At first, I wasn't sure this was the book I was looking for. The cover doesn't relate to the themes in any way. Nothing about it screams "vampire," and the title alone does not either. Authors have no control over covers, but C'MON. Why a white bikini? Jessica wears a navy sundress. April is stated to be increasingly pale and her scant characterization doesn't lend her to wear a tiny white bikini. Who in this book is so tan? Why orange? Why the sunset? The cover makes no sense!

This terrified and fascinated me as a tween, and helped my hormones keep surging. A lot of Point Horror and Fear Street did that for some tweens. I read this again now, wondering how I'd perceive it. I was surprised that I remembered so much. Uh, so this book taught me that I like redheads. I remembered it when I opened the book. Other than that--I grew out of this after reading it half a dozen times. Twenty years later, I can understand why tweens would find this genuinely terrifying and the height of vampirism, and I still do appreciate RL Stine's style. But now--I'm not the intended audience for it anymore, so take this lightly. There's no sense of urgency, or there wasn't for me. Characterization is poor and flat because the book is so short, but that was a regular choice so I'm not annoyed. The book was overall bland. The worldbuilding was interesting! I liked that. I perked up when I saw this has a sequel; I thought the end of this lent itself neatly to one. Not enough to read it, though, but mild curiosity.

And still, this was an important part of my tween years, RL Stine's books and books like his. I'm glad I was able to get ahold of a copy.. ( )

April and Matt are looking forward to the summer at the beach. But April is getting tired of Matt wanting to hang with the townie boys and is distracted by the the charming and mysterious, Gabri. Too bad for her because Gabri is a vampire in a wicked bet with a female vampire to see who can change a vacationer into a vampire first.

This book was fun. Nothing deep. The vampires are really evil in this one. No redeeming characteristics or sparkling here. It is a bit creepy and it has some suspense. Great for tweens and young teens. And apparently 60 year old librarians. ( )

These are great books for anyone looking for more of the horror aspect to vampires without as much of the romance. ( )

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