On the Bookshelf

Vlad Mezrich, a centuries old vampire, has decided to bestow us mere mortal young women with much needed advice to help us snag and keep a hot vampire boyfriend, and, even more importantly, to recognise when he has grown so bored with you that he begins contemplating turning you into a meal instead of taking you out for one.

If you are still looking for a good gift to give to that vampire loving friend of yours this Christmas then look no further than The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You by Vlad Mezrich. I picked up this absolute gem of a book as a gift for a friend of mine. Yesterday I sat down with some newly bought wrapping paper, with the all too cute slogan "no peeking" printed all over it, with the full intention of getting a head start on some gift wrapping. Instead, what started off as an innocent glance at the index of this book was then followed by my reading the introduction and then the first chapter and then the next. Before I knew it I was on the final page while trying to be really careful not to leave any evidence that the gift has now been read from cover to cover. (And no, I didn't get around to wrapping a single gift!) Please tell me that I am not the only one guilty of doing this!

The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You is clever, witty, and filled with plenty of jabs and references to Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, of the sort that will make both self-claimed Twihards and Antis chuckle. After all, as Mezrich reminds us, it is romantic when your vampire love interest stalks you and watches you when you sleep but when a human guy does these things it just becomes plain creepy. There are also plenty of references to the more classic style of vampire but most certainly this book takes its lead from the modern day trend of wanting to turn the vampire into the perfect "seventeen forever" boyfriend with a healthy side serving of angst.

To help us in identifying our relationship status with our vampire potential love interests The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You has plenty of fun quizzes, charts, and diagrams. Did you know that there is a much wider variety of vampire males than there are humans males? When it comes to human males .0005% are Barack Obama, another .0005 are Johnny Depp, and the remaining 99.999 are "thoughtless guys who are too full of themselves to care enough about you, or even call you back in a timely fashion." Vampire males, on the other hand, come in a wide variety of track/baseball stars, novelists, world leaders, and more! Oh, how I love pie charts!

Okay, so maybe you have done all of the quizzes and have studied the diagrams but you still are not sure if when he goes in for the big bite that he plans to turn you or drain you dry. Maybe you need to read these things in context? Well, fortunately, Mezrich has gathered testimonials from both human females (the ones who survived anyway) and vampire males about their relationship experiences. Do these make you think that he plans to drink you dry? Luckily a vampire slayer, Greta, also gets to slip in a few words of advice.

This little article over on Publishers Weekly, in an interview with Scholastic editor David Levithan, reveals how The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You all came together after the title came to them. From there the book was a team effort. (You didn't really need me to point out that "Vlad Mezrich" is a pseudonym, did you?)

I hope that my friend enjoys this book as I know that I most certainly did. Whether you have followed the current vampire trend with delight, horror, or a mix of both (as I have), this one is definitely worth giving a try.

Terra