The Girl's Got Bite: The Original Unauthorized Guide to Buffy's World, Completely Revised and Updated [Paperback]

Kathleen Tracy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 30, 2003

Buffy Summers is just your average teenager with everyday problems except for one teeny tiny thing-she's the Vampire Slayer. Balancing homework with her duties as the one chosen to rid the Earth of evil forces sometimes puts a crimp in Buffy's social life, but she manages. That the buff high schooler can annihilate vampires and other monsters while remaining fashionably dressed and cutely dressed illustrates the dichotomy that is Buffy.

This companion guide covers all aspects of the Buffy phenomena-from the 1992 feature film starring Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry, to the development and production of the current hit TV series starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. Based on interviews with the show's creator, producers and principal cast members, the book includes cast biographies, critical summaries of each episode, trivia, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and more.

Like the series, the Buffy book combines the thoughtful (an essay on slayer mythology throughout history) with the frivolous for a frightfully good time.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kathleen Tracy is an entertainment journalist for such magazines as Globe, Film News International, and TV Week, and the author of several books, including biographies of Kelsey Grammer, Drew Carey, and Ellen DeGeneres. She is a member of the Television Critics Association and is accredited by the Motion Picture Association of America. She lives in Sherman Oaks, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 342 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; Revised edition (May 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031231258X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312312589
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,425,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the Best Buffy Guide Ever..., June 18, 2003

By 

Amanda (Maine) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Girl's Got Bite: The Original Unauthorized Guide to Buffy's World, Completely Revised and Updated (Paperback)

'The Girl's Got Bite' is the latest "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" guide to surface, but it's not all that great. First off, according to this site, the book is "Completely Revised and Updated Through Season Seven", which is not entirely true. The episode guide only goes through the ninth episode of the seventh season, "Never Leave Me", so anyone looking for anything beyond that should be warned that they're not going to get it.

This "Buffy" guide includes what most of the others do. There is an introduction that actually gives a history of the feature film that started it all. That is followed by descriptions of the series' characters, a history of the vampire, cast biographies and finally the episode guide. A majority of the 342 pages are the episode descriptions, which are okay except for one little thing that bothered me: season one's episode 11 is actually called "Out of Mind, Out of Sight", but they list it in this book as being called "Invisible Girl". Well, according to my season one DVD that is not correct.

As far as cast biographies go, they are the same here as they are everywhere else, so we don't learn anything new. This is the same with the character guide. As for the episode guide, since only 9 of the seventh season's episodes are featured, it is pretty pointless to even have them there. I would recommend the "Buffy" guide 'Bite Me', which contains an episode guide complete all the way through season six. I can guarantee that there will be another "Buffy" guide to come out in the future that will include all of season seven as well. Hopefully it will be a 'Watcher's Guide', which are the best of the "Buffy" guides in my opinion. The 'Watcher's Guides' and 'Bite Me' seem to contain more information to satisfy Buffy's biggest fans. So my advice is to just wait until another guide comes out. This is not a terrible book, but it just can't hold a candle to the other ones.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good solid info, July 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Girl's Got Bite: The Original Unauthorized Guide to Buffy's World, Completely Revised and Updated (Paperback)

This is the first Buffy reference book that I have read and I have to say that I enjoyed it.I found it to be very detailed.The thing I enjoyed most was the complete listing of every song by every band that was played in every episode.It also provided the names of the cds the songs were on.I thought that was a nice touch. I discovered some good music from that.
I think all Buffy fans would find this book worthwhile.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, August 19, 2004

By 

Marcus Bailey "Marc 'grailwolf' Bailey" (Darnestown, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Girl's Got Bite: The Original Unauthorized Guide to Buffy's World, Completely Revised and Updated (Paperback)

This is not a horrible book, but it is kept from being a really good book by two major failings.

The first problem is that the writing is just not terribly engaging. You can tell that Ms. Tracy is a journalist rather than a creative writer as her prose generally has very little sparkle. This would be forgivable if the information in the book were anything new, but any real fan of the show already knows 99.9% of everything in this book. I would still recommend it for new fans or fans who haven't read any of the official books, but...

Problem #2 is that the actual information is sometimes suspect. There are occasional misquotes from episodes and frequent faulty analyses of events in the series. I cannot speak for the factual information about the behind the scenes aspect of the show, but the info about the show itself is often a bit off. For example (***Show Spoilers ahead***), the author states that Spike is tricked by the demon who restores his soul. That he was actually looking to have the chip removed from his head. This idea has been refuted by Joss Whedon and, more importantly, by Spike himself in season 7 of Buffy and season 5 of Angel. This is just sloppy scholarship.

In short, I would only recommend this book to Buffy completists or to fans so obsessive that they need to find that 0.1% of new information that might be gleaned from this volume. :)