Tag Line: This time he wants more.From the Back of the Book: Wishes can be deadly. Beauty. That is what Devnee wishes for with all her heart. She is tired of feeling plain and dull. Tired of being ordinary and forgettable. If only she were beautiful the rest would follow - acceptance, friendship...love. Devnee's family has just moved to the strange, dark house with the circular tower. There Devnee's wish will be heard, and answered. Because he lives in the tower. "I will give you Beauty, my dear," the Vampire purrs. And in return, Devnee will give him what he desires. But as Devnee wishes for more, so does the Vampire. And soon, it's too late. She has wished for too much.
This book was published in 1991 and this is my first time reading it.
Why am I reading this particular book
you ask? Good question, gentle reader. Well, this book is proof that my manager has a vengeful
streak. She only picked this one because she thought I was going to
like that last Ellis and she hates it when I like the books. Of
course, we all know I HATED that last Ellis and so this act of revenge was
utterly unnecessary.. But I'm stuck with this thing anyway.
Pray for me, people.
So this is clearly a sequel to The
Cheerleader which I recapped almost exactly one year ago. In
that one, Althea bargains with a vampire for popularity and it
backfires on her. My question is: Who the hell thought that book
needed a sequel? Name ONE person who was dying to see what that zany
foil-fingered moldy-breathed vampire would do next? WHO PAID COONEY
TO WRITE THIS BOOK AND WHY DO THEY HATE ME SO MUCH???
That's it. I quit. This blog is now
abandoned. Peace out, y'all.
Time passes in real life............
I've been informed I cannot quit.
Sigh.
We begin with our protagonist Devnee.
She's trying to convince her parents Mr and Mrs Fountain that she no
longer wants to sleep up in the tower room. Her parents aren't
happy. They say the whole reason they bought this house is because
she was so insistent that she wanted to sleep in a tower. This
sounds like an excellent reason to buy a house and her parents should
be commended for their stellar judgment.
There are a lot of paragraphs here
about Devnee moving into her room. Her bed was moved into the
tower room. Her dresser was moved into the tower room.
It keeps repeating that last part as if it's a fairy tale for
children. Cooney's writing is highly affected here and I already want
to throw the book at the wall.
Devnee wants to be beautiful. She even
plays a game where she pretends to be beautiful. She decides to play
the “beautiful game” in the tower room where beautiful people are
meant to be.
Shoot me. Shoot me now.
“A sort of reverse gravity began
to pull at Devnee Fountain. The backs of her eyes and the roots of
her hair leaned toward the tower. Her fingers crawled up the
banister and dragged her arms after them. The stairs disappeared
behind her. Her hand stuck to the round glass knob of the door that
opened to the tower stair. Her head went up ahead of her, but her
feet argued and hung back and tried to turn around. Her eyes lept
forward.”
It gets even worse after that, but do
you see what I'm up against with this book?
She goes into the tower room and a
thing appears in front of her. It has nails like crushed aluminum
foil and I. AM. OUT.
Two weeks pass in real life......
Well, I fired my manager six times and
quit the blog seven times but none of it was successful so here we
are again.
Devnee goes back downstairs. Her
parents and brother have come home from getting something to eat.
Devnee looks at them and wishes that they were more special and less
average. She's a bit of a bitch, our Devnee.
She goes upstairs to bed but can't
sleep. At some point in the night, a hand covers her mouth. It's
described as soft and rotten like fruit about to burst. Why does
this book have to be so disgusting???? She turns on the light and
sees nothing at first. Then she sees her shadow moving even though
she is still. Her shadow roams around the room, touching things.
She verbally tells her shadow to come back over to her. I'm not even
making this up. Her shadow just keeps doing it's own thing, though
and she eventually falls asleep. When she wakes up in the morning,
the light is off.
The next morning Devnee agonizes over
what to wear to her new school. She doesn't know if the kids will be
dressed grungy or preppy or what. She decides it doesn't matter,
though because no one will notice her with her plain looks. She
wishes that she was beautiful. She wishes that she would stand out
instead of blending in. The house seems to smile at her.
Devnee tells her family again that she
doesn't want to sleep in the tower room. She wants to move into the
smaller guest bedroom on the second floor. Her parents refuse,
telling her that they're going to have lots of company in the
upcoming months. Devnee then tells them that she doesn't want to
start school that day but they also quash that pretty quick. Her mom
takes her to school and walks her in. Devnee is hella embarrassed,
yo, because her mom is fat and has a messy ponytail. Well, fuck you,
Devnee, I say as I tug on my messy ponytail with my fat fingers.
Devnee is an imaginative creature. She
thinks she sees the disembodied shadow following her through the
halls. When people use common phrases, she pictures them happening
in her head. Like when her guidance counselor tells her he doesn't
want her falling through the cracks, she envisions the spaces between
the tiles widening to suck her down. I have decided that Cooney is the most awful awful that has ever awfulled.
The GC takes her to her first class. A beautiful girl named Aryssa tells her that she is her welcome buddy and she will show Devnee where her
next class is. A guy named Trey takes her to her third class. Some chick whose name I can't remember takes her to the class after that. I
don't know what she'll do when she doesn't have these volunteers to
lead her around because she isn't paying a damn bit of attention to
where they are leading her. She's too busy whining about how she's
not beautiful and imagining things that aren't real.
Is this damn vampire going to migrate into
anyone's boundaries any time soon? This book is pretentious, poorly
written and BORING.
I refuse to do this recap on the
grounds that this book is putting me in a coma. See you later,
gators.
Time passes in real life...........
I've been informed
that books cannot put people in comas and I must get back to it.
Sigh.
Trey asks Devnee where she lives and has a
negative reaction when she tells him. He tells her that the house is
creepy and the girl who used to live in it was mega-creepy. Devnee
imagines that every kid in the school chimes in with how creepy the
place is. She panics, not wanting to be associated with creepiness
and tells them that her family is painting the house yellow as if
yellow is some kind of creepy-antidote.
In English, a girl named Victoria
annoys the class by paying attention and knowing answers. We're told
Devnee has trouble reading and organizing her thoughts. The word
“dyslexic” isn't used but it seems like what Devnee might have.
Devnee finds Victoria more amusing than annoying.
The day ends and Devnee goes out to
where her mom is waiting to pick her up. She realizes her shadow
isn't with her and she waits for it to catch up and get in the car
before she closes the door.
What. The. Fuck. Am. I. Reading???
This book is so far beyond awful.
I'm flouncing, y'all. I'm flouncing my
fat, pony-tailed ass right off this blog.
Time passes in real life........
I've been informed
my flouncing is invalid and will not be recognized by the manager of
this blog.
Sigh.
The rest of the week passes and Devnee
enjoys everything but her last class of the day. That weekend, she
goes shopping with her mom for some new clothes and giggles a lot.
When she gets home, her father and brother have opened up all the
shutters in the tower room and cleaned the windows. Her father seems
normal but her brother is acting strange. He tells Devnee that she
might want to sleep downstairs after all.
About a week later, Devnee is late to
school and everyone assumes she's absent. When she arrives, she
drops all her books and things in the hall and is further delayed.
She overhears Trey and Aryssa talking about how pathetic she is and
how they're glad she's absent because they hate hanging out with her.
She's crushed but she doesn't hate them for it. She knows
everything would be fine if she was beautiful. She never lets on
that she overheard the conversation but she tells Trey and Aryssa
that she can find her way around now and lets them off the hook.
They're grateful. In the days that follow, only Victoria continues
to talk to her and Devnee knows it's because she's so plain.
Sigh. Reading this book is the
equivalent of walking barefoot on fresh asphalt at high noon in
August.
At dinner Devnee announces that she's
rotting.
No one seems to care.
I don't either.
Do you?
No?
Good.
That night the vampire shows up. He's every bit as disgusting as he
was in the first book. He tells her that he can grant her wish for
beauty if she finds some food for him. She thinks Aryssa would make a
good snack but then she feels bad for thinking it. I sense boundary
migration ahead.
They have an insipid conversation that
I can't be bothered to recap or quote. The gist is that he will give
her Aryssa's beauty and Aryssa will get what she deserves. Devnee
thinks that sounds delightful. Not because she's a mean asshole but
because she's dumb as a fucking post and she thinks something
wonderful will happen to Aryssa. The phrase Too Stupid To Live
(TSTL) was obvs invented for this girl.
Devnee opens a window during Science
class and I guess that allows the vampire to migrate into Aryssa's
boundaries. Later that night, Devnee tries to pretend that she
didn't know the vampire was a vampire but he calls bullshit on that.
She insists that she thought he was a ghost and that Aryssa was only
going to be haunted. He's having none of that noise. He tells her
Aryssa will be fine but tired. We've heard this before. I'm so
bored.
The next morning Devnee wakes up
beautiful. She's giddy with this development and spends hours
staring at herself. Her parents and brother fall all over themselves
to compliment her. Her mother suggests they should finally have a
family portrait done. I guess they couldn't have one done before because
Devnee was such a troll and her family was embarrassed to be seen
with her. Ouch. Then her fucking dad offers to drive her to school
for the first time ever because beautiful people shouldn't have to
walk. Walking is for ugly trolls obvs.
I quit. I fucking quit. I'm marching
in and turning in my resignation right now.
Time passes in real life........
She refused to accept my resignation so
I'm making her read two chapters of this fucking book.
She hated it and provided me with two
pages of her own commentary. Hilariously it matches up with mine
pretty closely except she thinks Devnee has a crush on Aryssa. She
might be on to something.
On a side note, my kitten keeps trying
to eat this book. She's on my side at least.
Back to it....
Devnee goes to school and everyone
fawns all over her until I just want to throw up. She's pretty
jazzed though. They want to nominate her for SweetHeart and, if she
wins, she'll be crowned at the Valentine's Dance. She tries to
pretend it's NBD but inside she's just all aflutter.
Devnee splits her time between worrying
about what happened to Aryssa and being thankful that she's been
granted Aryssa's beauty. She wonders if it was worth it and then
decides it never happened at all. There was no vampire. There was
no deal. There was no selling out of Aryssa for beauty. REALLY,
DEVNEE??? THEN WHY AM I READING THIS BOOK??? The vampire has taken
up residence in her head......he had PLENTY of room because her head
is completely empty.....and he's offended that she's decided he isn't
real. He lets her beauty start to slide off her face until she
panics and admits he's real and throwing Aryssa under the bus was
totes worth it.
Trey leaves school to check on Aryssa
and comes back devastated. Devnee suggests they go out for donuts to
talk about it. Trey says that Aryssa is lumpy and heavy and ugly.
He seems pretty distressed about it. Without beauty, Aryssa doesn't
have much going for her. She isn't smart and she isn't very nice.
She doesn't have an awesome personality. Trey is disgusted by
Aryssa now and Devnee frets because Aryssa is as Devnee was. But she
forgets it all when he asks her to the Valentine Dance.
That night, the vampire appears and
tells Devnee that she has the opportunity to be kind. She can make
the sacrifice and give Aryssa her beauty back. Devnee is appalled at
the very idea. He tells her that the next day in the lobby of the
school her path will cross with Aryssa's. His path will be there
too. At this intersection of their three paths, she can decide
whether she wants to be beautiful or be kind.
The next morning she comes across
William and waits for him to notice her. He only has eyes for
Victoria, though and Devnee is pissed. He can do better. He can
have her. It actually says that. She's awful.
To absolutely no one's surprise, Devnee
chooses to be beautiful over being kind.
The night of the dance, Devnee has the
time of her life. She's with Trey, dancing every dance and being
admired by everyone with eyeballs. Victoria approaches at one point
and says that everyone has been talking and they all think that they
should elect Aryssa as SweetHeart in order to raise her spirits.
Something tells me Devnee isn't going to like this one bit.
Devnee is furious. The award is
supposed to go to the most beautiful and that's her. She can't
believe for one fucking moment that they are even considering giving
the title to a loser like Aryssa.
I really hate Devnee, by the way. From
this moment on, I'm actively wishing that the vampire eats her.
Devnee pretends that giving Aryssa the
award is a good idea and Aryssa is crowned the SweetHeart.
Later the vampire tells her that it's
time to do it all again. This time Devnee wishes to be smart like
Victoria and the vampire scampers off to migrate into Victoria's
boundaries. He seems much more mobile in this book than the last
book. Cooney can't even follow the rules she made up.
Devnee receives Victoria's intelligence
and poor Victoria becomes a shell of her former self. Devnee doesn't
feel bad about this at all because she is a completely awful human
being. She thinks Victoria deserves it for taking the SweetHeart
title away from her at the dance.
Devnee comes home one afternoon to find
her mother dancing around the kitchen to the music of a commercial
jingle. She immediately thinks that her mother is pathetic. In her
mind, she deserves much, much better than this lame woman who is her
mother.
I quit. I quit. Devnee is awful and I
can't stand her for more second. Not one more second.
Time passes in real life......
Ugh. I can't
fucking quit. I have to know if the vampire eats her. Please,
please, please, let the vampire eat her.
Devnee
thinks her mother is pathetic and she deserves a better one, so she
wishes in her mind for a new mother. She can feel the vampire
responding to the wish automatically and she immediately tries to
retract it in her brain. She argues with the vampire about whether
or not she can retract the wish. He tells her he'd be willing to
postpone the migrating of her mother if she agrees to give him some
girl named Karen from her school. Devnee agrees.
At
school, though, she vows to never make a wish again. She's figured
out that the vampire cannot do anything if she doesn't wish. She
isn't sure what to do about the wish for a new mom, though.
Devnee
wants to get rid of the vampire. She asks around about Althea (the
girl from the first book) thinking that Al might be able to help her, but all anyone can remember is that Al was
creepy, she threw great parties and she thought her shutters were
haunted. Not much help there.
When
Devnee gets home, her mom is in the tower and the vampire is ready to
migrate her boundaries. Wish he'd migrate Devnee's instead. Devnee
goes into the kitchen where there's a door with a cross built into
it. Her grand plan is to take the door off and take it up to the
tower room.
Which will do what, exactly?
I
guess it works because she finds her mother up in the tower, redoing
the walls. Devnee says she wants to put the door on the tower room
and her mom thinks it's a good idea. Devnee opens the tower window
and screams out into the air for Aryssa and Victoria to demand their
beauty and intelligence back. She feels beauty and intelligence leave her. Then she
goes downstairs to have hot chocolate with her family.
The
book ends, y'all. It just ends. Right there. Just like that. No
explanation. No fucking explanation for how things go back to normal
and vampire is vanquished. It just ends.
I'm
so pissed.
Final Thoughts: If you thought this post seemed short, you aren't wrong. I normally take about 12-14 pages of notes for a blog post. I took 6 for this book. It's not that the book was abnormally short. It's that Cooney used 15 fucking words to convey 4 words of thought. The writing in this book was the equivalent of Jim Carrey's acting. It was so over-written that 6 pages of writing could honestly be reduced to 2 sentences. I don't know what she was aiming for, but it didn't hit my personal bullseye at all. The rules she established for the vampire in the first book didn't seem to apply anymore. There was absolutely no ending. No character growth. No devouring of Devnee. I feel cheated. I don't know if there's a third one of these, but I will set myself on fire before I read it.
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