Sorry, MaryJanice, this one's a stinker. It is a collection of three stories that tie together in that they are all set in a mystical far-off land (I read this as in, parallel dimension). How do you access this dimension? Well, you can either be attempting suicide, or be beamed there from the past... or the future. Or the hunky men that inhabit said dimension can be beamed to you in the future (Earth dimension, post zombie apocalypse) for no apparent reason. It just gets curiouser and curiouser, MaryJanice.
I have to admit that I only made it about half-way through the second of the three stories and then skipped randomly, reading passages to the end. At this point, I was browsing just for humor's sake as opposed to any serious attempt at following the stories.
The irreverence that works so well in the Betsy the Vampire Series books doesn't work in this collection. I think Davidson is just juggling too many elements to handle. All the strange stuff that happens in the Betsy books has the urban setting to ground it. For example; vampires, zombies, and devil spawn, work in those books because Betsy still loves to get Jimmy Choos as presents. It is something for the reader to identify with. Not Jimmy Choo shoes explicitly, but a world in which it would be nice to receive those shoes as tokens of love. Davidson doesn't have to take the time to build her alternate universe in the Betsy books, she only has to fill our regular universe in with paranormal details and characters. In Really Unusual Bad Boys, I think she expects the reader to do all the work filling in and creating this alternate dimension. If she really took the time to build it up, I think she could make it work. But it just falls a little flat. Okay, a lot flat.. with the whole future-Earth post zombie apocalypse that took the form of said "Five Minute Flu."
The irreverence that works so well in the Betsy the Vampire Series books doesn't work in this collection. I think Davidson is just juggling too many elements to handle. All the strange stuff that happens in the Betsy books has the urban setting to ground it. For example; vampires, zombies, and devil spawn, work in those books because Betsy still loves to get Jimmy Choos as presents. It is something for the reader to identify with. Not Jimmy Choo shoes explicitly, but a world in which it would be nice to receive those shoes as tokens of love. Davidson doesn't have to take the time to build her alternate universe in the Betsy books, she only has to fill our regular universe in with paranormal details and characters. In Really Unusual Bad Boys, I think she expects the reader to do all the work filling in and creating this alternate dimension. If she really took the time to build it up, I think she could make it work. But it just falls a little flat. Okay, a lot flat.. with the whole future-Earth post zombie apocalypse that took the form of said "Five Minute Flu."
I know what some of you may be thinking, "It's just a silly little three story collection. Don't be so harsh." Well, sorry, but I think short stories actually need to be better to hold up. Like television commercials need to be that much more captivating to hold or grab your attention for the 90 or so seconds that it has. I think I have mentioned my attention span, haven't I? Well.... wait, was that a cat?
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