This was the second selection of my brunch book club, not my usual fair, but I was excited to read a bit of Young Adult fiction because my life as of late has been busy so at least I could get another book read under my belt.
I’m a big vampire fan so I went into this cautiously optimistic. So many vampire tales have let me down tremendously (I’m looking at you, Twilight) so I didn’t get my hopes up, but went into this looking for a fun easy read, and that is what I found, more or less.
The premise is great: a comic-con loving awkward chubby 16 year old finds himself turned into a creature of the night. Not only must he deal with the tribulations of high school and being an awkward teenager, but he now must figure out how being a vampire and make peace with the fact that he is stuck in his schlubby form ostensibly for all eternity. There is also the complications of his being hunted by a Ghosthunter-esque television crew and of course, pitfalls in young love. This book has all the bones of a good story, but the execution is where it goes off the rails.
The the writing is humorous, the book is clunky in design and it seems the author doesn’t know how to wrap things up and I really disliked the ending. Also, I feel the characters were decently developed, but then shoehorned into situations and actions that don’t make sense.
Overall, it was fun but with more polish and thoughtfulness it could have been a solid offering for adults, young and old.
