Original post here: http://offbeatvagabond.blogspot.com/2012/10/something-wicked-comes-blog-hop-book.html

My Favorite Fangs is The Sound Of Music with vampires, zombies, John Coltrane's ghost and Nazis. Yup, that should tell you all plenty. This is a crazy and fun read. Given that The Sound of Music is a childhood favorite, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to read this.

Maria is a very interesting lead. She is a vampire and she loves that she is a vampire. She wears tight black catsuits and kills anything in sight. But she is quite the bad seed. She lives in the Abbey of the Dead. It is fill of zombies and one zombie in particular Mother Zombie (aka Mother Superior. Love it!). So Mother Superior kicks Maria out and tells Maria to become a governess for the Von Trapps. Maria, of course, is not happy about looking after children that may actually burn her alive, but Maria has other plans up her sleeve for the Von Trapp children.

Maria is a very quirky character as I have mentioned. But she is nothing compared to the Von Trapp children. They are spoiled as hell and quite frankly, homicidal. Maria doesn't take this lying down. So in order to control them, she turns them all into vampires. And surprisingly, things start to look up. We then meet Captain Georg von Trapp and his lover, Lady Baroness. The Captain is either too stupid or drunk (most likely both) to notice that something is off with the Baroness. But Maria knows and they both have a feud. The Baroness and Maria were a lot alike. More than I think they would admit. I loved the rivalry that took place between them. They are both witty characters and are very shameless, especially Maria. She has no filter whatsoever.

Goldsher definitely knows his musicals and he did wonderful job showcasing that. The characters personalities aren't quite like how they are in the movie. Well not at all actually, this is not safe for children or people with a full stomach. It is gross. For example, when we first meet the Captain. Oh boy, I won't be eating oatmeal for a while. Maria is also quite the wild one. Like I said, she has no filter. She has absolutely no respect for life period. She kills at will and is so joyous about it. Definitely not the way I would imagine Julie Andrews, that is for sure.

Now as much fun as I had with this, there were quite a bit of problems. But what is more interesting about that is that Goldsher actually points out the problems in the book. It reads like a story that is actually talking to you. It is very interesting. But some problems I had is that I didn't necessarily connect with the characters. I would never want to know any of them. They are too much. Another problem I had was the actual romance between Maria and Georg. I don't know, it seemed to have come out of nowhere because there was no chemistry between them. Hell, Georg can't even remember her name. I believe he only got it right once. He is drunk 99% of the time we see him in this book, so that could be the reason for his lack of a personality (and memory). Another issue is that the plot can get a bit confusing which Goldsher points out in the book. It seems to bounce to one thing to the other. We have Maria turning the kids, the money-hungry talent agent that wants to get rich off the kids, the rivalry between Maria and the Baroness fighting over the Captain, Nazis wanting the Captain to join their ranks and more. Like I said, this books is crazy.

I love the amount of pop culture Goldsher throws in this book. We have the maid in the house that is “mistakenly” called Alice and the butler “mistakenly” called Albert. I love how Goldsher mixes up the decades in this book. For instance, the book is set during World War II, but John Coltrane's ghost makes an appearance. But Coltrane was still alive at that time. But this was a favorite scene for me. I loved when Maria nicknamed him “Chocolate Thunder”. I couldn't stop laughing. There was also a mention of an iPhone when the Baroness wanted to give the Captain's kids away to a Nazi general. I love where the story goes when it came to that general. Boy, what a bloodbath those kids can make.

Overall, this was a fun parody. It is campy, crazy, shameless, nasty, and gory as hell. A perfect choice for Halloween. Some parts of the book may make you a little uncomfortable, like I said, not for kids although teenage boys would have a blast with this. It is definitely the kind of read you just have to accept it for what it is. This is meant to be a fun and quirky read for us horror fans that love a laugh while still getting blood. I liked this book and I hope you do too.