The Last Vampire, by Christopher Pike

2012 Book 89: The Last Vampire, by Christopher Pike (6/20/2012)

Reason for Reading: I used to read Christopher Pike when I was in middle school. Around the 7th grade, I decided he wrote trash and moved on to bigger and better books (literally). A few years back, I saw this book and whimsically bought it. I've finally gotten around to it...and come to the conclusion: My 7th grade self was very discerning. And my 30-something self should be ashamed of not trusting 7th grade self. Serves me right for reading a book entitled Thirst No. 1.

My Review 1/5 stars
Thirst No. 1 is a compilation of the first three books in a series written by Pike in the mid-90's. I only made it through the first book, The Last Vampire, so that's what I'm basing this review on. The basic plot-line is that a 5000-year-old vampire falls in love with a teenager and fights for her life against another 5000-year-old vampire. At first, I was impressed that Pike incorporated Hindu mythology into his plot (albeit with no dedication to the spirit of Hinduism). And the writing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. But then I realized how flat the characters were and how many loopholes the story had. I remembered why I didn't like Christopher Pike--he scandalized me with his sexually active teenagers. I was less scandalized at 32 than I was at 12, but I still feel the casual "of course they're sexually active" style was inappropriate for teen literature. I simply don't think writers of teen books should make sex look like such a casual, unimportant act. However, I was prepared to finish Thirst No. 1 until the end of the first book. Total cliffhanger! And unnecessarily so. The only purpose of this cliffhanger was to leave the readers incomplete so that they'd rush into the next novel. One or two more sentences would have left the reader feeling complete. Personally, I feel authors should FINISH THEIR BOOKS!!!! What trash! Blagh!