What Happens When Five Bestselling Authors Write About Prom Horror?

You get PROM NIGHTS FROM HELL. This book is a collection of five stories, each relatively short but long enough to be pretty dang good on their own. Not exactly a short story, but not a novel either. The five authors are: Meg Cabot (Princess Diaries series), Kim Harrison (Dead Witch Walking), Michele Jaffe (Bad Kitty), Lauren Myracle (Rhymes with Witches), and of course the well-known Stephenie Meyer (Twilight, duh, if you don't know this you need to make sure you're in 2009 and not 1995 when Harry Potter was still THE BOOK).
I've decided to go over each of the five stories separately, because they were, after all, separate in the book. It's only fair.
The Exterminator's Daughter by Meg Cabot: About a girl who is the daughter of a vampire hunter who gets turned into a vampire. So she's in the family business, basically. When Mary has to save her best friend from the evil grasp of her vampire prom date Sebastian, she almost gets sucked in by Sebastian's powerful spell. Luckily her new friend Adam comes to the rescue by shooting Sebastian with a squirt gun full of holy water *gasp!* and all is well. Plus Adam and Mary fall in love, so a classic Cabot ending. I liked this story pretty well, it was interesting seeing the "Cabot flair" coming out of Adam's mouth in this story. It was a bit short and I wish there had been more, but that's probably just me. I give it ♠♠♠♠

The Corsage by Lauren Myracle: A girl goes to a gypsy with the hope that the gyspy will tell her she's destined to be with her crush, Will. The gypsy tells her a vague prophecy and the girl, Frankie, is fed up, so she asks the gypsy for the corsage that's on her shelf. It's this old dead corsage, and it's falling apart, and the gypsy says it grants anyone three wishes. Frankie is curious, so she takes the corsage home and wishes that the boy she loved would ask her to prom. Then Will mysteriously leaves. The next day, Frankie finds out her had climbed the water tower to spraypaint "Will you go to prom with me, Frankie?" on the tower and had slipped, fallen, and died the day before prom. Frankie's devastated, but she decides to use her next wish to bring Will back. Let's just say, not a good idea. This story was my FAVORITE because it's really sad and a little gory, kind of like Titanic meets Stephen King for teenagers. So good. And pretty short, but it doesn't need to be any longer than it is, at the same time. ♠♠♠♠♠

Madison Avery and the Dim Reaper by Kim Harrison: This story was a bit of a letdown after The Corsage, but still okay. Basically Madison goes to prom on her birthday and is offered a ride home by a handsome stranger. Seems like everybody except Madison knows you shouldn't take rides home from handsome strangers. Anyway, he rolls the car on purpose and kills her, and Madison ends up stuck in limbo because her guardian angels won't let her move on and her grim reaper, the guy who killed her, wants her. So she's got to stay "alive" by holding a talisman from her guardian angel at all times, and it's only a sort of half-life. But everything's okay, because she falls in love with her guardian angel and gets to fly! Kind of a disappointing ending and a little long to keep me interested, but okay. Probably my least favorite, maybe... ♠♠♠

Kiss and Tell by Michele Jaffe: The title is appropriately named because one of the main characters, Sibby, kisses every boy she meets as an effort to fit in. And she pays some of them, too. Kinda weird. The main story is about this girl who is a foster kid at a boarding school and her names Miranda. She's a total spaz. Watch, when she talks her crush/true love/whatever this is what she's thinking:
"Insert head in oven now.
Leave until no longer HALF BAKED.
(pg. 223)
Yep, such a spaz. But Miranda has special powers, and she's kind of a superhuman. She has to rescue Sibby from these weird people and a twisted deputy cop on prom night and try to talk to her true love. Difficult, but she does it. I liked all the action in this story and how it wasn't your average paranormal prom story. It stood out from the others. A bit confusing, but worth the read. Very suspenseful, too. ♠♠♠

Hell On Earth by Stephenie Meyer: This was the one I was waiting for, the one by the min author in this book. However, this story was kind of a letdown. It was just about this demon, Sheba, who is busy ruining prom for everybody by making them all cheat on each other and wreaking havoc, etc. It's kind of like she's playing Sims. Then she falls in love with this angelic boy who actually is half-angel, although he doesn't know it. And suddenly everything's happily ever after, the end. I was disappointed because I guess I expected more from the lady who wrote Twilight. Yeah, I guess I built it up too much in my mind because I wanted to read something like Twilight, but whatever, I still don't think it was her best. Maybe I just didn't pay attention enough or something. ♠♠

All the stories overall were good, though, and I think it's a great Halloween, prom, or anytime read. Fun, too, it gives you a break from the tediousness novels sometimes become.