Can I say it sucked?

Well, this marks the second YA novel by M. T. Anderson that I’ve read, and probably the last (the other one, Feed, sucked, too). I feel like I can see what the author meant to do here, but if my assumptions about his intentions are correct, then he fell pretty far from his mark. If I’m wrong, well, then, I just don’t think we’re meant to be.

“And I realize that the decision to be human is not one single instant, but is a thousand choices made very day. It is choices we make every second and requires constant vigilance. We have to fight to remain human.”

Chris is a teenage boy, living in a world where vampires exist and people live in fear of them. Unfortunately for Chris, he’s sort of turning into one. He gets tapped by a “Force of Light” to help stop Tch’muchgar, the Vampire Lord, from escaping another world and entering his. But how can he know if that’s the whole story or not?

So I like Anderson was going for over the top goofiness, trying to riff on serious vampire dramas. But it just does not work. Instead of being subversive, it’s just…dumb. It was a dumb book. Chris makes for a terrible protagonist, just sort of wandering around town with no idea what to do next. And the twists of the Tch’muchgar plotline seemed incredibly obvious.