Staff Pick: Team Human by J. Larbalestier and S.R. Brennan

Vampire fiction — especially YA vampire fiction — has a lot of weird inconsistencies. There’s that whole issue of how to deal with the sun. (Sunscreen, sparkle, magic rings, live in Seattle?) There’s the incomprehensible vampire that’s 100+ years old attending high school phenomenon. And, well, it is about time someone turned the genre on its nose.

Whether you love, love to hate, or just abhor vampire fiction, Team Human has a little something in it for you. (Unless you’re a vampire and can’t laugh, that is.)

High school senior Mel doesn’t know many things. She doesn’t know what happened to Anna’s family over the summer (something to do with her Dad and running off with a vampire). She doesn’t know what college to apply to next year or what she wants to be when she gets through school. She does know, however, that she wants nothing to do with vampires.

So, it sucks when Francis, a local vampire, enrolls at Craunston High. Especially when that vampire starts up a relationship with her best friend Cathy.

You won’t be able to put this book down! It is a madcap adventure/mystery full of laugh out loud moments and hilarious insights to being vampire, being human and, worst of all, being a teenager on the brink of adulthood.