Scott Westerfeld has become a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine ever since reading the "Pretties" series of books that included 3 books: Pretties, Uglies, and Specials. He is a fiction writer and tends to focus on alternate futures that have a science fiction twist to them.
In Peeps we go a different route though and instead head over another world I quite like which is the fantasy or vampire genre.
I enjoy a good vampire book every now and then. Nadi on the other hand, doesn't like it when I leave the Kindle on her and she expects to be paid in treats for remaining still during the photo shoot.
Peeps is a book I didn't really know much about going into it and I was actually kind of surprised when the book began and it seemed a bit more "adult" than Westerfeld is normally known for (or at least what I know about him). It didn't take very long or me to figure out that this wasn't deviating as much from what he normally does in one way though since the main character was a young adult, which is what he always focuses on and I suspect this is because it appears as though when he is writing anything that he is after that "tweener" market as far as book sales or potential movie/series sales are concerned down the line.
I quite enjoyed the Pretties books but the movie adaptation was one of the most annoying book to film adaptations I had ever seen and much of this had to do with the DEI nature of the casting which was in stark contrast to the character descriptions in the books. This will never not annoy me.
Anyway, lets stay on target here and I'll instead focus on what makes this book good and a bit of what makes it bad without spoiling it too much.
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You might need to be American to get this, but this is a "Peeps vampire".
The thing that makes this book very good all the way through it is that our main character, "Cal", was a fan or student of biology, immunology, and whatever the study of parasites is called prior to his incident that turned him into a carrier of the parasite that causes what is know commonly as vampirism. Therefore, every 2nd or 3rd chapter doesn't focus on the main story but instead goes on to describe real-to-real-life parasites that exist in the world that you and I live in and they are very real. This gives us the opportunity to kind of relate to how not ridiculous it is that the author is explaining vampirism in a real world sense instead of it just being some sort of mythical thing caused by Count Chocula biting you on the neck.
I like this realism instead of the spiritual and mystical roots of Vampirism that exists in most vampire stories and films and I think that Westerfeld could very well sell this as a series or film someday, which was likely always the intention when he wrote it back in 2005.
The way in which the parasite is described sounds like it could actually exist in real life as we are told throughout the book that certain myths about vampires are sort of real, but others are completely untrue such as vampires turning to ash in the sun (they are just really sensitive to light visually and it is quite unpleasant for them to be in bright light) and how they do have reflections. Their super strength is explained in a logical fashion and sort of like how a person who is placed under great stress or is on PCP will be a lot stronger than they normally would be. I'm not going to tell you more than that but it just kind of makes sense and even though Westerfeld normally writes about things that are completely impossible, a lot of this has a realism to it that really appealed to me and apparently to others because he sold A LOT of these.
That's the good of the book IMO but there has to be more of a story than just Cal running around and being a vampire and explaining it to us, right? Well, Cal is a member of a secret society that hunts their own kind, sort of like Blade. Cal is able to control his parasite but others who are infected cannot and they go on a rampage. The secret society that he is part of strives to keep the world in the dark (pun intended) about the existence of vampires and they have been in the United States before it was a country, so they say. This to me is kind of corny not because the organization exists but because a recently turned young kid is one of their operatives. This has to be the case in Westerfeld's books though, because he is always looking for a way to make teenagers the hero in order for the books to be more popular and capable of turning into something on a screen one day for millions upon millions of dollars floating into his bank account.
At least that is my suspicion about Westerfeld and seeing as how every single one of the books I have read of his have this same theme, I don't think I am wrong about this.
I wont get into details about this, because it is a major part of the story, but it also turns into a love story which is also something that is part of Westerfeld's writing format that is in every single book of his that I have read.
If you are at all familiar with his work you know it is coming, it's just a question of when and how. It's so obvious in fact, that when we are introduced to a character later on that I (and probably many others) knew right away what her position in the story would end up being.
Now don't take those last bits of criticism as a reason to not get into this because even though I have a few bones to pick with the rather formulaic way in which Scott Westerfeld writes I suppose that is probably the reason why his books are so easily digested and end up being pretty great stories overall despite some of the shortcomings and rather obvious parts of the story that are an eventuality in anything the dude writes. I struggle with a lot of books, but I always manage to tear through Westerfeld books even though I end up rolling my eyes during certain parts of it.
The chapters are short, the characters are clearly defined, and this, like the other Scott-books, is an easy read. I managed to make it through this in less than a week and I often found myself excited to start the next chapter after finishing one. This is not something that I experience with books that are regarded as being much much better such as 1984 which I am reading for the 3rd time at the moment.
The original book was 304 pages, which is like a 90-minute film in the book world. It was probably pre-determined that it needed to be that long in order to get published and as soon as Scott hit 300 pages he was probably thinking "finally I'm there, I can stop writing now!"
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There is a sequel to this book and eventually it will likely become a trilogy so he can sell it to a streaming service.
I enjoyed it. It sticks with you a bit because of the real-world possibility explanations that happen and even though I find his style to be a bit hokey, I was a fan of this book and recommend it.
For people that enjoy Harry Potter books or (and I hate that I am saying this) the Twilight books, this is something you will also enjoy. It is a lot more realistic than those two comparable examples though. Here is the Goodreads link if you are into that sort of thing.
Enjoy!
