Thursday, February 27, 2014

The First Book - Welcome to Morganville, Claire! (From 'Vampires Are From Morganville')

Welcome to Morganville, Texas. Don't stay out after dark.




In the first book, Claire Danvers is introduced. She is a 'smarticle particle,' as my friends would say. She is sixteen when she is brought forward as a freshman in college, coming from a town about an hour away from Morganville's Texas Prairie University. She is noted as one of the youngest characters in the books. Right from the get-go, Claire is subjected to bullying. Monica Morrell and her backup girls, Gina and Jennifer, take all of her laundry and trash it -- literally. They took her clothes and tossed them into the trash chute. I cannot recall if she ever gets her clothes back or not, but I do remember that as Claire is heading down the dorm's stairs, the 'Bad Touch Trio' (in no reference to Hetalia) push her down, making her hit every single step on her way down.

Extremely embarrassed by the entire affair, Claire storms out of the dorm, backpack in hand. She sees a poster that says, "Roommate Wanted!" and is intrigued. She calls the number and a girl named Eve Rosser answers. She tells Claire to come to the house, the Glass House, to see her, Shane Collins, and Michael Glass, owner of the threshold.

Throughout the book, Michael is on and on about Claire not being 18 yet, and keeps saying that she needs to go back to the dorm, even though if she returns Monica and her backup girls will probably kill her. "The popular girls never let her forget just where she ranks in the school’s social scene: somewhere less than zero," says the Morganville Vampire blog by Jayda Steele

In a science lab, Gina 'accidentally' throws acid on Claire's back, and would've dumped the entire container on her if Claire hadn't yelled out, gaining the attention of the entire class. The acid burns through her clothes and damages her back, sending searing, white-hot pain through her every time it gets touched. This shows just one of the ways Monica tries to literally kill Claire throughout the series.

Later on in the book, as the four roommates find out that Oliver, Eve's boss at the copy shop named Common Grounds, is a vampire. When he comes to the house, Claire answers the door and invites him in, much to Michael's horror. He was already killed once by Oliver, becoming a half-ghost trapped in his own house. He does not want to relive the experience.  Along with Oliver, Shane's dad Frank comes back to town. He's known for hating the vampires, and stakes Michael, killing him again.

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