Never Bite A Boy On The First Date - Tamara Summers
Synopsis:
Kira November is a sixteen-year-old vampire, secretly living among mortals, and attending her second high school since becoming a vampire one and a half years earlier.
When star football jock, Tex Harrison, is found dead on the front steps of Luna High School, Kira’s family immediately point the blame at her, despite her protestations of innocence. As the second youngest vampire in the ‘family’, and partly responsible for the incident that forced them to leave their previous home, Kira’s reckless reputation means that she is the likely suspect regarding the gruesome murder of her classmate. Determined to clear her name and desperate to avoid getting locked up in a padded coffin by her old-fashioned ‘father’ Wilhelm, Kira sets out to find the real murderer.
Narrowing the suspects down to three cute boys, Kira has to use all her detective skills (which she has learnt from Nancy Drew books and the Veronica Mars television series), to find the culprit. Could it be Rowan, the weird loner who’s clearly hiding something? Or Milo, the sweet and sexy swim team member? Or perhaps it’s Daniel, the new boy in school who seems to shadow Kira wherever she goes…
All Kira knows is, she has to solve the mystery if she doesn’t want to spend the rest of eternity confined in a coffin.
What I gained from reading this book:
After she died and was turned into a vampire, Kira was adopted by four adult vampires- Wilhelm (her ‘father’), Olympia (her ‘mother’), Crystal (her ‘sister’), and Crystal’s husband Bert, and they taught her how to cope with being one of the undead. Zach was a later addition to the family, but he too was taught how to control the blood urges and re-integrate into society as a ‘human’. Kira explains in the novel how vampires who create others like them are obligated to take the new vampires under their wing and therefore avoid any disasters or suspicious human deaths. While the blood-drinking part doesn’t apply to us, I think that similar honour codes to this, as well as a strong sense of familial obligation, are important factors to remember in every day society. If everybody treats each other with respect and helps others in need, the world will be a much better place.
Positives:
Kira is a refreshing change, compared to the dark and moody characters of other teenage vampire novels. While she isn’t exactly enamoured with the idea of being a vampire and drinking blood, it’s for reasons entirely original- she was a vegetarian for four months before her death and thinks blood is ‘disgusting’. She also hates that she can’t check herself out in the mirror and has to have her makeup done for her by her ‘sister’. These normal teenage characteristics, plus her witty retorts, make her into an appealing person that you can’t help but like.
Negatives:
The ending. It’s not too bad, but I want to know what happened to some of the other characters. It feels as though the author took the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach with them, which leaves you wondering how the characters of Rowan and Milo are coping with what happened to them towards the end of the novel.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Genre: Teenage Fiction
Recommended for: Teenagers looking for a tongue-in-cheek novel that has everything- humour, a murder-mystery, romance, action, and (of course) vampires!
Synopsis:
Kira November is a sixteen-year-old vampire, secretly living among mortals, and attending her second high school since becoming a vampire one and a half years earlier.
When star football jock, Tex Harrison, is found dead on the front steps of Luna High School, Kira’s family immediately point the blame at her, despite her protestations of innocence. As the second youngest vampire in the ‘family’, and partly responsible for the incident that forced them to leave their previous home, Kira’s reckless reputation means that she is the likely suspect regarding the gruesome murder of her classmate. Determined to clear her name and desperate to avoid getting locked up in a padded coffin by her old-fashioned ‘father’ Wilhelm, Kira sets out to find the real murderer.
Narrowing the suspects down to three cute boys, Kira has to use all her detective skills (which she has learnt from Nancy Drew books and the Veronica Mars television series), to find the culprit. Could it be Rowan, the weird loner who’s clearly hiding something? Or Milo, the sweet and sexy swim team member? Or perhaps it’s Daniel, the new boy in school who seems to shadow Kira wherever she goes…
All Kira knows is, she has to solve the mystery if she doesn’t want to spend the rest of eternity confined in a coffin.
What I gained from reading this book:
After she died and was turned into a vampire, Kira was adopted by four adult vampires- Wilhelm (her ‘father’), Olympia (her ‘mother’), Crystal (her ‘sister’), and Crystal’s husband Bert, and they taught her how to cope with being one of the undead. Zach was a later addition to the family, but he too was taught how to control the blood urges and re-integrate into society as a ‘human’. Kira explains in the novel how vampires who create others like them are obligated to take the new vampires under their wing and therefore avoid any disasters or suspicious human deaths. While the blood-drinking part doesn’t apply to us, I think that similar honour codes to this, as well as a strong sense of familial obligation, are important factors to remember in every day society. If everybody treats each other with respect and helps others in need, the world will be a much better place.
Positives:
Kira is a refreshing change, compared to the dark and moody characters of other teenage vampire novels. While she isn’t exactly enamoured with the idea of being a vampire and drinking blood, it’s for reasons entirely original- she was a vegetarian for four months before her death and thinks blood is ‘disgusting’. She also hates that she can’t check herself out in the mirror and has to have her makeup done for her by her ‘sister’. These normal teenage characteristics, plus her witty retorts, make her into an appealing person that you can’t help but like.
Negatives:
The ending. It’s not too bad, but I want to know what happened to some of the other characters. It feels as though the author took the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach with them, which leaves you wondering how the characters of Rowan and Milo are coping with what happened to them towards the end of the novel.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Genre: Teenage Fiction
Recommended for: Teenagers looking for a tongue-in-cheek novel that has everything- humour, a murder-mystery, romance, action, and (of course) vampires!
Australians can buy the book by clicking the picture below:
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