Peeps

As I started my journey into the world of Peeps, I thought I was seeing how Westerfeld has matured as an author, how Peeps can easily lead into Uglies, but then I saw that all of his novels are published in (or near) 2005. Crazy. He must have had them all stocked up before he got a publisher. But back to the story: Peeps is an apocalyptic novel centered on parasites which cause people to become Westerfeld's version of vampires. Our hero is Cal, who is trying to save the world. 


Being a lesser book of Westerfelds, it was a neat read, though, because Westerfeld likens vampirism unto parasitical infestation in a very plausible and understandable manner. One caveat: this novel is geared towards middle and jr high schoolers, but there's lots of "horny talk." So read it before you hand it to your child and decide for yourself if it's appropriate for your kiddo. It's written for them & a decent read. 


Now enjoy this quote from Westerfeld on Peeps: 

"Maybe there are too many vampire novels, I thought. But that was part of the challenge, to see if I could do something that felt new and interesting, while still being full of bitey goodness. (Unsurprising confession: I am a Buffy fan.) So the book had to be original, but also icky, scary, funny, tragic, and (ahem) not sucky.

Besides getting a new take on the sunlight-impaired, my other big concern was that my vampires should actually make some sense as far as science goes. So I started doing some vampire research, reading a bunch of books about rats, parasites, bites and stings, and biology.

After consuming all there was to know on these subjects, I came up with the four important features that any vampire novel (of mine) had to include:

natural selection,
sexual attraction,
parasitic infection,
and Elvis memorabilia."

Read on, my friends!