Book Review: Slayer

Book: Slayer (Slayer book #1) by Kiersten White

Cover Designed by Sarah Creech
Cover Illustrations by Talexi

Edition: Barnes & Noble Exclusive Hardcover Edition (I pulled the sticker off, it was blocking the cover's artwork)

Description:

Bonus: This limited collector’s edition of Slayer contains an exclusive slayer dream sequence short story from the perspective of Faith!

Nina and her twin sister, Artemis, are far from normal. It's hard to be when you grow up at the Watchers Academy, which is a bit different from your average boarding school. Here teens are trained as guides for Slayers—girls gifted with supernatural strength to fight the forces of darkness. But while Nina's mother is a prominent member of the Watchers Council, Nina has never embraced the violent Watcher lifestyle. Instead, she follows her instincts to heal, carving out a place for herself as the school medic.

Until the day Nina's life changes forever.

Thanks to Buffy, the famous (and infamous) Slayer that Nina's father died protecting, Nina is not only the newest Chosen One—she's the last Slayer, ever. Period.

As Nina hones her skills with her Watcher-in-training, Leo, there's plenty to keep her occupied: a monster fighting ring, a demon who eats happiness, a shadowy figure that keeps popping up in Nina's dreams...

But it's not until bodies start turning up that Nina's new powers will truly be tested—because someone she loves might be next.

One thing is clear: Being Chosen is easy. Making choices is hard.



Rating: 5 stars

Review:

Slayer follows 16-year-old Athena "Nina" Jamison-Smythe who became a Slayer. She along with her twin sister Artemis are daughters of Watchers and have spent their lives immersed in that world. Their father Merrick had been Buffy Summers' first Watcher (see the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie), however, he was murdered when the twins were younger and since then Athena has held a grudge against Buffy. Following the murder of their father, their mother Helen (who is on the Watchers Council) turned cold and procedural and seemed to favor Artemis over Athena.

After the destruction of the Watchers Council in London which killed nearly all the watchers (see Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 7), Athena and her mother and sister have been living in a castle in Ireland with a small number of people who are all considered what's left of the Watchers Council. While at the castle (and throughout most of her life) Athena felt as if she was weak and useless and it didn't help that she didn't get (or wasn't allowed by her mother) any combat training like her sister did. Athena's interest seem to be in healing, she even set up a diminutive medical clinic in the castle even if there was little use for it or her medical skills.

She was used to her non-existent status at the castle as well as letting her sister be her protector and guiding her life. It wasn't until a hellhound showed up on the castle grounds that her life immediately changed. After Athena quickly and efficiently killed the hellhound, it was revealed that she was a Slayer.

After that, her life started to change pretty quickly including having her former crush Leo Silvera become her Watcher. She also found a demon at her friend Cillian's home and her Slayer dreams showed her another Slayer who was in trouble. There was big trouble brewing and she was going to have to figure out how to stop it. She's not sure if she can count on her mother and sister because ever since she became a Slayer her relationship with them seem to get worse. There is a lot of hurt feelings and misunderstandings with this family that should have been dealt with early on but it did make for a great deal of drama.

Slayer is not only a well-written, exciting and fast-paced story but it's also a great addition to the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However, I'm not quite sure if someone without any prior knowledge of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, TV series and comic books will get as much out of the story as a Buffy fan would. There is definitely a lot of references in this but regardless it's still a good read that I think even non-Buffy fans would enjoy.

This story has action, drama, a bit of romance, betrayal, friendship, family, supernatural beings and creatures, special guest appearances and a ton of misunderstanding. There is also snippets of the hunter who has been targeting the sisters since the death of their father. It's believed there is a prophecy that warns that one of the sisters may destroy the world and the hunter was trying to ensure it doesn't happen. I thought the author did a great job creating some interesting and diverse new characters (with some having connections to characters from the Buffy universe). Similar to the Buffy TV series, this story included lesbian and gay characters (Artemis, Rhys, Cillian, Honora) and relationships which is why I included the LGBTQ category for my review.

As the main character Athena went through a range of emotions as her life underwent so many changes along with dealing with her crush on Leo. She went from being the person that most people overlooked as well as having her sister constantly making decisions for her to having to take on the new role of being a Slayer. She had to start taking charge of her life. Being a Slayer is not something she initially wanted to be and that was due to her hatred of Buffy. She was so conflicted with her new role because she had been a healer and a quasi-Watchers helper, she was having a difficult time trying figure out the best way to be a Slayer.

As much as I enjoyed reading this, I did have a big issue and that was Athena's nonstop Buffy bashing throughout most of the story. She does eventually change her attitude and her thinking towards Buffy after she got a better understanding of her and what being a Slayer truly entails. However, before that she thought Buffy was the worst Slayer as well as being the cause of all of her problems. From the death of her father to issues with her mother, sister and the downfall of the Watchers; she blamed Buffy for all it. Buffy didn't ask to be a Slayer but she made the best decisions she could when going up against each and every problem she faced. She may be the reason Athena and so many other girls and young women became Slayers and that magic was destroyed but she made a decision that saved the world and it should have changed it for the better.

In my opinion it was the Watchers that brought about their own downfall. And with the remainder that were still around in this book, you would think now that there was a large abundance of Slayers out in the world the Watchers (albeit a small number of them) would have a new goal of trying to find and train as many Slayers as possible as well as recruit new Watchers. Instead they seemed to have chosen to hide away pretending as if nothing happened and that it's business as usual.

However, with Athena becoming a Slayer, things changed but it will be interesting to see in the long-run of this series whether this will be for better or for worse.


Review for the Faith short story:

In this short story, Faith is in the Slayer dreamworld where she encounters Athena once again. However, this time the situation is a tad more bizarre and creepy and she got a sense that trouble was on the horizon.

After her creepy visit with Athena, she then found herself in Buffy's dream where the old friends and adversaries had a little talk. Faith told Buffy about Athena's dream and that the new Slayer might be heading towards some new type of trouble.

Faith was never one of my favorite characters but I did find this story to be interesting. However, it felt more like an excerpt from a story that was just getting started instead of a completed short story. I do hope this will be continued in the Slayer sequel because it rather interesting.