Brittany's Reviews > Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ghost Roads

How I Came To Read These Books: being a Buffy fan, it was only natural I turned to read some of the books. I think I also read one that was based on the series’ premiere, but I preferred the original stories. Call it published fan fic.

The Plot: I can’t separate these three books particularly well this late in the game, so let’s summarize. There’s a whole lot of wacky going on in Sunnydale, more than usual. Rather than one big bad, it seems a rain (of toads, quite literally) of chaos is coming down in Sunnydale, and Buffy is having a tough time handling it, especially with her watcher hospitalized abroad. The gang goes on a road trip (!) much like any Babysitters Club novel, and ends up in Boston where a ‘gatekeeper’ is watching over a psychedelic mansion with doors leading to endless rooms of ‘ghost roads’ that house things not meant for our world. Unfortunately said gatekeeper is ailing, and they need to track down his heir to take over the family business. This leads to a further trip for Buffy, Angel, and Oz to travel the ghost roads and find Jacques – all the while being thwarted by the Sons of Entropy who are hell bent on causing mass chaos. Clearly the breakdown of the mansion would satisfy this need. Back in Sunnydale apparently there are some pirates looking to recruit people to their dead or alive crew (very Pirates o the Caribbean). The final book of the trilogy is essentially the big final battle and everything that leads up to it.

The Good & The Bad: Call me uncouth, but I enjoyed this series when I read it back in the day. It took my favourite familiar characters and thrust them into a world beyond Sunnydale, something the show never accomplished. Although no one seems in quite as much mortal peril as you would hope, these books were major page turners. Really though, it’s mostly fun to see the characters out of their element (Sunnydale) and taking on the worldwide spread of evil. It was just on such a larger scale than anything the show ever did really, other than maybe Glory. The writing might not be amazing (I recall them stealing phrases from the show and using the terms “a beat” as in “waited a beat” way too many times) and the characters are flat because you’re expected to have a fan’s wealth of knowledge, plus the story is a little far-fetched and sweeping, even for a fantasy Buffy novel, but it’s still fun for fans!

The Bottom Line: Like I said…it’s like published fan fic.
Anything Memorable?: Not really

50-Book Challenge?: Nope