Evernight (And Others Like It)

At first, the plethora of new vampire (as well as werewolf, shape shifter, witch, and whatnot) reading materials on the market seemed so exciting; finally, I wasn’t going to be a fantasy-loving nerd so much anymore. I’d be—gasp!—mainstream!

Sadly, such is not the case. This stream of young adult fantasy novels has left me wanting just as if finding fantasy novels alone were still a difficult task. I love YA fiction. I love fantasy. So how come I don’t love these novels?

It turns out that they’re just not really fantasy novels. They’re Dawson’s Creek, Gossip Girl, and any other youth-centered melodrama wrapped up in cheap Halloween costumes.

Take Claudia Gray's Evernight. It sounded interesting enough. A story about vampires in a boarding school. A love story. Some violence, some adventure. Now you’re talking!

Except…it didn’t really deliver much of any of this. Sure, the main character was quirky enough, and definitely headstrong; Twilight haters would surely prefer Bianca (though perhaps not her name itself) to Bella. But aside from that, the forgettable story is centered around a doomed relationship between her and her little vampire-hunting boyfriend, who is deemed a “trouble maker” though we really aren’t given much evidence to support that claim.

Bianca doesn’t fit in, and we’re led to believe that it’s because she’s not a vampire; the twist is that she is a vampire, just not like the rest of the vampires in her school. Like every other emerging vampire novel, there are rules about her lineage, her birth, what she has to do to fully become a vampire, the powers that she does or doesn’t have, yadda yadda yadda. And it’s interesting. Her parents are even interesting. But the plot is not.

She wants the boy she likes; he avoids her, then befriends her, dates her—and scares her away. Then she almost eats his throat out—whoops! Not exactly what you expect during a school dance. And after they end up together, he finds out that she’s a vampire, she discovers that he’s a vampire hunter—and they are suddenly the Romeo and Juliet of the Undead.

It moves quickly enough and has enough substance to hold your interest, but like so many other novels on the market right now it could stand alone with or without the vampires in it. You’ve got preppy well-dressed snobby kids, kids that don’t fit in (who are rightly scared of their peers), bullies, sexual tension, make outs, parties, what have you. The fantasy element is practically incidental.

I’d like a good (gory or not, it doesn’t matter) vampire novel that’s all about terrifying me, making me laugh, and grabbing me and not letting go until the last page (perhaps not even then). Prep school uniforms are not required.