The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld

This is a sequel to Peeps, so you may not want to read this review if you haven't read the first book.

Moz (short for mosquito) is confused yet excited when he sees a woman throwing all of her belongings out of her window including a "mid-seventies Fender Stratocaster with gold pickups." He, with the help of a girl named Pearl, catches the guitar and they run away with it. Pearl; Moz; Moz's friend, Zahler; Pearl's friend, Minerva; and a girl who plays the "drums" (paint buckets) on the street decide to start a band. They can tell that New York City is deteriorating around them as the disease spreads, but all they care about is signing a record deal and getting famous. Somehow, their music is causing strange things to happen and is more important than they all originally thought.

The Last Days starts out very slow. I did not realize that it is about completely different people. I figured it would start out continuing the story of Cal and Lace. I was disappointed. The book was OK, but I liked Peeps better. I have to say that the second half of The Last Days is much better than the first. It eventually got to the point where I really wanted to finish the book to see what would happen. I'm definitely taking a Scott Westerfeld break. The books I've read recently by him just haven't been all that great.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

I've been reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, but the book is so long that I decided to take a break from it and read a shorter, easier book.

Peeps is about Cal Thompson, a vampire hunter of sorts. He hunts down "peeps", people who are infected with a parasite that causes vampire-like tendencies (dislike of sunlight, craving blood, superhuman senses, etc.). The reason Cal does this is because he also has the parasite, but he is a carrier, not a full-blown "peep". He doesn't have all of the yucky side effects. During an investigation, Cal meets a girl named Lace who makes it difficult for Cal to stick to his forced life of celibacy. One kiss could turn Lace into a "peep". Cal and Lace investigate a series of disappearances and strange things start to happen.

I've been reading a lot of Scott Westerfeld books lately and haven't been too impressed with the last few, but I liked Peeps a lot more. It was an interesting take on a vampire story; a lot different than the usual. Every other chapter has information about real-life parasites. It's sort of gross, but he writes it in a way that makes it funny so it dulls the gross factor. I really enjoyed this book. The story was good and kept my attention and it was funny. Now I guess I'll get back to the monstrosity known as The Pillars of the Earth. It's over 900 pages!

4 out of 5 stars