Review: Amanda's Still Got It!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 11, 2014
Violent and vivacious Amanda Feral is back with a vengeance in Beach Blanket Bloodbath! (And I'm happy to report, she came without the footnotes this time.)Amanda's in kind of a bad place right now. She's broken up with her boyfriend, drifted apart from her friends and she's broke. Her writing career isn't going as well as she'd expected. In order to settle a debt, she agrees to help her friend Wendy's burgeoning business, dealing drugs to vampires. When Wendy's supply is stolen and the thief escapes onto a cruise ship bound for San Francisco, the girls set off down the coast to catch the thief and retrieve the drugs. And of course their vampire friend Gil wants to come along.A stop in a small town for Amanda's book signing turns disastrous when the gang witnesses a murder. Amanda tries to play detective with often outrageous results. Without spoiling anything, there's an element of this story that's not making sense to me. But I'm reserving judgement because there's room for a lot of things to follow them on the rest of the trip, which continues in two more novellas. I'm kind of loving Thad the were shark, so I really hope he's one of them.I feel like Amanda's a little darker than she used to be. Her tone is often more bitter than sassy. Not that she's any less hilarious. Since she's become a writer, a lot of her barbs are aimed at the publishing industry. (I'm sensing a good deal of autobiography in this story. Though probably not the part with the shark sex.)Fans of Amanda's previous adventures will relish her return to the raunchy and ridiculous. And anyone new to the series should have no problem picking it up from this point. Both are sure to eagerly await the next sexy and snarky leg of this road trip.