16-year-old Brin Skar hates everything to do with the supernatural,
so the obsessive film geek isn't happy when she discovers that her junior year
Film class at Grisly High is devoted to the horror genre. She's even more
disconcerted when she learns that six groups in the class will be writing and
directing their very own horror movies.
Brin and five classmates travel to Bodie Ghost Town in
California to shoot their creepy film, but they soon find themselves fighting a
real terrifying threat when a clan of mean, bloodthirsty vampires emerge from
beneath the surface and start attacking the group. The teens, headed by Brin
and the egotistical director Anaya Frost, have no help from the outside and
become outnumbered by the vampires a hundred to one.
But when Brin meets Paul, a
helpful and smoldering vampire outcast who's had enough of his shameful life,
she realizes he might be the only key to her survival.
Purchase on Amazon: The Vampire Underground
Positive:
- Evil vampires- YES THANK YOU! There are so many books with vampires that are trying to be good and normal and fall in love with the human girl so it is extremely nice to find one with a whole town of evil vampires.
- Film class- I wish my school had one of these! Wouldn’t it be nice to sit in class and watch movies all year?? The only bad thing is most kids would end up falling asleep. But not me! J Seriously, though. It would have still been a great story if it was just about a girl’s journey through a film class.
- Horror- So ironic. The main character, Brin, absolutely detests the horror genre. And then she’s takes this film class- the highlight of her high school career- and it turns out the teacher is obsessed with the genre. Subsequently he makes the class make horror movies, which, erm, doesn’t end up so well for a certain group of students. Funny, after I read this, all I wanted to do was watch a bunch of horror movies. How sucky is it that we have, like, NO scary movies at all?? Bleh L
- Open homosexuality- I’m trying to phrase this the right way…. There was homosexuality present in the book. No, you don’t get full-on details about it. It’s just some references and jokes that, honestly, I didn’t find would be offensive. Too many authors shy away from this topic, or maybe just don’t convey it right. It was good to see that Brian Rowe could depict homosexuality perfectly. Like it or not, there ARE gay kids in high school, and it needs to be written about more.
Negative:
- Some word choice- The wording wasn’t bad, really. I just feel the need to point out that there were some words I came across that don’t really fit the target audience. Mostly there were a few at the very beginning. I’d say five words at the most could have been changed. Like I said, it wasn’t bad and didn’t ruin the story at all.
- Fat jokes- I personally was not offended, but an antagonist in the story was, well, overweight, and the other characters took advantage of that. I could see how some people could be easily offended by the jokes and words of some characters.
- The length- Okay, this is a bit of a contradiction. About halfway through the book, when all the action started, I thought “All right, how is this going to last another 100 pages?” and I kept wanting to get to the end. And then I got to the end and I wanted more! So I’m not sure if I’d have preferred it to be shorter or longer.
All
I can say now is, this is a story I would definitely recommend. I was so caught
up in it from page one. I cannot wait for #2!
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