An ominous cover greets the reader with a close-up of an apple green pupil in an eye surrounded by truly black eyelashes and skin.
“…when I started feeling the hunger. It came like a punch in the gut… I was like an animal tearing its kill apart.” Thus, readers are hooked by author Alan Gibbons opening chapter.
16 year old John has been bitten in the neck drawing blood outside the school dance ,by Beth. “That night the hunger began… and the dreams.” Mrs. Fletcher, the French teacher, is found dead. “They’d found blood on the driver’s seat of her car and more leading away from it, towards the woods.” John’s hunger is all consuming when it comes. The thinking part of John fades away. The hunger and thirst rules him. When John’s girlfriend, Andrea, invites him to a party the night of the next full moon he thinks, “There’s nothing to worry about, nothing at all,” or so he hopes. But then Beth implies John watched her kill Mrs. Fletcher in his crazy dream. Slowly it dawns on John that Beth wants to feed on Andrea. Beth and John fight each other as snarling wolves. John kills Beth. Then John leaves his hometown forever to protect “the ones I love”.
Recommended for high/low readers, but this book will be enjoyed by all.