Not "Dead" Enough

Dead Is a Battlefield by Marlene Perez

Teen Paranormal

I got this book because I thought it was part of Perez's "Dead Is...." series, which I really like a lot.  The first one was "Dead Is the New Black" and surrounded the Giordano sisters, each one named for a flower and each one with a paranormal skill they use to fight local crimes.  The Giordano sisters are only mentioned as peripheral characters, which is a shame because this main character isn't nearly so interesting.

Jessica isn't having a great freshman year.  Somehow, a moving tattoo mysteriously appears on her arm-and she sees the same tattoo on some other shady girls around town.  Jessica discovers that the tattoo is the mark of the Virrago, a mythical female warrior dedicated to fighting evil.  Except the tattoo must have be wrong because Jessica is no warrior.  She puts in half-hearted attempts to fight evil while flirting and generally doing inane selfish thinking.  This is not a female character you can sink your teeth into.

I think that was my biggest problem with this book.  Jessica just seems to trip through the pages , kind of like the whole thing is one big accident.  An irritating girl and not very likable.  The plot was also forgettable but does lay the steps for another in the series--an invitation that I will not be joining.

This seemed to be the second or third in this series and there were lots of thing I felt like I should know but didn't.  I searched around for some others that preceded this one but couldn't clearly find any.  The whole thing just confused me.  Authors, please, when you start a new series, change the name.