The Book High

This one was fascinating and entertaining and exciting all at once. The vampirism-as-virus idea seemed familiar from her Channeling Morpheus/Sweet Oblivion series, but since I absolutely ADORED that series, this was like a nice return visit to that world.

I actually totally loved the subtlety of the relationship between Mark and Jonathan, how it was a lot of subtext and glances and longing.

Another thing I loved was how equal the two men seemed, in spite of the tremendous differences between them at first. I appreciated that Mark never seemed subservient despite his position as Jonathan's assistant, and especially that he chose his own path in the big climactic scene with Lazlo.

I also totally loved Mark's voice. It was refreshing that he was old enough to not come off as a vampire groupie. And his sense of humor had me lol-ing more than once. Some favorite quotes:

"Maybe the apocalypse just needed to happen so the universe could get Darwinian on my ass and eliminate me already."

"The screwdriver prevailed--I knew it would. After all, it could start cars and perform surgery. What couldn't it do?"

"Twisted ankles, pesky trips... things of the past for me. I was lithe. I was free.

I was sprawled on my face.

While I'm in spoiler mode, I have to say that my favorite things about this about this story were that Mark got to become a vampire, and that Jonathan didn't have to be the one to do it. It was beautiful how much they wanted to be together, but were both unwilling to risk Mark's life for the possibility. I loved how the decision was taken out of their hands (the only way the decision would actually have been made, imo) and yet that it was still Jonathan's blood that made it happen. Beautiful!