Prom Dates from Hell by Rosemary Clement-Moore is an amusing book full of wit and Sci-Fi movie references (which I'm a sucker for). The book is about Maggie Quinn and is the first in a trilogy of books featuring her. She goes to school in Avalon High with her best friend D&D Lisa and the Jocks and the Jessicas. When some freaky stuff starts happening, she starts to rediscover and accept her clairvoyant gift. With the help of her new friend Justin, Lisa, and Brian (surprisingly one of the Jocks) they save their prom from the ancient Babylonian demon Azmael.
In Hell Week Maggie has moved to the local collage and for a spot on the collage newspaper, tries to infiltrate Rush. For those of you who don't know, Rush is what all aspiring sorority girls must go through. Maggie gets her spot on the newspaper and writes under the pen name Phantom Pledge. She eventually discovers some weird things happening in the Sigma Alpha Xi sorority that she pledged to. This activity turns demonic quickly and during Hell Week Maggie saves the day with Lisa, Justin, and Devon (a SAXi who turned on her sorority.
And finally, in Highway to Hell Lisa and Maggie go on spring break (again for the school newspaper for a story under "The Least Likely Spring Breakers") Their car runs over a cow in the middle of the row with strange bite marks all over it's body. Their Jeep gets broken by the cows horns and they are stuck in the nearest Middle of Nowhere town, Dulcina. And by now you probably know what happens next, freaky, weird, strange things happen. Maggie and Lisa hear a rumor from the barkeeper that the strange stuff (animal killings almost exactly like the one with the cow that the girls ran over) is because of El Chupacabra a mythical monster that kill livestock and drinks their blood (hope you don't mind if I go off track here for a little bit, but ever since I heard Blood by My Chemical Romance, every time I see the word, I get the song stuck in my head). Of course the killing can't just be some monster that can be killed, they have to be demonic. Maggie saves the day with, let me hear it, Justin and Lisa, and one new addition, Justin's childhood friend Henry.
NOTE
From this point onward, I will be referring to the books with these acronyms-
Prom Dates From Hell- PDH
Hell Week- HW
Highway to Hell- HH
I immensely enjoyed each book but I feel as though PDH was great HW was good and HH was okay. PDH used the one thing that will win my heart in excess, pop culture references. It was fun, funny, and real (if you exclude the demons, and the physic powers). I honestly think anybody would like it, the main character is likable and witty, the supporting characters keep to their personality, and there's one gigantic plot twist at the end. I didn't like HW as much because the supporting characters weren't as developed as in PDH, which one thing I really liked about the first book. Also, the pop culture refences were kept to a minimum, other than that, the book was as enjoyable as the first. HH was, again, funny and awesome, but not as good as the previous two books. HH has the same problems as HW, supporting characters weren't as developed and even the supporting main characters (as I like to call the other main characters, like in Harry Potter, Harry is the main character, Ron and Hermione are the supporting main characters) weren't like Ron and Hermione but were like, um, let's say, Hagrid in the Sorcerers Stone and Dumbldore in the Half Blood Prince. And the pop culture references were almost not there. I would recommend this book to anyone for that matter, but I have one final note, there is swearing in this book (but nothing too bad confined mainly to the S-word, D-word, and H-word).
