Vampires, in the post-"Twilight" world, have become a real mix-and-match type of character for authors. If you don't like certain characteristics associated with vampires, just make up new ones. Have your vampires drink from animals, go outside (and sparkle), do whatever you feel. What do you do, however, if even new style best-of-all-possible-characteristics vampires aren't special enough for you? Enter the "vampeen," a rather unfortunate name that sounds more like something that Edward might pull out of his pants during a moment of passion than the vampire-human hybrid this book introduces us to.
Lexi is a "regular" teenage girl ("regular" in that her socio-economic status is way beyond that of the average teenager) who, Twilight-style, notices a mysterious but cute classmate. He turns out to know her family and quickly lets her know that her life is about to change forever. She's a vampire-human hybrid and all the non-human parts of her genetic code will turn on exactly at midnight on her sixteenth birthday, which - conveniently - is just a week away. Apparently her parents thought the less time she had to deal with this the better (they also felt like it was better for a near-total stranger to help guide her through this transition). They're really the ciphers in the book - they don't much guide her or help her at all. Their function is to fund all her activities and discourage her from having sex. I would figure that any person who is literally hunting humans can make her own decision about sex, but this book has the same weird anti-sex vibe that permeates the "Twilight" series.
As a "vampeen," Lexi is immortal and will gain superhuman strength and speed. She will also lose all the extra weight that has been plaguing her and will be a perfect size four (and be beautiful). However, vampires hate vampeens (there's a whole clunky backstory) and she is advised to maintain a low profile so that she doesn't draw the attention of the vampire hunter. Instead she decides to throw a huge, over-the-top sweet sixteen party to debut her new size four figure in front of all the classmates who were mean to her (literally - she had two friends before her transformation).
Reading this book is like getting a lengthy tour of the author's personal wish fulfillment fantasies. She wakes up amazingly beautiful, has two cute guys fighting over her, has an aunt to take her on a shopping spree where they spend tens of thousands of dollars, gets a Mercedes, is super-powerful, has rare "vampeen" abilities (weirdly, the ability is "will power"), has a perfect body, experiences an amazing love connection with a cute vampire, and becomes immortal. I finally hit my limit when it was revealed to her that she was the one foretold in "vampeen" (I'm sorry - I refuse to take the word seriously) prophecy who will bring peace between the vampire and "vampeen" camps. It's just too ridiculous. At the end of the book, Lexi - out of pretty much nowhere - springs her unique theological theory on us. Vampires and "vampeens" are actually God's chosen people. Well, Lexi, I'm glad you cleared that up. Pages and pages of how beautiful she thinks she is now, how awesome her Juicy Couture sweats are, how great her stuff is . . . it's vacant materialistic junk.
The story would be enough to justify the low star rating, but the writing is what really pushes it over the top. I thought for the first few chapters that the author had used a word processor thesaurus program to replace "regular" words with fancier words, giving the book an awkward feel - but then I began running into misuses that I know even a computer wouldn't suggest. Things like "the iPod engulfed his bicep" (that sounds like a horrible technical malfunction), "no indecent exposure was placating before you" (huh?), and "I really wish I could have captured the pure divulgence her eyes depicted." Those are just three misused words out of dozens. Even when words are technically correct, the effect is so bizarre. One character will ask another a question and the response will be several pages of stilted and floral language, an inept baroque stew of words and then other character will then respond with something like "O.M.G!". "?!" is regularly used as a punctuation mark. The writing is just . . . not good.
