2011 Horror and Urban Fantasy Reading Challenge COMPLETED!

Another one done! Check out the completed list here. Just one more challenge to go and I still have a major hurdle left to jump on that one. A major hurdle. And I'm still really trying hard not to cheat.

Mayhem by Artist Arthur

Published July 29, 2011.

A lot can change in a few months. Jake Palmer is living proof of that. In a short time, the once-shy loner has discovered his incredible supernatural abilities and forged a tight bond with his fellow Mystyx. What’s more—he’s fallen for his best friend, Krystal. And fallen hard.

Still, some things remain the same—like the jocks who keep bullying him. Even though they have no idea how powerful Jake has become. And while he tries to follow Krystal’s advice, he may not be able to keep his cool much longer. But there are bigger problems ahead, because the darkness that’s been hovering nearby is about to descend on the town of Lincoln, Connecticut. And when it does, the Mystyx will learn who to trust, who to fear and just how much is at stake… (netgalley.com)

After my less-than-impressed feelings about Sasha's point of view in MYSTIFY, MAYHEM was a fantastic reprieve, getting into Jake's head and finally seeing things from his brooding eyes. There's a genuine tone to his voice that I found absent in Sasha's, although it was there in Krystal's in MANIFEST. Jake's story evens the keel and shows that is was a particular voice, and not the author, that fed the lull of the second book.

There's a heavy message of bullying in MAYHEM that I couldn't help but relate to. Money and status aside, the people in power tend to favor the bullies, putting the burden of proof on the bullied, and that situation aggravated me to no end because it's true. I've been the victim of school and workplace bullying. The former is well behind me but the latter . . . while I've voiced my concerns, with supporting proof, my frustrated outbursts get chastised and I'm forced to put on a happy face and just deal with it. So I can totally relate to Jake when it comes to wanting to react. Why shouldn't he defend himself when others are bringing violence against him? Why should he get in trouble for it? Especially when there are others around to see not only the precursor to the event but who have bore witness to the years of suffering? Oh yeah. I can relate.

But Jake has to make a choice: does he succumb to the darkness and let the power that he so desperately wants take over him? Or does he fight for the light, and tuck it all back? I really liked seeing the push/pull going on in Jake's head. He's really conflicted and being in his point of view you're privy to every argument he gives himself, every decision he has to make, every psychotic teenage emotion he struggles with. And he does have some crazy ones. It doesn't help that he has an ancient being and a burgeoning power to deal with on top of puberty.

Another thing I really like about this series is that the relationships are real. His blooming one with Krystal and Sasha and Twan have an authenticity about them that I find missing in a lot of YA. In other books it's about love, love, love, love. But here, it's about a connection, having things in common and letting it grow of its own accord. There's nothing forced and nothing rings as inauthentic to me. It sits just right and I can't tout that more.

The darkness gets a face, so to speak, in MAYHEM and whatever is brewing is coming more and more to a head. Each book centers around each character dealing with this darkness in their own personal ways so while, to me anyway, it may seem that the resolution comes a little too quickly, it's all building up to a final showdown that'll be anything but. Each character needs to get over their specific hurdle and I'm glad I could be there to see Jake conquer his. I can't wait for the next installment.

Ban Factor: High - It's a book filled with supernatural powers given to kids from a Greek god, plus a teenage boy going through his man things as a parallel. Ban 'er up!

Thaw by Rick Jasper

Published August 28, 2010.

A July storm caused a major power outage in Bridgewater. Now a research project at the Institute for Cryogenic Experimentation has been ruined, and the thawed-out bodies of twenty-seven federal inmates are missing.

At first, Dani Kraft doesn't think much of the news. But after her best friend Jake disappears, a mysterious visitor connects the dots for Dani. Jake has been taken in by an infamous cult leader. To get him back, Dani must enter a dangerous, alternate reality where a defrosted cult leader is beginning to act like some kind of god. (book back blurb)

Another excellent addition to Darby Creek's Night Fall series. If you're not familiar with it, Night Fall is a series of horror books written at a fourth grade level in order to help entice the more reluctant reader. So they're like GOOSEBUMPS but without the cheese and with more horror. This is probably what my demented self would have read at the GOOSEBUMPS age instead of GOOSEBUMPS if these were around.

Jasper doesn't waste any time pulling the reader in. The story starts and the bodies are already defrosted and Dani's missing Jake. Not just missing him, but is worried sick about him since it's been weeks since she's heard from him. When a strange man who looks like he may be rotting comes by with a video message from Jake, Dani springs into action, desperate to save him from the mad man that has him trapped in this weird alternate reality. Except when she gets there, everything she thought was going on gets turned upside down and Dani ends up having to fight even harder to get Jake out. At least she has some help.

The only dislike I had about THAW was that there wasn't more. I've read a few of these books and in every one of them the story's always been phenomenal. But because of the reading level, it doesn't delve too much into emotions or scenes or anything like that. I know I've said it in my other reviews but I'll say it again: I want more!

The image that Jasper gives with the people defrosting is truly gross. They're not just thawing out but they have freezer burn and the freezing didn't really go very well for them. Their lives weren't prolonged. They didn't thaw out and dance around all happy because they were free. Like truly damaged meat, they were spoiling and Jasper made sure you knew that. Love it!

Plus the world that Dani gets thrown into is some kind of sadistic dream. The scenery is something out of a nightmare, with reality playing at the edges. It was like she was dreaming and she knew she was dreaming and in order to escape she had to wake up. Except she was already awake and her only means of escape had disappeared. You really get a sense of being trapped and you don't know how it's going to end.

Dani's a great character. Really strong and determined. I wish there was more of her in the story. Yeah, it's in first person but like I said above, because of the reading level, it doesn't go very deep. I just wanted more. And of Jake. It would have been nice to have alternating viewpoints to see how he ended up going from point A to point B. Trey ended up being a good supporting character in an unexpected way. Well, I guess it might have been expected but he served a good purpose. He was probably the only part of the story where less was more. Had I seen more of him I probably wouldn't have liked it as much.

Overall a fantastic horror story that'll leave you craving more. Thankfully Night Fall has a few books in its series.

Ban Factor: High - Horror is high. In an alternate dream reality where a thawing cult leader is trying to take people away to a land where he's god? It'll have the Bible thumpers drumming like crazy.

Goosebumps: The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb by RL Stine

Published January, 1993.

Gabe just got lost - in a pyramid. One minute, his crazy cousin Sari was right ahead of him in the pyramid tunnel. The next minute, she'd disappeared.

But Gabe isn't alone. Someone else is in the pyramid, too.

Someone. Or some thing.

Gabe doesn't believe in the curse of the mummy's tomb. But that doesn't mean that the curse isn't real.

Does it? (book back blurb)

As much as I love all things Egyptian, I have to say this isn't one of my favorite GOOSEBUMPS books. The Idiot Adult Syndrome runs a little too high for my liking in this one. For instance, right at the beginning, Gabe's father asks Gabe how he thinks the pyramids were built. His father then reminds him that the Egyptians didn't even have the wheel. Now I don't know if this was an editorial oversight or a comment on just how dumb Gabe's parents are but they're supposed to be successful business people. So I don't know. And Gabe's archaeologist uncle had some serious TSTL moments. Far too many for his own good.

I get it. The kids are supposed to save the day and all but this one goes a bit too far to make the parents look incompetent where the kids would have to step in and save the day. It just ended up being a bit TOO silly for me. I can take some silly. I wouldn't be reading GOOSEBUMPS if I couldn't. But this one's at the top of the ladder.

I also wasn't too thrilled with the characters so I didn't have that to fall back on. Gabe is a bit of a whiny brat and Sari is a spoiled brat. Neither exhibit real redeeming qualities at all and while there's some growth, I think it comes too little and a bit too late.

It's good for the Egypt factor. It paints a great picture of the artifacts and the dig site and all of the mummies. It's got some good exciting moments where you don't know if the kids are going to make it or not (with RL Stine that's not always a given). But MUMMY'S TOMB isn't at the top of my GOOSEBUMPS list. Thankfully there are a ton more to more than make up for it.

Ban Factor: High - Horror always equals high. Considering this one includes ancient Egypt and mummies' curses, it's bound to be some kind of heathen in the banners' eyes.

The Sleepwalkers by J Gabriel Gates

Published October 4, 2011.

Privileged and popular Caleb Mason is celebrating his high school graduation when he receives a mysterious, disturbing letter from his long-lost childhood playmate, Christine. Caleb and his jokester friend Bean decide to travel to his tiny hometown of Hudsonville, Florida, to find her. Upon arrival, they discover the town has taken a horrifying turn for the worse. Caleb's childhood home is abandoned and his father has disappeared. Children are going missing. The old insane asylum has reopened, and Christine is locked inside. Her mother, a witch, is consumed with madness, and Christine's long-dead twin sister whispers clues to Caleb through the static of an a.m. radio. The terrifying prophesies of the spirits are coming to pass. Sixteen clocks are ticking; sixty-six murdered souls will bring about the end of the world. As Caleb peels back layer after layer of mystery, he uncovers a truth more horrible than anything he had imagined, a truth that could only be uttered by the lips of the dead. (goodreads.com)

The book as a whole reads as scattered and nominally disjointed as that blurb read, to me at least. I always get a little excited at the prospect of what sounds like a good horror novel. On first look, without reading the novel, I wouldn't think that blurb too bad. But in hindsight, everything runs into everything else, just like it does in the novel, and it doesn't make for too great of a read.

I won't say I had high hopes for it. I just get excited to read horror. But I'm well aware of the pitfalls of the genre, and how massive turds could be laid in the dark corners of it. While THE SLEEPWALKERS isn't a massive turd, it's pretty much a turd nonetheless.

It was slow-going to start, taking it's sweet time getting into the meat of the plot. I didn't really mind like I normally would. So I waited. Some needless characters were introduced that didn't serve a purpose beyond the first couple of chapters. But when Bean and Caleb went on the road, that's really when the story started and things started getting weird.

Bean I really could have lived without. I just found him horrendously grating in his incessant need to be obnoxious. I just felt the character was pushing for something that didn't feel natural at all. He just always grated on me. Caleb ended up being your classic horror hero, or anti-hero, as it were. I didn't really feel one way or another for him, which isn't really a good thing. He kept getting these unexplainable needs to stay when all signs pointed to get the hell out of there and that bugged me. Classic in horror, but it wasn't played very well here and he ended up with a lot of blood on his hands. Which he dwelled upon for about half a chapter and then it wasn't really mentioned again. So that didn't sit well with me either.

I was fading from the plot and then quickly hooked back in once the sleepwalkers were introduced. I thought those things were pretty creepy and the idea of people so controlled, and possessed, like that while asleep is pretty terrifying. But it all jumped the shark once clown make-up and end-of-days prophecies starting showing their ugly faces. Once a horror novel (or movie) turns towards the downright silly, you can't really recover from that. And I don't mean making light of the moment, silly, but scoffing at the pages silly. Once I hit that point the book was lost to me. It could have had redeeming moments but it really didn't. It ended how I figured it would end, the telltale showdown came to fruition and I turned off my eReader and moved on to the next book.

Ultimately I felt like THE SLEEPWALKERS was trying too hard to be horror. Instead of letting the creepiness of the asylum be it's down character and pull the reader in (despite how cliche that is, it can still work when done right), the door exploded in an orgy of horror tropes, as if the author were trying to cram as many of them into the pages as possible. Like Scary Movie but without the humor. I felt inundated by horrorness instead of horrified by it. I wanted to be afraid but wasn't. I wanted to be creeped out and for a couple of instances I was but they were few and far between. I didn't feel like the characters were real. They recovered from their ordeal far too easily for my liking and while it didn't really end on an up-note, it just felt too neatly tied into a pretty bow for me. I wasn't scared at the end of the book. I was just done with it.

THE SLEEPWALKERS was a decent try at horror but I'd have to say less is more. Letting the sleepwalkers be sleepwalkers would have been more than enough. But throwing in the Joker and overcooked prophecies just doesn't leave enough room for anything else.

Ban Factor: High - As I've said, horror gets a high by default simply because it's horror. It deals with creepy, spooky things without tidy endings and banners don't like that. This one isn't any different although some of the lesser characters throw around Christianity a bit. But I don't think it's enough to balance it all out.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake + Giveaway!

Published August 30, 2011.

Cas Lowood has inherited an usual vocation: he kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead - keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian house she used to call home.

But she, for whatever reason, spares his life. (ARC back blurb)

Apparently the publishing gods were listening to me as I begged, pleaded and whined about getting more YA horror onto the market because ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD certainly delivered! Part Supernatural, part Buffy with a penis (just don't tell Cas that), part Exorcist, ANNA is both incredibly spooky and touching all at the same time. It grabs the horror and throws it at you in little bursts, never overdoing it but it likes to play at the heartstrings too. It still carries some of that teen relationship schtick that most other YA books have but it's different and even more unattainable than Buffy and Angel's tryst. So there's really something for everyone but just be warned about the gore and spook elements. If you don' like that stuff, it might not be your bag.

There's something immediately likable about Cas. He's not a complainer but he's not a showboat either. There's a subtlety to his function that if tipped any other way he'd probably come off as annoying. But Blake does a phenomenal job of keeping him grounded and inherently appealing. He's got a job that he does. No big deal. He does it and moves on. That's it. It's best not to get strings attached to anything because that's just a hassle. He's so grounded out in logic that I can't help but fangirl him. Nearly every move he makes actually makes sense. There was barely a moment in the story where I was reading and disbelieving something he was doing. He followed a natural order to everything that was going on and he really never went against that. Scoffing at ridiculousness need not apply.

I also liked that his mom was a big buddy in the story. Whereas a lot of YA tends to shove parents into the background, ANNA didn't really do that. Of course the teens did a lot of the goings on and there was some bemoaning of parental worrying on Cas's part but that's natural. His mom, and Morfran, weren't wisps of smoke in the background leaving their children alone. They played active rolls in helping Cas figure out what the deal was and I really liked that. Again, more reality. More elements that actually made sense. Love it.

Carmel (sorry, but that's an absolutely atrocious name) and Thomas prove good supplements to Cas's abnormal evenness (because really, such a level-headed character is rare in YA). Carmel played the giggly popular girl well but she's a basket full of surprises. I ended up really liking her simply because she shattered every preconceived notion I had about her. Thomas didn't. He lived up to everything I originally thought he was, but that doesn't mean I didn't like him. He was useful to Cas, and insistent about it, which Cas begrudgingly took at the beginning but Thomas proved himself. Both of these guys showed Cas that he doesn't have to go it alone. They made him open up his eyes. For someone that was so open to strange and unusual things, Cas ended up being pretty close-minded about a lot of things mundane. I guess that comes with the territory.

I loved the gore simply because it came out of nowhere. It's not something you really expect in YA so when it popped up it was a total surprise and then I cheered a little. Not because a character got hurt, but because here's an author that's unafraid to take that step. How could I not love that? And there were some genuinely freaky moments going on that had me looking over my shoulder. I can't really like a book more once it does that. That's pretty much the pinnacle. The horror has done it's job. It's freaked me out and, even for a moment, unsettled me. Win.

I can't wait to read more in Blake's ANNA series if what I'm going into looks anything like this. YA horror, how nice it is to see you again. I hope you stay for a long, long time and have many, many little horror babies. Please.

Ban Factor: High - With all the talk of voodoo and ghosts and witchcraft and nothing Christian to balance it out, the banners would attack this like Westboro Baptist at a gay pride parade.

Giveaway Time!!!

I have a finished copy on my hands. You want it? Just fill out the form for your chance to win!

• Open to US residents 13 years of age and older only.
• One entry per person per email address.
• Duplicate entries will be deleted.
• Following my blog is required.
• Giveaway ends November 3rd, EST.

ETA - Just read the press release I found in my giveaway copy and what does Tor compare the book to? Supernatural and Buffy. It's okay. You can call me awesome for my amazing prophetic abilities.

Goosebumps: Ghost Beach by RL Stine

Published August, 1994.

Jerry can't wait to explore the dark, spooky old cave he found down by the beach.

Then the other kids tell him a story. A story about a ghost who is three hundred years old.

A ghost who comes out when the moon is full.

A ghost . . . who lives deep inside the cave!

Jerry knows that it's just another silly made-up ghost story . . .

Isn't it? (book back blurb)

Another piece of awesome from RL Stine. Even for a middle grade book, he really doesn't pull any punches.

Sure there are some cheesy moments. Some kooky senses of humor being thrown about. A lot of spooky moments that turn out to be something not so spooky after all. But it all comes back around in the end, leaving everything hanging, including Jerry and his sister!

Stine's got the MG voice down pat. He doesn't dumb it down for the reader and he doesn't skimp on the spook. He targets an age that he knows needs a bit of a goof but isn't afraid to get scared too. And I have to say it again, it all comes back to the ending. It was fantastic! You'll probably see it coming but where Stine leaves the story off, you have to give him credit for it. No nice neat, tidy endings for him.

GOOSEBUMPS is a great series to get the young ones hooked on horror early. It'll help develop their appreciation for the spookier things in life. My entry into the horror realm wasn't so subtle (Poltergeist at age 4, The Exorcist at age 6) so by the time I got to reading these books, they were old hat and far beneath my horror comprehension. But for the better protected youth who needs their horror a touch watered down but not entirely forgiving, GOOSEBUMPS is the way to go and GHOST BEACH is an excellent addition to that classic series.

Ban Factor: Medium - It's horror. It'll be on the banners' radar just for that. Age inappropriate or whatever. But there are sure to be other books at the front of their list. GOOSEBUMPS is a bit tame for them.

Supernatural Noir, edited by Ellen Datlow

Published June 28, 2011.

A hit man who kills with coincidence... A detective caught in a war between two worlds... A man whose terrible appetites hide an even darker secret...

Dark Horse once again teams up with Hugo and Bram Stoker award-winning editor Ellen Datlow (Lovecraft Unbound) to bring you this masterful marriage of the darkness without and the darkness within. Supernatural Noir is an anthology of original tales of the dark fantastic from twenty modern masters of suspense, including Brian Evenson, Joe R. Lansdale, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Nick Mamatas, Gregory Frost, and Jeffrey Ford. (goodreads.com)

I've got a short line-up of anthologies lately. First and foremost, the formatting on this digital galley was absolutely atrocious. To the point where I couldn't even read it on my eReader, atrocious. There were a few pages a story section that I could read but then the pages would double up and snap to microscopic print that I couldn't enlarge. I tried reading it but I ended up giving myself a migraine. So I ended up tethered to a computer to read this one and had the stories been bad, I would have dropped it like a bad habit. Not only did this take me longer to read but, as I said, I was tied to a computer to read it and since I don't have a laptop, it was a major inconvenience. But I kept reading it because I really liked what I was reading.

So putting the formatting issue aside, I really did like these stories. Trust. For how put out I was reading SUPERNATURAL NOIR, I would have stopped REALLY quickly if I didn't like it. Even if I somewhat liked it, I would have stopped because the format was an issue. But I didn't. I kept reading. Had I had this book in a normal print version, I would have flown through it, I liked it that much.

And now I'm back to reviewing an anthology of stories; an issue for me as I stated in my review of FEAR last week. Well, with SUPERNATURAL NOIR, each story was distinct enough to showcase the uniqueness of each author but at the same time all of their themes blended together seamlessly, each complementing the last as the book went on. Datlow did an amazing job of compiling such similar yet vastly different stories into one book.

What you have to understand with noir is that it's a bit over the top. Normally it's not really my thing but seeing as this was of the supernatural variety, I wanted to see what it was all about. And I really liked it. Yes, some of the stories read a bit like DICK TRACEY meets SUPERNATURAL but all of the stories had personality and I certainly can't deny them that. They stood out against the rest of the "normal" supernatural stories out there because of that noir effect, and I think it made them all the better.

My favorites were 'The Getaway' by Paul G. Tremblay (about a guy driving with a semi-prostitute that ends up at an inn, stalked by wooden gnomes), 'Comfortable in Her Skin' by Lee Thomas (about two women escaping battered pasts only to be sucked into a whole new world thanks to a wayward wolf hide) and 'The Maltese Unicorn' by Caitlin R. Kiernan (about a post-WWII female detective working for the wrong side trying to make a run for a crazy whore house owner). There's just this overwhelming grit to all of them that will leave you a little uncomfortable when you're done. I like it when my stories do that. It means they've actually moved me.

I wouldn't say the stories are inherently scary but there is some level of horror aspect to all of them (although the one with the gnomes was pretty freaky). The noir is more underlying, existing more in the personalities of the characters than in the overall story itself so if you're not big on it, you'll still probably get a kick out of them anyway as they're not dripping in it. But they definitely should be read for the supernatural aspect. They're different kinds of horror stories, playing into all manner of horror, not just your standard spooks. For that I can greatly appreciate what SUPERNATURAL NOIR has to offer, as would any genuine horror fan. It's a deviation from all of the other regular horror out there and will certainly leave a lasting impression even after you close the cover.

Ban Factor: High - Between the gratuitous sex, swearing and godlessness in the supernatural, the banners would be wetting themselves to get their nasty little claws into this one.

Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror, edited by RL Stine

Published September 2010.

Turn the pages if you dare. . . .In this collection of thirteen fabulously chilling stories--from thirteen true masters of suspense, including five New York Times bestsellers and a number of Edgar Award nominees, all edited by none other than R. L. Stine--nothing is what it seems. From cannibalistic children, to an unwitting date with a vampire, to a crush on a boy who just might be a werewolf, no scary stone is left unturned. A must-have for all fans of the genre! (goodreads.com)

Holy snot monkeys, I LOVE YA horror. The category is sorely lacking in all that is horror. Even if it's more compilations like FEAR, I'll take it. It makes me want to curl myself up in a blanket of nostalgia with a flashlight and read all night.

I always find it a little difficult to review anthologies like this because the writing in each story can vary so widely and quite frankly I don't want to nitpick short stories. So I'll review the book as a whole: phenomenal.

Stine knows his fear so when he rounded up his choices for this book, he hit each nail spot on the head in one single stroke. Each story was mired in creep factor but not all of them were your traditional horror stories, which I liked. As much as I love my classic horror, variety is always good. So while you have the creepy family living in the even creepier old Victorian next door, you have an issue with disappearing people on a planet filled with rich people. For each story the creep is distinct and will affect you in 13 different ways, each story with it's own unique bucket of creep.

My favorites were 'Welcome to the Club' by RL Stine (more of a psychological horror that makes you think, nothing paranormal which, I think, makes it scarier, using "normal" humans), 'Dragonfly Eyes' by Alane Ferguson (about a girl's death from her point of view post mortem), and 'Tagger' by James Rollins (about a Chinese girl dipping into her roots to destroy a demon intent on destroying her). Each are miles away from each other in terms of story but the creeper aspect brings them all back together.

If you have a night to yourself and are looking for a good scare with hints of nostalgia, pick up FEAR. It has every kind of horror story sampler you could want all wrapped up in 13 nicely pressed stories. The writing in each of them stands out as fantastic and each is written in such a way that it allows the horror to settled at the top, letting it be as spooky as it can be. I love it.

Ban Factor: High - I think horror gets an automatic high usually because it's dealing with something supernatural, usually has some kind of sex factor, swearing, and lots of killing. Banner heart attack central.

The New Girl by RL Stine

Published June 1989.

She's pale as a ghost, blonde and eerily beautiful - and she seems to need him as much as he wants her. Cory Brooks hungers for Anna Corwin's kisses, drowns in her light blue eyes.

He can't get her out of his mind. And the trouble has only begun. Shadyside High's star gymnast is losing sleep, skipping practice and acting weird. All the guys have noticed, but only Cory's friend Lisa knows the truth: Anna Corwin is dead and living on Fear Street. Now Cory must explore its menacing darkness to discover the truth. He has already been warned: come to Fear Street and you're dead! (book back blurb)

The book turned out to be not nearly as sinister as the blurb intones but it had its creeptastic moments all the same. Stine knows how to build suspense and keep the reader hanging as the plot moves along. Really, it's no wonder he's been putting out books for so long. He doesn't have an underlying evil about his writing like Stephen King does but it's spooky. It does the trick if you happen to be young and reading it in the dark. It gets under your skin just enough that you turn the light on an extra notch and settle back in to read.

THE NEW GIRL is the first book in the Fear Street series and I'd say (while I've read them way out of order) this would be a pretty good start. If I happened to be a young teen wandering a book store in the late 80s and picked it up, I'd totally get hooked on the series (because I haven't done it now, obviously, O_o). It's sort of your typical ghost story with the spooky street and the creepy houses and the scary stories that all of the locals grew up with. It's a great beginning and scene-setter to get it all rolling. There's a curse around Fear Street, and here's why.

Now, I wouldn't peg Cory as dumb but he was definitely oblivious to the point of me wanting to smack him upside the head. Whether he just developed some serious tunnel vision or really only had a one track mind, if Cory saw one way, there just wasn't any other way to see it. And I felt for Lisa because she was trying to break through that egg shell head of his and it just wasn't working for 99% of the book. Only after the revelation at the end did Cory finally come around and see a light outside of his own closet.

The ending was a bit disappointing for me because it kind of watered down the rest of the story but it was decent enough. It could have been a hell of a lot worse but there are other avenues that Stine could have taken the plot that would have made is much creepier. But that's pretty classic Stine: a lot of build-up with a nominally happy ending and a pretty rational explanation for everything. Well, as rational as a horror book can get. You come to expect it reading his work.

THE NEW GIRL is a great addition to any cheese lover's library, especially if you can snag a first printing paperback like I have. :) If nothing else it'll make you nostalgic for a time when you didn't have much else to worry about so you could curl up under the blankets with a flashlight and read horror to your heart's content.

Ban Factor: Medium - No swearing, pretty minimal in any kind of sexual innuendo and at the end of the day it's supernatural free, the banners would have a hard time finding something to hate about this one. But that's assuming they'd actually read the book. On first glance, the ban factor would be high since it's horror so it must be totally atrocious.

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Published May 2001.

Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much. Not because she's not pretty. She is. It's just that, well, Sookie has this sort of "disability." She can read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill. He's tall, dark, handsome - and Sookie can't hear a word he's thinking. He's exactly the type of guy she's been waiting for all her life . . .

But Bill has a disability of his own: He's a vampire with a bad reputation. He hangs with a seriously creepy crowd, all suspected of - big surprise - murder. And when one of Sookie's coworkers is killed, she fears she's next . . . (book back blurb)

One night when I was at soldier boy's and we didn't have much to do, I told him to just go ahead and put on the latest episode of True Blood because I wanted to see if I liked it (I can usually tell if I'm going to like a show regardless of where I pick up an episode). So we watched it, I really liked it and I went and bought the first season. I devoured it and now I'm just waiting for the second season to arrive (which should be today, yay!). Late bloomer, I know. I haven't had HBO in years and I don't regularly watch TV. Story of my life. But I knew I had this book in the pile because I've had people bugging me to try it out for a while now. So after nomming Season 1 of the TV show, it was time I take a look at the books and see how they compare.

I like the show better. MUCH better. SO MUCH better. Now, I don't know if I like it better because I saw it before reading the books. HBO did fluff it up quite a bit: made it sexier, added more subplots and characters and Season 1 parallels DEAD UNTIL DARK really closely. I was just not nearly as excited about the book as I am about the show. I liked the authenticity of the voice. I really believed that, I could see Sookie's surroundings as she spoke and I could feel the setting. That was the most vivid part of the writing for me. Plus Sookie isn't made out to be some Plain Jane that all the boys drool after. Super kudos for that. She's cute with a big rack and she knows it. She just can't do much about it. I liked that.

DEAD UNTIL DARK was entertaining enough and it probably helped that I had images from the show to supplement my reading but overall, I felt the writing was kind of lackluster. Sookie, in the book, is a bit monotone for my taste. All of the descriptions are really simple (because of the character, not that she's simple, she's just not all that highly educated) and I felt that the story was more about spitting out the information that letting it simmer and seep in. I didn't feel all that engaged in her and Bill's relationship and when the murders kept happening, and then the final scene with the murderer, I just wasn't feeling it. I wanted to because I like the show so much but the writing just lacks this pizazz that I think HBO found and amped up.

Maybe I'm not being fair but it's not like I can take back that I've already started watching the show and re-read the book with virgin eyes. DEAD UNTIL DARK is pretty entertaining but I've read far more gripping books than this with characters that pop out instead of just amble around the plot.

Maybe it's because it's the first book in the series but it could be one of the reasons why I wasn't all that engaged was because there was hardly anything else going on other than Sookie and Bill. Yeah, you have Sam but that's kind of spit out at the end as an afterthought (whereas in the show it's foreshadowed a lot) but not much branches off of that one plot line. And because that one plot line wasn't all that thrilling for me, there wasn't much else I could latch onto to keep me going through it. I wouldn't say I was bored at all but I just wasn't all that jazzed about it.

I will absolutely keep watching the seasons as they come (hell, I have three to catch up on and I'm trying my damndest not to spoil myself with the ending of Season 4). As for the books? I'll have to dip into my trusted sources and see if they'd be worth my while. If they say the writing progresses and the stories get more involved, I might take a chance. As it stands now, I'm not leaning that way.

Ban Factor: High - While God is mentioned a couple of times, Sookie's bedding a vampire and it has a tendency of getting a little graphic, there's an ample amount of swearing and people are getting killed left, right and center. The banners, they pee themselves.

Let Me Tell You How I Died by Sinclair Smith

Published June, 1994.

Delia can't stop reading the old diary she's found. She's becoming more and more like the girl whose words she reads - seeing the world through her eyes - even having her memories. Soon she believes she was the girl who wrote the diary - in a past life.

So does her killer.

The terror is alive once more. For the girl who wrote the diary was murdered. And whoever killed her the first time . . . is after her again. (book back blurb)

I grabbed this one not too long after I featured it in one of my Freaky Friday posts a while back and it definitely stands out from the other YA horror cheese of yore. I love it even more because of that.

The premise itself is actually really great. A past life and a current one clash when the past life becomes conscious. It points it out in the book that it's like Delia almost has a split personality, which she pretty much does. So not only is it a bit ghosty type of horror but is throws in some psychological horror in there as well and it wasn't all that cheesy, believe it or not.

I had a hard time guessing who the actual killer was. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I pretty much suck at picking up the subtle nuances that would denote something like that but that's besides the point. Every guess I made was wrong and there were quite a few red herrings to throw you off. Pretty awesome.

I think it's a bit better than some of the other cheese I've read simple because it's crafted a little better. It doesn't try too hard with the teenspeak, it doesn't go super crazy with the horror. The story just is and I really like that. It's freaky watching Delia transform into someone else against her will but it's not overdone. It's not subtle either but it's not wacky.

LET ME TELL YOU HOW I DIED is definitely one of the better works of YA horror from way back when so if you had to read any of them, I'd highly recommend this one. It's still got some cheese about it but it's pretty good about it.

Ban Factor: Medium - Despite the title, there's relatively little going on between the pages. There's some slight ghosty, beyond the grave stuff but it's pretty dim. Still, some could still review it as godless.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Published 2009.

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he's secretly fascinated with a series of children's fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams may have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined . . . (book back blub)

This book was pegged as HARRY POTTER for adults. If by HARRY POTTER they meant that a seemingly ordinary boy gets admitted to a school for magical folk, then yes, it's HARRY POTTER-esque. But that's where the similarities end. THE MAGICIANS felt like it was a bastardization of THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA as written by Faulkner while throwing up at the end of a long night. If you don't get the Faulkner reference, there isn't a story of his where alcohol doesn't have a very prominent presence. It's EVERYWHERE in THE MAGICIANS. I don't have a problem with that but, well, Grossman isn't Faulkner. I'm not some literary snoot or anything but let's face it, 'Hills Like White Elephants' is pretty epic. THE MAGICIANS is, well, not.

I was so disappointed in this book, moreso than probably any other book I've read. I was a fan of roughly one and a half characters of the ensemble cast that did nothing but pity themselves, drink too much, screw up each others' lives and then get everything handed to them, which they would then complain about. Alice, while a bit of a mouse, ended up being the best out of all of them, and by a pretty large margin. She was strong where the others were extraordinarily weak and saw the good in everyone with hardly a complaint. She was followed not-too-closely by Josh who really didn't do much except exhibit erratic magical ability but he wasn't an asshole so he gets kudos in my book. The rest? Janet was a twat that I was rooting for to die by the end of it. Eliot's a petulant child that held absolutely no interest to me and Richard was your stereotypical suede elbows academic that really needed to just shut the hell up. And Quentin? I have never seen a character pity himself so much in my life. Oh woe is him for how absolutely shitty his life is despite the fact he never did a damn thing to earn a better one. I HATED Quentin and that poses a pretty major problem considering he's the main effing character. He wasn't even endearing in his douchery. He was just a dick that projected his issues onto everyone else and barely took responsibility for anything he did.

I almost gave up on the book just past the halfway point simply because it was plotless. I had no idea where the story was going and I couldn't even fathom an educated guess. Quentin went through school, made friends, graduated and then went insane with drinking, drugs and sex. And then . . . ? No and then! The plot itself doesn't actually make an appearance until just past the halfway point where the kids get off their self-indulgent asses and do something with themselves. But when they did they didn't actually earn anything they got, or survived. Other people did the fighting for them, a deus ex machina comes in just before the climax to save them and the story kicks itself in the nuts and ruptures a testicle when it makes a sacrifice that NO ONE is appreciative of. What am I supposed to find appealing about this, exactly? These kids get everything, earn none of it and then complain about their lives the entire fucking time. For the love of god . . .

In the beginning I was roped in. I liked the voice. That was probably the best part of the book. The overall tone and self-deprecating air the voice took hooked me in. But when Quentin didn't stop complaining and he made some really crappy friends and the story was aimless for half the book and Quentin was still complaining and completely screwing up his life but blaming other people for it and never ultimately took responsibility for himself but kept on complaining, the voice was drowned out. You can't support a cube with a toothpick, you know.

The world itself was insubstantial. I get that with literary stuff it's much more character-driven but what could have been great opportunities to make the world Quentin was in a little more dynamic, it was brushed aside with horribly bland and sterile description to focus on what kind of wine they were drinking. By the end of the book I felt like the world wasn't in focus, either the Brakebills world or Fillory. In HARRY POTTER the world was its own character. In THE MAGICIANS, it felt like the world didn't matter. The magic was just the tool and didn't need to be explained. As a reader, I just needed to know it was there and that was enough. This world worked differently, I didn't need details. Well, yeah, I do. I didn't give a flying fuck what kind of wine they were drinking or who was screwing who (since it was ultimately irrelevant to the plot, for the most part). What the hell was the world like? Okay, so there's finger-waving and some words and poof, magic happens. And then . . . ? No and then! Fillory's another world that's really green with some talking animals. And then . . . ? No and then! I kept waiting for the world to be expounded upon just a little more and I never got it. But I could tell you what kind of noises Alice made during sex. Right.

I just felt that where there should have been more detail there was next to none and where there was far too much I could have lived without the majority of it. I couldn't stand the majority of the characters, they didn't earn anything they got and the story skimmed from one cover to the other without me really giving a crap. I didn't feel this lived up to the hype at all. Then again comparing it to the likes of HARRY POTTER probably hurt it more in my eyes than anything else. If you want something like HARRY POTTER, then just read HARRY POTTER and then go read some HP smutfic when you're done if you want some sex in it.

Literary ultimately isn't my thing but I can appreciate a good story when I read it. This didn't even have that. And I know literary is much more character-driven than non-literary. But these characters really sucked. So maybe I "didn't get it." I'm sure others will. But if this is what HARRY POTTER for adults is, I'll just stick to HARRY POTTER. Thanks.

Ban Factor: High - due to the general shitting on Christianity, presence of magic and magicians, sex, profanity and drinking

Dust & Decay by Jonathan Maberry

Pub date: August 30th, 2011.

Six months have passed since the terrifying battle with Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer in the zombie-infested mountains of the Rot & Ruin. It’s also six months since Benny Imura and Nix Riley saw something in the air that changed their lives. Now, after months of rigorous training with Benny’s zombie-hunter brother Tom, Benny and Nix are ready to leave their home forever and search for a better future. Lilah the Lost Girl and Benny’s best friend Lou Chong are going with them.

Sounds easy. Sounds wonderful. Except that everything that can go wrong does. Before they can even leave there is a shocking zombie attack in town. But as soon as they step into the Rot & Ruin they are pursued by the living dead, wild animals, insane murderers and the horrors of Gameland –where teenagers are forced to fight for their lives in the zombie pits. Worst of all…could the evil Charlie Pink-eye still be alive?

In the great Rot & Ruin everything wants to kill you. Everything…and not everyone in Benny’s small band of travelers will make it out alive. (goodreads.com)

Evul. Jonathan Maberry is an evul, evul man. Holy good mother this was such a truly awesome sequel that I'm having a hard time forming it into words.

I LOVE Maberry's zombies. Love them. They're so Romero but don't second guess them. Like any good virus, it mutates so while he sticks to the classic Romero notion of slow, shambling, unthinking zombies, there's a twist. And it's pretty terrifying.

As if you thought things couldn't get any harder for Benny and Nix and Lilah and Tom (and Chong now), you thought so wrong you need to go dunk yourself in a dunk tank. Maberry does things to his characters that only the most sadistic of gods would do to its people. And I love him for it. He stretches and bends his characters, pushing them to the brink of their own destruction, just to see what they would do. Maybe they make it out, maybe they don't. But none of them are unscathed by it. They all show the battle scars of a mental and physical war run ripshod over their persons time after time after time. And they're all the better for it. Maberry's characters are some of the deepest, most dynamic I've found in YA to date. If you don't love them, I'm going to question your integrity as a human being.

There are horrifying revelations popping up all over the book that'll have you gasping (probably literally) and just maybe screaming at the book (just watch where you do it, you don't want people to think you're too insane). Mayberry goes THERE over and over and over again. Where's THERE? Where you think he just wouldn't go with the plot, where it would be too terrifying, too gruesome to even contemplate. He goes THERE, comes back and then crosses THERE to the other side where there's unknown stuff waiting. DUST & DECAY will keep you guessing until the last page. Maberry is so willing torture the hell out of his characters that you couldn't possibly admit to yourself that he might go THERE and when he does, whether you guessed it or not, you're still shocked.

And the ending? EVUL. Had me in tears. Literally. Thankfully I was home and could weep openly without judgment (although my dog did look at me a little strangely). There's resolve yet everything shatters but at the same time life goes on. You watch as these kids slog through hardship after hardship and yet even at the end, faced with the choice of going back to something easy or pressing on to something unknown, they take the road less traveled because it's who they are, shaped by the Ruin into something they were always meant to be.

Jonathan Maberry should be dipped in gold and worshipped as the zombie god he is. Read this series. Read it now. Then read it again and again and again. It is so fantastic in so many ways that I can't even possibly name them all. I don't think the language has created a few of those descriptors yet. Just read it.

The Forbidden Game, Volume 1: The Hunter by LJ Smith

Published March, 1994.

He sold her the Game, and Jenny Thornton walked out mesmerized by Julian, the gorgeous cyber-punk with electric blue eyes and frost-white hair. When she and her friends open the plain white box at her boyfriend Tom's birthday party, she chills to the warning: "Entering the Shadow World can be deadly. Do so at your own risk." Spellbound, they piece together the cardboard Victorian house and decorate the rooms with their darkest nightmares. Suddenly the game is real! They're in the house of horrors, running from The Shadow Man - Julian himself, who forces them to confront their worst nightmares or be lost in a private hell. It's Julian's game, and Jenny is the prize he's stalked for years. He'll do anything to win her as she bargains desperately for her body - and soul . . . (book back blurb)

Loved it. I need to get the sequels sometime in the near future.

I really liked Smith's writing. Unlike Pike's and Stine's, it didn't feel like a teenager's voice forced. It felt so much more natural, like something I'd likely read today that has a better grasp on the teenage voice. I really felt it and I believed it. Smith made a hit where her counterparts' weaknesses fell.

It had a slight Labyrinth feel to it but not as much as I originally thought. There's the puppet master aspect, taking the victims away into his own playing field and putting them through a maze made out of aspects of their own minds. But the similarities ended there. Still, I liked what Smith did, turning everyone's minds against them. Not to mention she isn't afraid to make some kills when she needs to. They're necessary for the plot, not serving it. I was creeped out a bit by Julian taking a liking to Jenny so young. I think she was about six? I didn't have that creep factor with Labyrinth (I have no idea why because it makes no sense) but I was a bit squicked by it here.

I liked how the strongest characters were broken down and exposed. No one was safe and no one made it out of their nightmare undamaged. Even characters I didn't really like to start off with I ended up liking at the end because any facade they had came crashing down. They were torn apart and the plot felt more real for it.

I haven't read any of Smith's other works (this was the one that appealed to me the most so I figured it was the best starting place) but I'd highly recommend THE HUNTER. I think it's a great showcase of Smith's writing and she ranks up there with Pike and Stine when it comes to not sparing her characters. It's realistic and fantastically frightening all at the same time and I couldn't get enough of it.

The Prom Queen by RL Stine

Published March, 1992.

A spring night . . . soft moonlight . . . five beautiful Prom Queen candidates . . . dancing couples at the Shadyside High prom - these should be the ingredients for romance.

But stir in one brutal murder - then another, and another - and the recipe quickly turns to horror.

Lizzie McVay realizes that someone is murdering the five Prom Queen candidates one by one - and that she may be next on the list! Can she stop the murderer before the dance is over - for good? (book back blurb)

Despite the fact that none of the characters are all that likable, THE PROM QUEEN is still en epic foray into old school cheese. I seriously just can't get enough of these books.

For the bad, the characters really aren't redeeming. They all go on dates with one of their friends' boyfriends behind her back and they do it shamelessly. They're all self-centered, one's exceptionally bitter and it's not like these girls have revelations at the end of the book that fix these issues. That's just how they are. They're just not appealing.

But the plot? Pretty awesome. I was definitely wrapped up in it, trying to figure out who the murderer was and why. Quite frankly a plot to kill prom queens is kind of dumb but the girls come up with some pretty good motives for why. None of them were right but at least their heads were in the right place.

I didn't see coming who the murderer was. Even in hindsight it was hidden pretty well. Granted I don't actively look for this kind of stuff and I'm not someone that picks up on it too easily so someone else could rightly guess the murderer immediately. I didn't and was kind of shocked when I did find out.

You guys know me by now; I'm a sucker for cheese and THE PROM QUEEN has it in spades. But I love it. Despite it's gouda essence, it'll still make you think twice about sitting in your room alone at night. It'll still make you wonder about your friends. It's still a good horror book and I've said it before and I'll say it again, the YA world needs far more of them.

Fearscape by Simon Holt

Published October 5, 2010.

It's been a year since Reggie first discovered the Vours, and the Winter Solstice is approaching once again. It will be another night of unspeakable horror for those unlucky enough to be taken by the Vours, because this time, she won't be able to stop them. The Vours have imprisoned Reggie in a psychiatric hospital, where she is subjected to a daily routine of unfathomably sadistic experiments. Her life is a living Hell, but she won't give up. They attacked her brother. They killed her friend. And Reggie will never stop fighting back. (goodreads.com)

Like all horror sequels, this one is a bit more watered down than the others simply because the horror factor that existed in the original, the thing that made the books scary, is something we're already used to. We've been desensitized to it over the course of three books. That's not a matter of storytelling. It just happens. It's very hard to maintain true horror through multiple sequels because of that. And that's across the genre, not just in FEARSCAPE.

The tension was still there, though. The notion of 'would Reggie make it out or wouldn't she' kept me turning the pages to find out. While I wasn't afraid like I was for the first book, I still wanted to get to the end and find out how all of this resolved itself.

The major twist of the story I kind of saw coming but it didn't hamper it down for me at all. It still kept its creep factor and that's the important part. Even though I could see it coming, what I couldn't see was the characters' reactions to it. So reading for that alone was worth it.

The ending provides the story with a nice resolve without it being all fluffy bunnies and rainbow farts about it. There's still a major threat out there when the story ends but there's enough hope running through everyone that the future doesn't look totally dismal. That's what I really liked about FEARSCAPE - it provided me with a nominally happy ending without it being illogically so. There's nothing I hate more in horror than a happy ending that just doesn't fit the rest of the story.

I went into FEARSCAPE with the reservation that it might be a bit of a turd. I hadn't heard too great of things about the final book in THE DEVOURING series but I didn't mind it. By the way of horror, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. Nothing can shit the bed more like a bad horror sequel and this one didn't do that. It kept the tension up, it maintained its spook factor and it royally screwed with the characters. I really can't ask for more. I wouldn't get your hopes up too high. I wouldn't call it fantastic but all things considering, it was pretty decent. If you've read the other books in the series, I don't think this would disappoint a fan. And if you haven't read the others, I'd highly recommend them. YA needs more horror like this.

The Last Vampire 2: Black Blood by Christopher Pike

Published November 1994.

Alisa and her partner, Ray, thought that they were the last vampires. Suddenly, however, in one area of the United States, there is a series of brutal murders that can only be the work of other vampires. Who created these creatures? How can they be stopped? (book back blurb)

Another fantastic book where Pike doesn't pull any punches.

Sure, Alisa has Ray, but they aren't alone in the world anymore and this creep creating vampires at will has world domination on his mind. Trust Alisa to point out to him how a world of vampires would ultimately fail. One of the reasons why I love her: her logic. You can't beat that.

Pike is absolutely ruthless with his characters and drives it home with Alisa. I don't want to spoil but I will say that she gets her heart ripped open in a few different ways. It's sad to read because you want something good for her but it's constantly down one alley of horrors after another. Still, it makes for an exciting read.

Pike doesn't spare details when it comes to gore and maiming his characters so when you set out to read BLACK BLOOD, make sure you're not really squeamish. But again, I think it makes it all the more real and even horrifying. It makes Alisa feel real. All of the loss and gain stands out more on the pages because she truly has to fight for it. Nothing comes easy for her.

The books, though, BLACK BLOOD included, ends with a spattering of hope which I think ropes you in for the next one. I'm anxious to read it. I want to know what sludge Pike is going to drag his characters through next.

While not really YA (Alisa is 5,000 years old and definitely doesn't have a YA voice, even for the 90s), the appeal is still there. It's vampires and love ripped through the shredder. I'm not surprised that it was marketed to the YA audience. If you like REAL vampires with horror and blood and loss, you'll love these books. Just don't forget the hope. There's still hope.

The Last Vampire by Christopher Pike

Published May 1994.

Alisa Perne is a five-thousand-year-old vampire. For ages she has hunted humanity, loved humanity, but now someone hunts her. Who is this person - what is he or she? Another vampire? Alisa is not sure. She thought she was the last of her kind.

Alisa has only one lead to follow. A detective, Mike Riley, has tried to blackmail her. In haste, before she could learn everything he knew, she killed him. Now she must go after the detective's son and find out what his father knew. Fifty centuries old, and she must enter high school and befriend Ray Riley, a handsome, shy boy who will attract her like no mortal has in centuries. Ray will make Alisa think the unthinkable, to make another of her kind, something she hasn't done since ancient times.

But will Alisa use Ray to help protect her from the mysterious enemy? Or will she just use him as bait? (book back blurb)

Love it! It'd been so long since I've read this book that, for the most part, it was like I was reading it for the first time all over again. Sure, some things were vaguely familiar but in a sense like trying to remember if something was real or just a dream. But it was fantastic whatever it was.

It doesn't read like a traditional YA book because you're being the eyes of a 5,000 year old vampire and it shows. She doesn't think like a teen, she doesn't act like a teen. She acts exactly how you'd think someone her age would act. But I don't think it detracts from the story at all. In fact I think it stands out more because instead of a moldy boy with sparkly semen swooping in to commit statutory rape, it's a chick who's far smarter and probably better looking too.

Pike makes Alisa ruthless and I love him for it. She's a vampire and therefore acts like one. You piss me off, I kill you. Dead. I'm hungry, I need to feed. Dead. You're a fly in my way. Dead. Sure it can leave a slightly messy trail but it's realistic, isn't it? Well, as realistic as a vampire book can be.

What I loved most about this was the history. There were flashback chapters that showed the beginning of vampires in this world and how it centered around an ancient people and their religion. It was fascinating and written in such a way that it could have happened. Why not, right? Also in that history is shows Alisa's vulnerabilities that even after 5,000 years are still soft spots. Enter Ray and you'll see why.

Now this is the original THE LAST VAMPIRE, not the repackaged and updated THIRST omnibus so I still had to read things like Alisa communicating with Slim via fax like two people would talk over IM. Kind of strange. I don't know this for sure but I have a feeling it's probably been updated to cell phones and emails in THIRST. What teen knows what a fax machine is, what it does and how it works let alone is going to believe that people actually had conversations over such slow mediums? Considering they're pretty much obsolete now, there's no sense in keeping them in the book, right?

This is truly what I remember of YA horror from my kiddy days. There's a hint of something sinister in this book, terrifying. Alisa functions with such a cold demeanor that there's pretty much no getting around that you wouldn't be anything special and couldn't win her over if you tried. She's far too clever for something like that. Her character hits home the way older vampires do. There's an authenticity and a true horror about it that actually makes you think instead of making you swoon. She's mesmerizing because she is a beast; Alisa is something evil that should be feared. She's a freakin' vampire!

And yeah, there is some type of love interest in this book but I think it'll take the reader by surprise. It surprised the hell out of Alisa so why not you? It very much stands apart from what's available today. I only wish there were more books out there now like THE LAST VAMPIRE. YA horror would be all the better for it.