Title: Barrio Girls
Author: Charles De Lint
In: Under My Hat (Jonathan Strahan)
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Fantasy, Witches
Pace: Medium
Format: Short story
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Year: 2012
5th sentence, 74th page: They keep it up for hours.

Ruby & Vida consider themselves “vampire-girls” due to the popularity of a book/movie series featuring vampires. Until they meet a “vampire witch” one night and decide they don’t like her — now they’ll be witch-girls and deal with this nasty thing.

I’ve never quite understood the teenage obsession with Twilight. Sure, I read it when I was a teenager, I didn’t mind it (back then), but I was never obsessed with the idea of a vampire boyfriend. Or being a witch, or really any of the books that I read – I just liked the stories. So, reading about Vida and Ruby’s disenchantment with this world was really quite enjoyable. The obsession annoys me, so their departure from it was fun.

Gangsters, vampires and witches make a really interesting combination in this story and the idea of growing up in a trailer park just helped to make it a little more enthralling and dark. An interesting late night read that gave me some very twisted and creepy dreams… after all, the girls ended up killing with kindness.

Image source: Frances Hardinge