Customer Reviews

Meet the Stars of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Meet the Stars of Buffy the Vampire is a must read! If you're mad about Buffy then here's the book for you. It gives you all the latest info on the Stars, and talks about exactly what you want to know! With 16 pages of color pics, and each chapter carefully written, you'll find out the truth behind each stars sucess.

This book is very good. Every Buffy fan should get it. It talks about all of the characters and the people who play them. It has some very good pictures too.

"Meet the Stars of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'" was published in 1998, when the show was about to start its "third sizzling season" on the WB as "the coolest kickin' hour of teen power on TV." Those sentiments along should be enough to warn you that this unauthorized biography by Jan Gabriel is aimed at the young fans the WB was trying to attract to its network with shows like "BtVS," "Dawson's Creek," "7th Heaven," "Felicity," "Charmed," and all those young-skewing situation comedies. Today, however, "BtVS" is the province of syndication and scholars who are writing about the show from the perspective of philosophy, spirituality, feminism, linguistics, and any other discipline in which its adult fans happen to have their advanced degrees. So there is something refreshing about this book about the young stars of the show aimed at the show's young fans (notice that Anthony Stewart Head as Giles does not get a chapter).

Six of the thirteen chapters focus on the "Buffster" herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, starting with her early career in commercials, getting to her Emmy award winning role as Kendall Hart on "All My Children" in the third chapter, and being cast as Buffy in chapter four. The other two chapters look at what Gellar does away from the set, where she explores her "Passion for Fashion," and her initial movie career as a scream queen in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Scream 2." Getting their own chapters are Nicholas Brendon, Alyson Hannigan, David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, and Seth Green. These basically read like interviews, culled together from other publications such as "Seventeen" and "Entertainment Weekly," but clear aimed for young readers (you will be reading along and suddenly a "Huddle alert" is called, so you know to pay attention because what follows is something you can gossip about with your friends). Chapter 12, "Camp 'Buffy': A Day Behind the Scenes," groups together stories about the cast on the set (and proves the book is unauthorized by not referring to the show by the Joss Whedon approved shorthand "BtVS"). The final chapter is filled with "Quick Bites on the Slayer Team" so that you can learn SMG loves anything vanilla along with standard biographical information and a long list of favorites from actors to whether or not they believe in vampires for her and the rest of the cast (including Head).

Gabriel tends to get a bit gushy at time throughout "Meet the Stars of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,'" but she does provide a lot of information. I was thinking that this was going to be one of those quick and dirty little books that comes out to take advantage of the hot television series du jour, but there is a lot of information about the young cast members of "BtVS." Gabriel must have read everything that was available in magazines from "Rolling Stone" to "YM" to put together this book, and since the vast majority of these magazines is not on my reading list, there was enough "new" information in this 165-page book to make it worth my while. If you spent the seven years that "BtVS" was on the air cutting out everything you could find about Sarah Michelle Gellar and the rest of the cast, then that might not be the case. But that should be easy enough to figure out going in to this paperback.

MEET THE STARS OF BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Jan Gabriel (New York: Scholastic, 1998)

RATING: 4/5 Stakes

BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer is total must see-the coolest kickin' hour of teen power on TV. Blazing into its third sizzling season, Buffy is the chosen show, funny and scary and heartbreaking and loving and real. It's generation next, to the max. Sarah Michelle Gellar as the Buffster is one huge reason, but Nicholas Brendon as Xander, Alyson Hannigan as Willow, David Boreanaz as Angel, Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia, and Seth Green as Oz are the slammingest sidekicks a slayer, or her fans, could ask for. What's their real life deal? Here's the place to find out."

REVIEW

"Slammingest"? "Generation next, to the max"? The back cover copy is lovely cheesy fun, obviously written by someone several decades older than the subject of the book. Slang aside, Meet the Stars of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is actually a decent, short biography of the main actors in the show. Several chapters focus on Sarah Michelle Gellar, with individual chapters on David Boreanaz, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, Seth Green, and Charisma Carpenter (sorry Tony Head!). Written shortly after Season Two, the book is by no means comprehensive but the writing is breezy and eminently readable. Better yet, it's not sycophantic and is willing to talk about some of the actors' more controversial traits, such as Gellar's reputation for bitchiness. To my mind, this is a cheaper and far more entertaining way to get a quick overview of the actors' pre-Buffy work than the Watcher's Guides.
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Although this book did not contain much information that I did not already know from reading countless other Buffy biographies, it is an awesome read for people who have not read other books. It contains pictures of their early days as actors (I especially liked a funny picture with Alyson Hannigan with brown, poofy hair). It really shows how the actors' characters and their looks have evolved through the years.

This book has it all. From how Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) started out, all the way to Nicholas Brendon's (Xander) twin brother. A great book for anyone who wants to know more about the cast. In other words, a must read.

If you want to learn a lot about the stars of the show then read the book. It gives you heaps of info about them. It gives you their star signs, where they were born and heaps more. In other words, it's a really good book.

This may not be the book to find all the things die-hard Buffy fans want to know, but it's an excellent book to read for rookie fans to read.

Sarah rules and so does this book, and if u dont think so you really suck, because she's the hottest woman in the world and is the best actress i've ever seen. This book was pretty good, it didn't have as many pictures as other Buffy books, but it gave good info on Sarah and the other stars of Buffy, from their childhoods to what they plan to do next. Its great, even if you already know alot about sarah and buffy, because it gives you behind the scenes looks at the show, and at the personal lives of all the cast members.

This book may be a small paperback, but I have read all of the other books about the show and this has the most complete biographical information about the stars of the show.