ends up at the prom with a dud date, she's surprised to find one guy who actually lives up to her standards. Seth isn't like anyone she's ever met before. Unfortunately, she'll soon find out why that is, and the picture it paints isn't pretty. There are deaths, white reapers, black reapers, grim reapers, dim reapers and odd amulets.

This story is very original. But just like The Corsage, this story has an abrupt ending. There's no closure and it feels like there is much more left to be told of this story. I also found it very hard to separate all the terms; dim reapers, black reapers, white reapers - it all melted together.

Michele Jaffe's story, Kiss and Tell, centers around Miranda. Miranda may act like she's a normal girl, but she's not. She has supernatural abilities she's desperately trying to hide; her hearing is exceptional and she's super-strong. So apart from being a student and a part-time driver, she also fights crime in her spare time. When Miranda picks up Sibby, a young, irritating and weird girl, she has no idea that she's in for a day full of weirdness, action, adventure and death-danger. . .

Miranda was a great and likable character. This story started out a bit slow, and I didn't like irritating Sibby at all. But both Sibby and the story grew on me - and I ended up loving this story!

Last but not least was Hell on Earth by Stephenie Meyer. This is the story of Sheba, a demon who loves bringing misery to others. Her plan is too make everyone at prom having a horrible time, and she's succeeding - except for one single person, Gabe. Why isn't he feeling misery?

This story had many characters to keep track of, and was told from a lot of different point-of-views, so it was a bit confusing at times, and it also took me a while before I figured out who the main characters were. This story is miles away from the Twilight Saga - the characters, the story, the romance, none of it really engaged me. The ending was OK though.

I like the idea of this book - a short story collection by some of today's most popular authors. This book is great if you would like to try new authors, or just read another story by your favorite author.

Fan(g) Girl