The Laughing Listener
January 2019
I was graciously given a free copy in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are subject to change upon final release.
Format: Paperback

Overall Rating: 3.5 Stars

God I’m just… *Wipes away tears* SOOOOOO happy to be in this universe again.



If I’m being honest, I was more than a little confused when this book started. I’ve always considered myself a huge Buffy fan, but I’m a huge fan of the show. I’ve never read any of the comics or given them much thought and I just assumed this would be focusing on the TV aspect of the fandom. I should have known better. I mean, I knew the comics were canon to the Buffverse, but when this book started I was so focused on the show that I got SUPER confused. I didn’t understand what the hell was going on. In chapter 2 or 3 there’s a bare bones explanation of events, but I still spent an ungodly amount of time on the Buffyverse wiki page. I wish there had been a fact page or something for people to reference because that would have come in handy.

To help others like me, here are some things to know going in:

➤ Nina and Artemis, the two main characters, are the daughters of Merrick Jamison-Smythe who was buffy’s first watcher before Giles and the start of the show. You can see his story in the Buffy MOVIE, which I highly recommend because it’s 90s cinema gold.

➤ This book is sandwiched somewhere in between season 8 and season 9 of the comics. Buffy had to destroy The Seed of Wonder to cut earth’s ties to hell dimensions and save the world, but this also destroyed ALL magic. Buffy eventually finds a way to restore The Seed of Wonder and bring magic back, but that hasn’t happened in this book yet.


Buffy smashing the crap out of the Seed of Wonder.

➤ Buffy now lives in San Francisco. I know this one seems stupid, but there are a bunch of little references to the Golden Gate Bridge that I didn’t understand until I learned this.

SO. Due to frequent Google search stops and too much over-thinking, it took me a while to get into this book. I was too busy over-analyzing how everyone connected together. Once I took a chill pill and made myself focus on the actual story, this was a fun read!

Kiersten White did an AMAZING job capturing the same Buffy vibes that were in the show. This book kind of plays out like it’s own spin-off episode, which I really appreciated. And her sense of humor was spectacular! I literally laughed out loud at this book several times.

And the characters are great!! Even though the cast is all new (besides a few awesome cameos 😉) they all fit right into the Buffyverse and I had a lot of fun getting to know each one. Cillian was my absolute FAVORITE. He had the best one liners and I wish he was a real person I could actually be friends with. I also loved the main character Nina and despite being almost half my age, I found her so completely relatable. She’s a strong character with a great sense of humor who’s just trying to navigate her way through life. Her mother and sister, on the other hand, I absolutely HATED. I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to strangle each of them, especially Artemis who spends most of the book being over protective, pushing Nina aside, and discounting her opinions. I could understand her motivations, but as someone who’s been on the receiving end of that kind of treatment, I had NO patience for it.



But don’t let that stop you! Once the story gets going it’s really great and I loved all the action and fighting and creatures and drama. It was all so Buffy *tears up* I can’t wait to dive into the next one to see where this story goes.

FINAL WORD

I was confused at first and it took me a while get into the story, but once I did it was AWESOME.

#1 ↦ [b:Slayer|34723130|Slayer (Slayer, #1)|Kiersten White|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1528468297s/34723130.jpg|55903822] ↦ ✦✦✦✦✧
#2 ↦ Slayer #2 ↦ ?????