Vamped

May 18, 2009
Teenagers will likely bite at the fun premise of Diver’s YA debut, first in a planned series. When Gina awakens in a grave and discovers she’s a vampire—her senior prom didn’t end well—one of her first concerns is facing “an all-liquid diet, a life without tanning options.” She continues to focus on fashion (and to deliver feisty insults) even as she finds herself embroiled in (and eventually leading) a vampire war, which involves a mysterious prophecy—and many of her former classmates. The story’s appeal lies in Gina’s snarky narration, though readers may have trouble tracking all of the characters. The plot takes a while to arrive at its gory action scenes, complete with severed limbs and garlic bombs. Readers will be entertained by some great one-liners (“Yup, just a day in the life of a typical teen... only instead of dodging gossip and pop quizzes, it was stakes and spritzing”) and a nascent romance for Gina, though the open-ended finale leaves answers about the prophecy and other questions until a later volume. Ages 14–up.

September 1, 2009
Gr 8 Up-When Gina makes out with newly hot Bobby after prom, she gets more than she bargained for. Later, her boyfriend Chaz crashes his car and Gina finds out the hard way why the teen death rate is up in her Ohio town. She wakes up and claws her way out of the grave, adjusting quickly to the fact that she is now undead. Bobby meets her at the cemetery and they end up back at her house before sunrise. They are then captured and taken to a secret hideout where they meet Mellisande, a rogue vampire who seeks to build her own army and to fulfill a prophecy. She has turned a group of teens into vampires, but Bobby has special powers, including telekinesis, that the other vamps do not possess. Chaz and Gina's friend Marcy are among the new vamps who are training in combat skills to take on the vampire council, and Gina must step up to save her friends. This quick read is filled with teen slang and fashion consciousness; it's a lighthearted, action-packed, vampire romance story following in the vein of Julie Kenner's "Good Ghouls" (Berkley), Marlene Perez's "Dead" (Harcourt), and Rachel Caine's "The Morganville Vampires" (Signet) series. A sequel is in the works."Corinda J. Humphrey, Los Angeles Public Library"

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