Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan

Title: Team Human
Author: Justina Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: July 3, 2012
Pages: 344 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: ARC received through a swap with a friend.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon; Barnes & Noble; Book Depository

Just because Mel lives in New Whitby, a city founded by vampires, doesn't mean she knows any of the blood-drinking undead personally. They stay in their part of town; she says in hers. Until the day a vampire shows up at her high school. Worse yet, her best friend, Cathy, seems to be falling in love with him. It's up to Mel to save Cathy from a mistake she might regret for all eternity!

On top of trying to help Cathy (whether she wants it or not), Mel is investigating a mysterious disappearance for another friend and discovering the attractions of a certain vampire wannabe. Combine all this with a cranky vampire cop, a number of unlikely romantic entanglements, and the occasional zombie, and soon Mel is hip-deep in an adventure that is equal parts hilarious and touching.

Acclaimed authors Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan team up to create a witty and poignant story of cool vampires, warm friendships, and the changes that test the bonds of love.

Review:

You know how you sometimes think, when reading a vampire book "Man, this girl has no brains/has a terrible best friend. She needs someone to talk some sense into her/be a better friend!"? Mel wants to be that sensible best friend advising her lovestruck friend to take it slow with the vampire. How successful she is at being the sensible best friend and main character in Team Human is up in the air. For multiple reasons, this is one of the toughest reviews I've ever had to write.

As you might expect, the characters sometimes feel like improved versions of more famous characters in vampire lit. Cathy is our typical mature, bookish girl who rushes into a relationship with a vampire, but she knows exactly what she is getting into. She weighs the pros and cons of becoming a vampire, buries herself in books about transitioning, and isn't letting anyone, including her vampire boyfriend or her best friend, tell her what to think or do. Mel is the best friend we've been begging girls like Cathy to get, though she gets pushy and prejudiced sometimes. (But I love her name--Mellifluous. Heehee!)

I've read novels from both Larbalestier and Brennan before this and while they blended their individual styles well, there were a few moments where I felt like I knew who had written that specific line or scene. A line about Francis having a stake where the sun don't shine is one I'm almost certain is Brennan's. While it was a funny novel and a solid parody of the "girl meets vampire" trope, it didn't quite make the leap to hilarious. I would call it more of a dramedy than a parody, though. Book gets seriously serious toward the end.

One of my problems with the novel is that things from it tended to resemble a few things in real life that I'm unsettled by. Some of Mel's statements about human-vampire relations and how the two groups should be kept apart strongly reminded me of how segregationists in the U.S. during the '50s and '60s spoke. How thorough the process of informing a human about the risks and consequences of transitioning (showing them zombies, three required sessions with a counselor, parental permission required if underage) very slightly reminded me of the million hurdles women have to go through to get an abortion in certain places. But--I can't stress this strongly enough--the resemblance to abortion hurdles is very slight because aborting a fetus and changing species are two entirely different things.

I see bits and pieces of why I love both authors in this book. Humor I can see Brennan coming up with, Larbalestier's own brand of quips, and the gifts they both have in writing relationships between characters are all there. All the central characters are well-rounded too, so why, for some reason I can't figure out, couldn't I get fully immersed with the novel? Maybe it was the mystery element that took over the story halfway through. The only thing that impressed me about it was the aftermath of it. I tried so hard to love it, but you can't force bookish love.

After having so much trouble investing myself in the novel and finding things to love about it, I'm not sure I'll be back for its sequel. Vampire fans will almost certainly love it, and others who want to see the "girl meets vampire" scenario poked fun at by two talented YA authors will want to check Team Human out. I'm sad to say this is a bit of a disappointment for me.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: Forgotten by Cat Patrick

The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

Title: The Demon's Lexicon
Author: Sarah Rees Brennan

Publisher: Simon and Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry Books

Pages: 336 pages (paperback)

How I Got the Book: Read it on my Kindle

Nick and his brother, Alan, have spent their lives on the run from magic. Their father was murdered, and their mother was driven mad by magicians and the demons who give them power. The magicians are hunting the Ryves family for a charm that Nick's mother stole -- a charm that keeps her alive -- and they want it badly enough to kill again.

Danger draws even closer when a brother and sister come to the Ryves family for help. The boy wears a demon's mark, a sign of death that almost nothing can erase...and when Alan also gets marked by a demon, Nick is desperate to save him. The only way to do that is to kill one of the magicians they have been hiding from for so long.
 
Ensnared in a deadly game of cat and mouse, Nick starts to suspect that his brother is telling him lie after lie about their past. As the magicians' Circle closes in on their family, Nick uncovers the secret that could destroy them all.
 
This is the Demon's Lexicon. Turn the page.

Review:

Alan and Nick Ryves are no strangers to sudden moves with their unbalanced mother, who carries a charm the magicians want and constantly pursue the family for. While staying in Exeter, the brothers are approached for help by two local teens. Pink-haired Mae and her little brother Jamie have a problem--one related to demons, the very beings Nick and Alan regularly fight. Jamie has been marked by demons and Mae is willing to do anything to save him. Nick does not plan to help them, but reluctantly agrees to do so after Alan is given a demon's mark too. After discovering that Alan has been lying to him, Nick will stop at nothing to uncover what's been hidden from him and may find more than he wants to know.

I have serious love for the characters in this book. All four main characters in this book have great characterization and are the kind of memorable that most other authors never achieve. First there's Nick, the bad boy who is actually a bad boy and has difficulty connecting to anyone around him. This peek inside the head of a bad boy. Alan's love for his brother knows no bounds and his lies are near-perfect, unrealized sometimes by even the people closest to him. (I normally don't take sides on this kind of stuff, but I know which boy I like better.)

Mae was a great female lead, spunky and brave and willing to give anything for others. The whole reason I read this book was so I could get to The Demon's Covenant, the second book in the series and a book she narrates through third person point-of-view. Jamie is less memorable than his counterparts, but his easy interactions with Nick and the revelations about him near the novel's climax make me want to see more of him.

The plot, while it wasn't able to grip me at first, did eventually get me interested as the four sought out magicians to cure Alan and Jamie of the demon marks, going everywhere from the Goblin Market to a house for possessed humans. My favorite part of the plot was the contrast between Nick and Mae during the efforts to find magicians and cure Alan and Jamie. One character is almost emotionless; the other is overly emotional at points, even without Nick's narrative bias. Despite this, they share the same single-minded determination to cure their brothers of the demon marks. I have no clue why it did this, but that little thing stuck out to me as one of the strongest points of the book: how two people, different as they are, become the same through how much they care for their family.

The plot and characters may have been strong points, but they were not enough to keep me glued to the story. You know some books capture you and make you finish reading it in one sitting, or how they may at least make you think about the characters when not reading and then sneak away to read about them when you have the chance? The Demon's Lexicon was missing that essential spark. I planned to finish it on a certain day and I put it off for three more days. There was literally a moment where I said to myself, "I have to stop reading this book." And not because it was too much for me--I just got so sick of reading it. Good books aren't supposed to make you do that, right?

The writing had its weak points, too. Some of you may know of Cassandra Clare and her unusual similes. I ,for one, remember hair being compared to the startled tendrils of an octopus in the half of City of Bones I could stand to read before I gave it back to my friend because I got bored. It appears that her writer friend Brennan picked up this penchant for similes, though hers did not leave me asking "what the hell?" the way Clare's did. Simile overdoses happened to me a few times in the course of The Demon's Lexicon where there seemed to be a simile for at least every other description! Simile haters will want to avoid this book.

The final flaw may be a subjective one that is influenced to all the research I did before picking up this book, but I just have to mention it. I came into the book with the ending twist spoiled for me, but I feel that if I had come into the book unspoiled, I may have been able to call that twist early on. I know how to connect two and two. Considering Nick's narration and... I wish I could talk further about it, but I don't want to turn this into a spoiler review and I may have given away too much already.

With such feelings for The Demon's Lexicon, I'm not as sure I want to read its sequel The Demon's Covenant anymore, though Mae narrates that one and I love Mae. I guess I'll keep it in mind, but it won't be a priority read. So many delicious threads left hanging, but the fear of another book that will lack the ability to keep me reading...! Oh, what a dilemma! Something tells me that fans of Supernatural might enjoy this book and demon fans would too.

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