Thirsty

So I've finally read all of M.T. Anderson's young adult novels. I still love his fresh, entertaining, and complex writing style. His first young adult novel, THIRSTY, is no different. Playing on themes of teenage angst turned vampirism, the oppression of different races, and the right of a creature to live even if it has to kill -- Anderson delivers. While this book is not Printz Award-finalist FEED or National Book Award winning OCTAVIAN NOTHING, it's a solid debut and better than most of the drivel out there."How can you tell people you're all alone when you're all alone?"Chris wants his life back -- the one where he's digging on Rebecca Schwartz and hanging with his best friends Tom and Jerk (aka Michael Polinsky). The trouble is, he is turning into a vampire.Chris' Massachusetts town is gearing up for the annual Sad Festival of Vampires. Each year the rituals and celebrations are performed to keep the Vampire Lord, Tch'muchgar, The Melancholy One, locked in his underwater prison beneath the Wompanoag Reservoir. As long as the town does its part, then the dark god cannot escape and take over again.Chris' family is a little crazy. His parents -- affectionately referred to as Ward and June (get the cleaver joke there? Eh?) -- are headed for divorce. His brother is a year older, drives a car (danger, danger), and is a royal pain in the finger.And Chris? He's been obsessed with his reflection lately. And people's necks. Then there's the sound that he thinks he hears of blood pumping through people's veins. Pointy teeth are filling his mouth and making it hard to talk. He's getting letters from vampire girls like Lolli Chasuble, inviting him to "come out of the coffin" tonight with her. And all of a sudden, mirrors are really freaky.So when he and his friends hop over to Bradley to watch the public lynching of a vampiress, things get a little crazy for Chris. For one, the vampiress looks right at him like she knows something. Then he gets a visit from a man in a suit who calls himself Chet the Celestial Being and says he works for the Forces of Light. The vampires are planning an attack, he says. At the height of the festival, they are going to release Tch'muchgar and take over the town and maybe the world.But here's the catch: if Chris helps take The Arm of Moriator into The Vampire Lord's kingdom then Chet will keep Chris from becoming a vampire.Seems easy enough, right? Until Chris tries it.-- Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens

I really, really wanted to like this book. I did.. it takes place in the general Western Massachusetts area, near a reservoir I assume is based on the famous Quabbin (the reservoir that replaced towns... the very same one as in the film, "In Dreams"). Unfortunately, I found this book tended to fall a bitflat. I almost feel guilty for giving it just a fair rating, but there were just some things about the book I just didn't like.-Anderson doesn't use a lot of contractions, and thus the dialogue sounds oddly stilted, especially when you consider it's teens talking.-Though this book was published in 1997, it would seem as if it had been sitting around a while, or else Anderson has no idea what contemporary teens are like. He rather unfairly stereotypes several background characters as speaking like the great Valley Girl craze of the 80's. In fact, this book almost seems like it's from the 80's.-At the end, we are suddenly given a second point of view of the vampires,and how they too are oppressed and murdered through hatred. By then, it's far too late. We had just spent the past couple hundred pages witnessing vampires eating flesh and people (most notably in one of the most stomach churning scenes at a vampire church banquet), as well as hearing reports of innocents being slaughtered AND knowing that the vampires worship an evil demon lord. This is hardly the point in the book to try and gain our sympathy, it's just too late.This is not to say the author lacks potential. Anderson looks to be a very exciting talent, and I do own a copy of Burger Wuss that I am looking forward to reading. The imagination and the story are here, but the execution was a bit flawed, and I never felt drawn into the book or a part of the action. I just felt like I was watching everything happen through a smudged and dirty window.

In the world of  Thirsty , vampires, faeries, witches and other supernatural beings are known to exist, though typically on the periphery of human society.Here, in this peculiar version of our world, people discovered to be vampires are immediately executed, without a trial, based on the presumption that they've already killed one or more humans in order to survive. Thus, our protagonist, Chris, is devastated when he finds out that, much to his shock, he's turning into one of the "damned," himself. Almost immediately, he meets someone who claims to possess the ability to stop Chris' change -- in exchange for the teenager's help with a matter involving a vampire lord, imprisoned in a parallel universe, for centuries. If Chris agrees to the dangerous task, he will be allowed to remain human.This is not a great work of literature, people. Thirsty is flawed (the first-person narration is stilted and has a curious lack of contractions) and somewhat simplistic, with a rather tepid protagonist -- but it manages to be engaging enough that I read it in one sitting. It also has an ending that I, personally, didn't see coming.All in all, this was a mildly entertaining but severely uneven effort by the author. I would suggest borrowing it from the library instead of purchasing it.

This one will truly move you, if you let it. Brilliant satire, very dark humor, extremely well written. Not just for kids, and not for just any kid. Christopher's story is one that will stay with you, if you're paying attention and can see through the satyrical tone to the meat of the story (pun intended). Like others of Anderson's books, "Thirsty" is not for the faint of heart--not because of violence or gore, but because of the depth of desolation some of his characters endure. And yet, this book is eminently worth reading, perhaps more than once. I laughed, i ached, i even cried (uncommon). It contains, hands down, the most laugh-out-loud hilarious and simultaneously heartbreaking cry of desperation perhaps ever written. I won't spoil it for you. I'll just say it happens near a tree.

Rubbish an old book from a library.