Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info: Website | Goodreads
Rating: 2 stars
Bought this book at YAllapalooza.
In A Nutshell:
I had very high hopes for this story but my overall feeling after reading it I only feel disappointment. I did not find it funny or charming or interesting. The elements that I hoped would spark my interest all felt underdeveloped or unexplored.
Review:
Doug Lee is doomed to spend eternity as an awkward, overweight, nerdy teen--all because that is who he was when he was turned into a vampire. In order to sustain himself, he tries to attract girls. But he has no better luck as a vampire than he did before. He is forced to feed on cows to curb his appetite. To compound these mounting problems, Doug's behavior at a convention has drawn the attention of a failing Vampire Hunter television show which needs to catch a vampire to stay alive itself.
The storyline had a lot of potential. The person I spoke to at the bookstore said that she laughed out loud throughout the entire book. However, I am chalking this one up to an example of how every story does not work for every reader because I did not find a lot of humor in this book at all. Maybe I missed the humor because I did not feel connected to any of the characters. I thought that Doug was a jerk most of the time--particularly to his best friend. His best friend was a likeable enough person, but then I wanted to know why he put up with Doug's treatment.
SPOILER ALERT
The characters that most sparked my interest were the older vampires that set out to mentor Doug and the other newly created vampires. Where did they come from? How did they find the teens? How did they live? Which led me to another of my frustrations with this book--the world created in this novel and how vampires fit into the world is never fully explained. We only see Doug's lessons and then later learn that his mentor lies a lot--so we never really learn a lot of how this world works.
Initially, I thought the television show would be a nice diversion, but instead I found its clunky and awkward. Then when the show was finally starting to really get close to Doug--and the action and intrigue seemed eminent--they get cancelled. The host starts focusing on a show idea that had nothing to do with this story. At that point, I frustratedly had to ask why was it even part of the story!
Recommendations:
I have talked to a few people who have told me to give Adam Rex another chance--so I will with:
I too felt the same way about this book and thought it was terrible. I reviewed it last year and thought it did nothing. I also heard that it was funny but I thought it was far from it. Good concept if the author would have stuck with it but I'm not sure where this book was going...
ReplyDeleteI was also wondering where the book was going--even if it was meant to be funny it should have a point. I couldn't really identify one either.
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