The Silver Kiss Review
By. Annette Curtis Klause
I was inspired to do this review partially by this video - The Silver Kiss from the Vampire Book Club of Maven of the Eventide. But also because I remember really liking this book when I was younger. So, I figured I would read it again and see if I still enjoy it as much as I did when I was in elementary/middle school. Let’s find out.
We start the book off with Klause’s new short story entitled, Summer of Love, which is told in the first person from Simon’s point of view and takes place in San Francisco in 1967. It details Simon’s life before he meets Zoë. It gives us a look into his life before he meets Zoë. Including him bonding with a stray cat, going so far as to catch and kill food for it. We also get to see how he tracks and seduces his prey, mainly runaway teen girls. We also get a little too much information on some of his bodily functions. We learn he has meager belongs in a suitcase, dirt from his homeland and a photo, and he sleeps in a broken down garage. Through the interactions with the cat, we get the feeling that despite what Simon says he is lonely. But his happiness with the cat is short-lived as he returns one night to find the cat sick from poisoning. He eventually puts the cat to sleep when he realizes nothing can be done. The short story is a pretty decent look into Simon’s psyche and what makes him tick. Especially before Zoë came into his life. I rather like the addition of it because Simon was always an interesting character.
We move on to the actual story, The Silver Kiss, this time we open in the third person from Zoë’s point of view. She comes home to an empty apartment and we learn that her mother is sick in the hospital and her dad is with her. The illness of her mother has deeply affected the relationship between father and daughter with their main interactions seemingly taking place through notes on the refrigerator door. Zoë is deeply affected by her mother’s sickness and coming death. But Zoë is understandably obsessed with death, despite fearing it. It also looks like she might have an eating disorder because she flat out admits she doesn’t eat much and has lost so much weight her bones have shadows. While she is wandering around the house like a ghost we become aware of this murder that happened the day before but not much time is spent on it, which is good foreshadowing.
We also discover that Zoë’s best friend Lorraine is moving away to what appears to be the other side of the country, Oregon. They talk about it and then Lorraine becomes less interested in talking when she learns that Zoë’s mother is in the hospital, because she like everyone else in Zoë’s life is uncomfortable with talking about it. When her father comes back they have dinner and Zoë tries to talk to him about her friend moving only to find him unattentive to her feelings.
So in a fit of anger, she goes for a walk to the park where she meets Simon. It’s about ten at night when she does this by the way. Which upsets her because he had gotten mad at her for leaving the door open, which is fair. While sitting in the park we get a semi-meet cute between her and Simon.
But before they can officially meet he runs away. And we switch to Simon’s point of view, which is also in the third person. The book works by switching back and forth between their povs with each chapter which I like.
We pick up where we left off in the previous chapter with Simon having run away and we learn that nowadays he doesn't drink from humans, though he is tempted to do it, he mainly seems to feed on rats. He thinks about returning to the park to see her again and considers if one of his own kind had already gotten to her based on how gaunt she apparently is before shaking it off because she didn’t smell like it. But instead, he decides to go see this six-year-old kid, which we later learn is his younger brother/sire. After watching the kid for a while he goes to his hiding place and we learn what the photograph, from the previous short story, had with a father, mother, child, and baby. Then he goes to sleep thinking of Zoë, though he doesn’t know her name.
Back to Zoe’s pov where she is at school and she and Lorraine play hooky before lunch period with her friend talking about moving again, even going so far as to burst into tears in the bathroom over it. The entire time Zoë is wanting to talk about her mother dying but she gives her friend some comfort. Even Lorraine admits she is selfish for being upset over this while Zoë is losing her mother. But they still don’t talk about Zoë’s mother dying and she admits no one wants to or even knows how to talk to it.
While they are comforting each other Zoë admits she is worried that when her mother dies, her father will lose himself in his grief and she’ll be alone. At lunch, we get background noise so to speak of another body being found, or maybe it's the same body as in the newspapers I’m not sure. After school Zoë is picked up by her father who takes her to visit her mother. They are both very moved by this visit and she is obviously having a hard time seeing her mother so sick. This doesn’t last long because the nurses kick her out, well actually they use her father to do it.
I don’t know if a hospital would actually do this or not. But it seems like it’s not healthy for Zoë or her mother. I also want to know why is it just Zoë’s visits tire out her mother. Because right after kicking his daughter out he tells her to have fun with Lorraine since he is going to stay longer with his wife. On her way home, she decides to go to the park again and considers how she doesn’t want to be the one responsible for doing laundry or telling her dad to pay the bills. I mean the bill thing is fair since no one wants to be the responsible teen-parent to their parent-child.
While she is thinking about all this she meets Simon officially when he attempts to seduce/charm her and is amused when her anger breaks her out of it. Also, Simon when someone says they want to be alone it's polite to listen to them.
But when she gets home she eats more than she had in weeks.
He of course, in the next chapter, decides to follow her home by turning into mist. He does this because she broke what he calls “moon-weave” and how that normally didn’t happen. But I don’t know if he is implying she is the first one to do it or if it's just a rare thing that happens. Anyways, he follows her home and urinates on her back door stoop, because he wants to mark his territory. And what girl doesn’t want a guy who does that? Also, does he urinate blood or actual urine to do this?
So after that little incident, he goes for a walk because he is angry that he was denied I guess. And meets three youths who demand he leave their lot alone. This goes about as well as expected and the fight scene is fairly well done and ends with Simon stealing a blood-covered jacket. Word to wise don’t call this dude a nobody. He then returns to her house and watches her sleep until dawn. But there is no breaking and entering from him, at least not yet. Don’t remember if he indulges in it later in the story.
Zoë and her father return to her mother’s side, who is ill and throwing up, causing her to freeze up in the doorway while her father rushes to his wife’s side. When it’s over Zoe returns home and on the way we learn that Simon left a part of the jacket behind but decides to go to Lorraine’s instead and the girls go out. While at the mall Lorraine buys a gift for Zoe, a crucifix on a red ribbon. The girls have pizza and talk about boys and then we get this little snippet.
I wonder if Zoë is demisexual because she doesn’t really show any interest in other guys her age, even if she does date. But then again a lot of books only have the heroine be attracted to the love interest. Which, fair I’m 36 and have only been attracted to maybe a handful of guys in my life. On their way home the girls separate so Lorraine can go into a drugstore while Zoë checks out the new display in the bookstore. Lorraine ends up talking to a little boy who runs off at the sight of Zoë. Later Lorraine leaves and Zoë stays behind where a body is found in the alley the boy thought his mother was down. Simon and Zoë meet again and talk about how death is scary. He walks her home and they begin to get close. Once they part he returns once more to stalk the woman and child, Christopher. Before just obersving the world around him and followed a girl that reminded him of Zoë.
One of the things I do not like about this book is that it doesn’t always let you know how much time has passed between events. Like now it is some undetermined time later and Zoë receives a call from her father at the hospital. She feels left out because her father doesn’t want her to come to the hospital. She cuts school and at first goes to the park but changes her mind, going to the hospital isntead. Her father is not happy about it and at the end of the visit they fight because Zoë thinks he wants to keep her to himself. But her mom doesn’t like being seen as weak and instead of reassuring Zoë that they both still love her he tells her they shouldn’t argue and sends her home.
Later on at home Lorraine and Zoë get into a fight.
Which is understandable because Lorraine and Zoë rarely talk about anything bothering the latter with most of their conversations revolving around the former. So between the argument with her father and her friend talking about the big move it's no wonder Zoë snapped so to speak. Anyways, she goes to the store and on her way home runs into Simon eating/drinking from a bird. She reacts about as anyone would have expected by running away.
Later, Simon is preparing to kill Christopher, who we learn is a vampire as well and the one murdering all the women, Simon fails but he finds out where the other vampire keeps the dirt from their home country, his ever-present teddy bear.
Later on, it’s Halloween and Zoë is underprepared but she gives out what she can, including pennies at the end of the night. Between trick or treaters, she tries to make up with Lorraine who is at her mother’s house. But then Simon shows up and convinces her to let him inside. He admits to stalking her because she made him feel things that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He winds up telling her the story of his past and how he and Christopher became vampires while kissing her a few times. Before eventually drinking from her a little bit, which is rude to do without permission. But their conversation is interrupted by a phone call from Lorraine which she ends so she can return to Simon’s side so she can send him on his way. But promises to let him in again.
Later on, Simon joins her as they go to the hospital to visit Zoë’s mother. They bond even more over the love of their mothers while on the bus. She questions turning her mother into a vampire, only to be told that doing so would be a cruel thing to do because she would live with cancer for all of her existence. Like Christopher being forever stuck with the emotions and temper of a child. They argue a bit over Simon’s older brother with Zoë pointing out that despite what Simon thinks, it's everyone’s problem if Christopher is killing people. She offers to help him bring down the bad guy.
After preparing the trap for Christopher, Simon returns to his place of rest to find a letter from his brother.
He, of course, panics, thinking his brother learned about Zoë but consoles himself since there is no mention of her in the letter. Lorraine and Zoë have a slumber party before the former moves to Oregon. The girls having made up and before long Lorraine is off on the way to Oregon. When Zoë gets back home her dad apologizes for him and her mother pushing her away and he admits to seeing a therapist which she also agrees to see with him. They heal the rift between them because of the stress of her mother’s cancer.
The next day Simon breaks into her home, because he only had to be invited in once and then it's B&E all the way I guess. I mean at least he wasn’t breaking in while she was asleep, just watching her from the other side of the window and pissing on her back stoop. They discuss his plan for how to take out Christopher. And then at midnight, they start their plan which goes fine up until Christopher spots him and then it all goes to shit. Including when the youths from before, the ones Simon took the jacket from, show up and join the fight. One falls into the pit Simon had dug, he’s not hurt. And before Christopher can escape Zoë and Simon manage to stop him in bat form with the necklace Lorraine had given her.
Finally the threat of Christopher is at an end and later Simon decides he is ready to let go and dies in the sun,
The Epilogue is called, The Christmas Cat, and takes place two years after the main story with Zoë now in college in San Francisco. She stumbles across a cat only she can see which later turns out to be Simon’s cat from the Prologue and she gets some more closure from his and her mother’s death.
I was surprised to discover that I still enjoyed reading this book at the ripe age of 36, some 20 plus years after reading it for the first time. It’s still one of my favorite vampire stories with another one being from a vampire anthology and dealt with a teenage vampire going after the babysitter of her little sister for touching her. The characters are enjoyable and while Zoë thinks about becoming a vampire like Simon, in order to be with him she ultimately decides against it. I highly recommend this book if you like vampire stories and don’t mind YA, even if you do.
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