Review: Girls That Growl- by Mari Mancusi

I'm a vampire. I'm also a vampire slayer. (It's a long story-don't ask.) And now I, Rayne MacDonald, Goth Girl, have to try out for THE CHEERLEADING SQUAD?

You'd think after I saved my coven last semester, I'd get a break or something. I've got enough on my plate: my twin keeps whining about whether or not to go all the way; Mom's boyfriend is moving in; and my man, Jareth, who's now allowed out in the sun, has turned from a dark, brooding hottie vamp into a surfer dude...

But I'm still on the clock and have a new assignment. A member of the football team has disappeared-and Slayer, Inc. thinks the cheerleaders had something to do with it-and that they're werewolves. I always knew they were a pack of bitc...

Now they want me to infiltrate the squad and get the dirt. But first, I'll need an extreme prep makeover. If only they'd let me wear fishnets under this revolting uniform...
(Summary from Mari's website.)

Girls That Growl is book three in the Blood Coven series by Mari Mancusi. It takes up where Stake That! left off. Rayne McDonald has just been turned into a vampire, though an extremely weak and powerless vampire. The one benefit of this is that she, unlike most vampires, gets to go out in sunlight. Her blood mate, Jareth, who turned her, contracting the strange virus she had in the process, also can now go out in the sun but is weakened. Oh, another thing about Rayne. She isn't just a vampire, she's a vampire slayer too. She's also a Goth girl through and through. Though some of that has to change when she must go undercover on the cheerleading squad to find a missing football player. A Goth cheerleader? Interesting. She gets a little bit of help from her rather athletic twin Sunny to help with this transformation.

Throughout this book Rayne is having a hard time fitting in everywhere. She's the only Goth in school, now thrust into cheerleading, her mom's boyfriend has moved in and upset her home life, her undead life is not what she was expecting it to be, and her boyfriend is acting so much different now than he was before because he's....happy? Imagine that. Rayne is not happy at all and spends the entire book going in and out of horrible rages and fits and random violence that just got a little old after a while. Yes, I think most teenagers have been through that time where they feel like they're all alone and get mad at the world, but it detracted from the flow of the story several times.

Still, the book is a nice read and overall, I was happy with how it turned out. Though, there were a few times that I was wondering how something happened. Does Rayne have any of her super slayer powers? How does a bat transform into a man and have a gun? What the heck is a "full-moon simulator shack" and how the heck would that work? We don't know. Anyways, it was a good read, but probably my least favorite of the series so far. A bit of a disappointment after Stake That!

Blood Coven series in order they should be read:
1. Boys That Bite
2. Stake That!
3. Girls That Growl
4. Bad Blood (Just out January 5th!)