Do yourself a favor, and just skip this series.

I read the first two books, and was largely unimpressed. (From the little bit of research I have done, it seems the the third book in the series does not yet exist. Who knows if it ever will?) This was a series aimed at Teens, which, I find can be hit or miss. Some teen books are wonderful. Some, like these, are not so well written. It seemed to be about vampires, and so, it got my attention. I gave it a shot.

The first book in the series is called Bloodlust. Jason a high-school senior, and his sister, who might be a sophomore, just moved to California with their mom and dad. They move into a very exclusive, very rich, gated community, (an opportunity they have thanks to the connections from their Aunt).

Part of the book is about Jason noticing the differences between California and Michigan, where they came from. I only found that interesting because I just moved to California from the Midwest, and noticed some of the same things that the main character did. But, would anyone who has always lived in California find this interesting? Would someone who never lived in, or visited, California relate to this? I doubt it.

There used to be a popular tv show called “Beverly Hills 90210″. Ever seen it? I think Alex Duval has seen the show, because the basic story line is similar. Kid from Midwest moves to rich California area, and adjusts. This is not a new idea. Duval might have also watched the currently popular teen series “The OC”, because he gives Jason a offbeat geeky sidekick named Adam, who is not a part of the In Crowd, to hang around with, (only Adam is a film geek, whereas Seth in the OC is a comic book geek).

I had two major problems with this book. First of all, you know from just glancing at the cover that there are vampires involved somewhere in this book. Its a given. But, instead of going with that, Duval takes us slowly through the book as Adam and Jason go from noticing that something is odd with the popular kids, to finally figuring out that they are vampires. What was the point of dragging that out?

I had another problem with this book. Early on, Jason goes to a big party, and there is a lot of underage drinking going on. Not a big surprise, we all know that this goes on, so, I’m not faulting the author by showing some of that. At the first party, Jason doesn’t drink. He is on the swim team, and is trying to stay healthy, so he doesn’t have an interest in drinking. He also thinks that some of the way the other kids are acting when they drink is pretty stupid, and doesn’t want to be like that.

I thought it was kind of cool of Duval to introduce a main character who wasn’t a drinker, without doing it in an “After School Special” kind of way. He’s not drinking because he is an athlete. But then, at the second party, Jason gets upset because he’s not getting the attention he wants from the popular girl he has a crush on, and so, immediately starts drinking. After that, Jason drinks at every party, but doesn’t get out of hand with it or anything, as if that somehow makes him just as responsible as he was before. How disappointing.

I read the second book in the series, called Initiation, hoping it would be a better book. It wasn’t.

Duval seemed to be stuck on the word “ass” in this book. Characters are always calling each other an “ass”. In one case, the word “asshat” is used. They worry about “looking like an ass”, and warn each other not to “act like an ass”. The word “asinine” appears once, just for some variety, I guess. I am someone who uses swear words on a daily basis, and even to me, the swearing seemed excessive. Especially when you consider that this book is aimed at teens, and, since most of the characters are high schoolers, it means that in reality the eleven and twelve year olds are the ones who will pick up this book to read. Did you really need that word, and all its varieties, that many times?

Part of this story involves a friend of Jason’s from Michigan, Tyler, who just spontaneously decides to visit him in California. Duval attempts a story line directly from an “After School Special” with this book, giving Tyler a drug problem. Tyler is addicted to Ritalin, a prescription drug that Tyler has not been prescribed, and has run into trouble back in Michigan because he owes his dealer a bunch of money. Duval might have been going for the trite “drugs are bad” story line, but if so, fails miserably. He still has teens drinking at parties, which none of the characters see as either “bad” or in any way related to being addicted to drugs. I don’t like the mixed message it sends to the young readers the book is marketed to.

Neither one of these books had much to do with the vampires in the story. You know they are there, you know who they are, but that’s all you get. Both books involve Jason trying to stop a vampire from killing people, but not even in a cool “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” kind of way.

Like I said, save yourself the bother, and skip this series. I wish I did.

This is the book that started it all! All the vampire movies and all the vampire books that came after were inspired by what Stoker wrote way back when. It dawned on me recently that even though I have read many other books about vampires, I had never actually read this Classic. And now, I know why.

It is not an easy read! I usually fly right through a book once I have started reading it, and this one took a long time. It is not written in a narrative format, but rather, in a series of letters and journal entries written by each of the characters. Some characters know things that the others do not, and that makes things a bit confusing. The letters and journal entries are written in a loose chronology, but not exactly. The reader ends up jumping back and forth in time in places, and sometimes ends up reading the same event twice from different characters points of view.

To add to the complexity, Stoker has included many incidental characters, who all seem to speak a different form of slang English. The words themselves are confusing, and there are apostrophes appearing in odd places. Some I could figure out, such as when the text said ‘ouse, I knew it meant house. But other words were a mystery. There is a point in the story where one of the characters that is difficult to understand is describing a storm at sea, and a boat affected by it. There were sailing terms and weather terms that were unfamiliar to me, and I ended up having to go back and reread parts just to figure out what the heck was going on. The copy of Dracula I was reading is a Barnes And Noble Classic, and has notes in it to help describe many things in plainer English. The notes were especially helpful when Stoker was refering to different countries and cities in Transylvania, and naming off different groups of people who lived there. None of that was familiar at all. The notes also make it more clear when Stoker has his characters using railroad stations in England, some of which I was familiar with, others I had forgotton the name of.

Then there is Van Helsing. Forget anything you think you know about that character from other books and other movies. In Stoker’s Dracula, Van Helsing is an almost elderly Dutch doctor/professor. He speaks English, but puts together sentences in blocky, choppy, ways. He refers to other characters as “Friend John”. There are two characters with that name, one a John, and one a Jonathan, so it made things a bit difficult to follow in parts.

If you are determined to read Dracula, it does get a bit better, once you get through these difficulties with the language. The action is really slow and subtle, however, so, don’t expect a big, exciting, fast moving, vampire story with this one. In fact, don’t assume that this book is much like the movie that was based on it called something like “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”. (I think it had Winnona Rider and Keanu Reeves in it, and Gary Oldman as Dracula). The movie is only loosely based on the events in the book, and moves the story along much faster.

I am glad that I did struggle through this book, because it really is the Father of all other vampire books. If I ever read it again, I think I am just going to skip over many of the more confusing parts!
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This is the perfect book to read right before Halloween! Its scary, its creepy, its the type of book that would make a great movie. The special effects alone would be really interesting to check out.

The story is about four people in the town of Leppington, (which is supposed to be somewhere in England). The town was founded by a family of the same name, who had a dark and mysterious history. Once, the town was prosperous, and many people were employed at the local slaughterhouse that sits in the middle of town. By now, however, the town is past its prime, and no one there is happy to be there.
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I think I would have liked this book more if I was 10 or 12 years old. I am pretty sure its from the Teen section, so, I guess that is to be expected. I think the last time I was interested in reading this sort of book was when I was a pre-teen, and thought all things teenage were cool beyond measure. This book is that sort of book. And, as far as being that sort of book, I think it will appeal girls of that age rather well. Especially now, right before Halloween, since this is sort of a Vampire book.

As with many of the books from the teen section, this book does not really fit into any specific genre. It has Vampires and witches, etc. etc., but its way too light to be a horror book. It has a love story, in a very tame Disney like way, but isn’t a romance book. There is a case to solve, but its not exactly a mystery book either. Its a mix.

Francesca is a high school sophmore, who isn’t attending school. Instead, shes living with her mom, who happens to be a witch, and traveling with a Faire full of people who cast spells, read minds, raise demons, and do magic, both the “real kind” and the “slight of hand” kind. Fran wants more than anything else to be “Normal” and fit in, but its hard to do that when you are part of a traveling freak show. Its even harder to do when you have a special power like Fran does. Whenever she touches people, she gets some of their thoughts. She finds this mostly unpleasant. The Faire gets robbed a few times and Fran is the only one who can figure out who the real thief is, by using this special power. To add to her problems, she meets Ben, the cute brother of her best friend Imogen, both of whom happen to be Vampires. Ben thinks Fran is his Beloved, and Fran isn’t too sure what to do with that, since she just met him and really hasn’t had too many boyfriends yet. Most of what happens in this book as things get sorted out is kind of funny, instead of being dark and scary, as most Vampire books are. I think the book is safe for preteen girls to read, and that is exactly who will like it best.

This book is a collection of Vampire stories by 18 different authors, none of whom I have ever even heard of before. I think the editors anticipated Readers looking at the author list in the table of contents and saying: “Who?” because they felt the need to add little paragraphs about the authors immediately following each story. This was annoying to me. Other story collections I have read put the author information in the back of the book, where you can either look it up, or look at some of it, or, ignore it entirely if you want. With the author info immediately after the stories, it kind of comes across as a commericial break in between stories. Not something I wanted to look at, but, in my way anyway.

I was largely disapointed with this book. It feels like the editors went “Hey, everybody! Write me a vampire story for this collection! Let’s make some money!”, and most of the authors went. “Yes….well… I’ve actually been working on this totally different story. Perhaps I will just throw in a Vampire somewhere, and make it work anyway!”. The editors must have looked at what they got back from the authors, and thought, “Uh oh! A lot of these aren’t really about vampires much. I know! We will put them in chronological order! Then it will work!” And then they named the whole lot “Time of the Vampires”, thinking themselves rather clever, and called it a day. Only a few stories held my attention. Most of them I just dragged myself through, hoping they would suddenly improve. They didn’t improve.
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