Dead is Not an Option ~ Marlene Perez eARC review

Dead is Not an Option
Graphia

May 2, 2011

252 pages

Goodreads/Amazon/Book Depository

Like the four previous books in the Dead Is series, Dead is Not an Option is a cute, quick, fun read about Daisy Giordano, her family, their town of Nightshade and the bevy of supernatural creatures that live there.

Now a senior, Daisy is looking at colleges and wondering whether she will be leaving Nightshade--and whether she and her boyfriend Ryan will be going to different schools. But with no acceptance (or rejection) letters in sight for Daisy, she needs somewhere else to focus her attention. Of course, this being Nightshade, distractions are never in short supply.

There's a bit of a Fangs versus Fur (vamps against shifters) war going on with former friendships crumbling and new fights breaking out every day. Even if Daisy's own home. With one sister dating a vampire and the other two dating werewolves things are getting a little tense.

Can things settle down enough for Daisy to graduate and figure out where she's going?


I really enjoyed that Dead is Not an Option built on storylines from earlier books and also started new ones. It's nice to have characters that grow throughout the series--you get to see them achieve things but also change as they age.

This fifth book, however, seemed to lose course partway through. It started as a Vamps vs Shifters in an all out war around Nightshade story and I liked that. It was sort of a West Side Story meets Twilight fandom. But then that sort of fizzled out. It was resolved, but it sort of just stopped being the central storyline.

The ending did tie up some loose ends from other books in the series and some things were resolved from earlier books that I was happy to see. Overall, though, I think the book wasn't as strong as the others in the series.

6/10

(read thanks to NetGalley & the publisher)