Title: Peeps
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Date Started: March 1
Date Finished: March 5
Format: ebook from the digital library
Last year as college freshman, narrator Cal was infected by exotic goth Morgan with a parasite that caused following girlfriends to become vampire-like ghouls he calls parasite-positives “Peeps”. A carrier without symptoms, he hunts his progeny for the centuries old bureaucratic Night Watch. But victims are showing more sanity, pretty human Lacey is pushing his buttons, and her apartment building basement houses fierce hordes of ravening rats, red-eyed cats, and monstrous worms that threaten all. Morgan has the secret to a centuries-old conspiracy and upcoming battle to save the human race.
The original story behind Peeps is this – Scott Westerfeld was big when I was in junior high. My friend at the time got me into his writing with the Uglies series. When we saw that another book by him was coming out, we decided to give it a go and on one of my many trips to Borders, I picked it up. And tried to read it at least five or six times over the next few years. Which leads us to this, my final attempt at reading it and now I understand why junior high me had such difficulties with this book. Because it isn’t really a YA novel. I mean, sure, in theory it is – a college student stumbles into something he doesn’t understand and he starts to fall in love when he’s supposed to do his job in preventing an apocalypse, but the in between chapters were just a science lesson that I honestly did not need during these real world events. Okay?
And that aside this story itself is just… a garbage pile of rats and cats and science and. Ugh. My head hurts again just thinking about it. Apologies to my junior high self for feeling bad about not finishing this book five times over the course of three years.
Final Rating: 1 out of 5 stars. This story was a mess from start to finish with impromptu science lessons thrown in. New strain. Old strain. Rats. Cats. I really hated this novel, and I don’t say this lightly. This really makes me wary about re-reading the Uglies series now. Maybe some books should stay in time periods of my life.
Bookshelf worthy? Read something else. Trust me.