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Quite awhile ago I started to hear a rumbling in the Young Adult Literature crowd about a debate. Who would win in a fight between zombies and unicorns? YA authors and their followers took their stances seriously. Words were flung back and forth between Team Zombie and Team Unicorn. There were throw-downs. It was quite amusing to watch. Little did many of us on the sidelines know that there was something bigger at hand. Author Diana Peterfreund was writing what would come to be known as "the killer unicorn book." It hit the bookstore shelves this week as Rampant.
I know. I know! You want to decry the very idea that unicorns are anything but cute and pure. They are innocent! Even J.K. Rowling says that anyone who takes the life of a unicorn, one of the purest beings on the planet, will live but a half life. Diana Peterfreund and I? We're ruining your childhood. I know this because every time I've mentioned this on Chatter or Twitter at least one of you has replied, "Killer Unicorns?!?! Noooooooooooooooo." (Yes, I'm looking at you Sparklecorn attendees.)
People, I'm here to tell you that you have it all wrong. Forget everything you thought you knew about unicorns. I mean really, what on earth did you think that those large pointy horns were used for but to spear and gore things? I realize they are pretty and all but so's a skunk and you don't want to get on the wrong end of one of those. I understand why you feel the way you did about unicorns, even the characters in the book have a hard time reconciling these killers with the fairy tales that they grew up with. Yes they were raised on the same happy tales of unicorns that we were because unicorns were extinct. There were only a small number of people, the descendants of the unicorn hunters, who believed they knew the truth. If they ever spoke of it people labelled them as crackpots.
Then the reemergence begins. People begin dying mysteriously, killed by some unknown animal. No one knows what it looks like because there are no survivors.
Almost.
Astrid herself never completely believed the tales of killer unicorns that her mother Lilith told her. Apparently they are descendants of the same family as the last and greatest unicorn hunter. She couldn't shake those tales nor could she believe the happy unicorn tales that other kids believed either. Then one night as she was babysitting her boyfriend comes over. They are out by the woods she sees something and she suddenly finds out all too soon that her mother's tales were no lie as the unicorn gores her boyfriend. Astrid's mother comes to the rescue by showing up with "the Remedy" and saves him but doesn't manage to save her social life as she's promptly dumped. Astrid's boyfriend thinks that Astrid had a rabid goat attack him and then she and her mother drugged him (yeah, he is a rather big git, in case you were wondering). The reemergence sends her mother into a frenzy of excitement and the next thing that Astrid knows she's been sent on off to what is essentially a nunnery in Rome to train to be a unicorn hunter.
Yes, you read that last sentence right. In addition to needed to be a descendant from certain ancient families you must be a virgin in order to hunt unicorns. Not a virgin? The unicorns will know and well, it's not a pretty scene when you meet up with one. A special bonus on top of that? When you hunt unicorns it's not so much about the hunting as it is about the killing because unicorns will seek you out and try to kill you. Really, it's every teen-aged girl's dream. Yeah, I know. Some of you won't like the whole virgin thing, but it works I have to givePeterfreund credit. Neither she nor her characters in the book blindly accept it either. Expect to find some discussion about virginity in our society. (And might I add it's not a bad opener for a discussion about sex with any teens in your life.)
Now I'm going to guess that some of you think this is a little over to the top and all I have to say to you is, um yeah. Did you miss the part where I said killer unicorns? It is a little over the top but it's also very believable, just like any good fantasy novel.
