The Last Days

Peeps #2

by Scott Westerfeld

Strange things are happening: old friends disappearing, angels (or devils) clambering on the fire escapes of New York City. But for Pearl, Moz, and Zahler, all that matters is the band. As the city reels under a mysterious epidemic, the three combine their talents with a vampire lead singer and a drummer whose fractured mind can glimpse the coming darkness. Will their music stave off the end? Or summon it?

Set against the gritty apocalypse that began in Peeps, The Last Days is about five teenagers who find themselves creating the soundtrack for the end of the world.

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Vampires, Fiction, Science Fiction, Paranormal, Horror

286 pages, Hardcover

First published September 7, 2006

About the author

Scott Westerfeld is a New York Times bestselling author of YA. He is best known for the Uglies and Leviathan series. His current series, IMPOSTORS, returns to the world of Uglies.

The next book in that series, MIRROR'S EDGE, comes out April 6, 2021.

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most everyone calls The Last Days a sequel to Westerfeld's novel Peeps. I suppose that, loosely, this is true. For my part, I think of this novel as more of a companion to Peeps because the main characters are completely different (don't worry though, characters from Peeps do turn up), the structure of then novel is different, and because the only way to get the most out of either book is to read the two of them together, back-to-back. So, this is a sequel in the same way that The Two Towers was (trick statement! Tolkien meant the Lord of the Rings trilogy to be one book but it was too long and written before the days of ginormous novels).

Suffice it to say, The Last Days is a very different book from its predecessor despite continuing the same story. Most of these differences are structural. Westerfeld again employs first person narration, but this time he has five narrators. Each chapter is labeled with a character's name and told from his or her point of view. Writing a novel in this way is incredibly difficult because you have to take into account continuity while also making sure you don't get redundant and trying to make each character sound unique. Westerfeld does all of that. Perfectly.

In this novel, Westerfeld's narrators are in the interesting position that they know less than the readers (this is why reading Peeps first is so important). The whole vampire thing is an unknown for everyone. As is the issue of a pending apocalypse.

But that doesn't tell you much about the story.

It all starts with a girl who wants to make a band. Pearl sees the weird things going on in the city. The sanitation crisis. The increasing number of stray cats. Then there are the rats that are slowly taking over the subway system. And Brooklyn. Then there's Pearl's friend, Minerva, who's been acting pretty weird herself. Pearl decides that the best way to help her friend, and maybe get through the craziness, is to start a band.

Soon Pearl finds the perfect band members. And they're a great band. But strange things happen when Minerva starts to sing. Making everyone wonder if the band's music is the one thing that can stop the apocalypse. Or start it.

There are very few male writers who can convincingly narrate from a female point of view. Scott Westerfeld is one of the few. Instead of making the novel seem choppy, or the characters under-developed, Westerfeld's split narration makes every character much more dimensional.

The story is about vampires, of course. And music. But it's also about friendship and relationships. Westerfeld artfully describes the vicious cycle some friendships have when one friend is always taking whatever the other has to give. He also shows how, sometimes, you have to keep those friends even when it's the last thing you want to do.

Like Peeps, parts of this book are a little gross. Raw meat does turn up on several plates. Some narrators are more "unique" than others. But taken as a whole it all kind of works to make a really fun, really exciting book.

At its basic level this is a story about a band trying to make it big when everything else is falling apart. Along the path to fame, they just might save the world.

You can find this review and more on my blog Miss Print

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

****There may be some slight spoilers in this review which pertain to the novel Peeps. Please do not read this review if you haven't read Peeps.****

The Last Days was a great sequel to Peeps. Full of quirky new charters and more mysteries to unfold, The Last Days picks up where Peeps left us, in a world slowly being taken over by the plague, garbage, cats, rats, and crazy HUGE arse worms. Westerfeld introduces us to Pearl, a music genius who just so happens to be a busy body, Moz, an aimless guitar player, Zahler, Moz's sweetly awkward best friend, Minerva, a newly turned peep who's a bit into herself, and Alana Ray, a woman with a trouble past and weird visions. Together this unlikely group of misfits forms a band and find out that their music might just be the key to defeating the coming darkness.

Annnnnd just a little side note: I'm totally a Team Pearl/Moz. There I said it.

Westerfeld is for sure one of my all time favorite authors. The end.

[Trisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

"How can I be so sure about this rhyme , when all the experts disagree?
Because I ate the kid who made it up."

I had started this one previously and just. . . couldn't get in to it. It's an odd story for sure, full of music references and stray cats, dog walking and guitar rifts. I know that it's tied to the book Peeps but I read that so long ago that I can't even remember what it was about, but this one stood well on its own.

I still liked the gross disease/parasite part of this vampirism. And I liked the way music played in to the story, even if it was a bit over done, I was good with just rolling with it. The angels were spooky and creepy and every time we were in Minerva's POV it was weird but interesting.

I didn't mind this one this go-around and am glad I finally got around to reading it. I actually liked it.

[Sella Malin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I both loved it and hated it. On one hand, I thought it was an amazing sequel to Peeps. Scott Westerfeld is a great writer, with a very hypnotizing and mesmerizing writing style. His characters are real and well-developed, and I loved many of them. Scott knows how to grab my attention and keep me there. I really enjoyed the whole band thing- Westerfeld managed to capture the power of music down on paper in a way that no one has been able to do before. The book was suspenseful, exciting, thrilling, action-packed, and left a huge impact on me.

Yet, this book was also highly disturbing and made me very angry several instances throughout. The whole Peeps disease thing is cool, but sometimes it can get really creepy- especially with all the cats having it now.

And then there was the evil monster worm thing.

Ah, yes. Let's talk about THAT.

That was what entirely ruined the book for me. I mean, come on. PLEASE. The world is coming to an end not because of creepy cannibals but because of...an evil people-eating giant monster WORM?!?!?!?! Um, okay. No thank you. That's just too cartoon-y, mwa ha ha Dr. Evil type thing for me. I couldn't imagine it, couldn't make a sense of it in my head whenever the worms came up. Everything else in the book seemed so real, but this was just like, "WHAT?!?!" It was like the whole book was a movie with real-people actors, and then all of a sudden the worms are animated pictures that suddenly appear in the real-life movie. They don't fit and they ruin the book. It was MUCH better when the Peeps were the villains.

Other Pet Peeves About This Book/Things That Made Me Mad:
(Warning: Some spoilers below)
-Pearl is my favorite character. All along, I'd been waiting for her to get together with Moz. AND THEN MOZ HAD TO GO AND MAKE OUT WITH MINERVA!!!! B****!!!!! BOTH OF THEM!!! I HATE YOU, MINERVA AND MOZ!! YOU CAN BOTH GO DIE FOR DOING THAT TO PEARL!! HOW DARE YOU!!! Lol, sorry for that rant. I just had to get it out there...Yeah. As you can tell, I'm really pissed that Pearl didn't get to be with the boy she was in love with, and got her heart broken. (God, Westerfeld really hates me. He has a bad habit of repeatedly torturing my favorite characters!! Dess was my favorite character from Midnighters, and Scott had to make her excluded and left out all the time. And now Pearl!! Gee, Scott- what have I ever done to YOU????)
-God. MINERVA!!! She should go die. I HATE her. HOW CAN SHE DO THAT TO PEARL???? GO OUT WITH MOZ?!?! Doesn't she KNOW one of the first rules of friendship- you DON'T go out with your best friend's crush, even if you like him! GGAAHH. SHE'S A GREAT BIG B***** AND I WILL KILL PEARL IF SHE EVER FORGIVES MINERVA!!!!!
-It really bothered me how a lot of things were left unfinished. Like how we never found out how Moz was getting the money to pay Alana Ray. I really wanted to know if my suspicions were correct, and if Moz was stealing the money, and I was holding my breath and hoping all throughout the book- but I never found out! That really annoyed me. Also, the Black Death thing was never confirmed- the book never said what disease it was. I mean, if you're going to bring up a bunch of questions, can't you at least do me the courtesy of ANSWERING them?!?!
-What REALLY made me mad was how everyone just shrugged and accepted the supernatural, just like that, when that's NOT the nature of humans. I mean, come on. There are vampires that seem to somehow exist now, and giant evil worm monsters who are eating people. So does everybody freak out and stuff, like expected? NOO!!! NOBODY freaks out!! Everyone just goes, "Oh, it's evil monsters that shouldn't exist. That sucks. Let's all save ourselves and fight them now." Uhhh...WHAT?!? That is NOT how normal humans react to the supernatural!! IF that happened in real life, NORMAL humans would be running around screaming, thinking it was all a hallucination or something. They WOULDN'T accept it right away and they wouldn't actually HELP get RID of the monster, like all the unrealistic humans in The Last Days did.

Another thing- I thought the pace was a bit TOO fast, especially towards the end. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a fast, exciting book, but it wasn't just that. Events started flashing by without Scott Westerfeld paying much attention to them, and he just sort of zipped through things in a second, making me feel like everything was happening at once and way too fast, like the last chunk of the book was frozen on the fast-forward button on a remote.

Wow, I realize I've been ranting for a long time on this book, and most of it's all just rambling...whoops. Anyway, basically, I thought that overall, this book was pretty good, but there were just a lot of flaws and gaps that ticked me off. I have just summarized this whole entire review in one sentence. Wow. :D

It's weird- Scott Westerfeld seems to always lose his grip towards the end of all his "series" or whatever. Like, he had a great trilogy going with Midnighters, but then he blew it with Blue Noon. Peeps and The Last Days were good, but the ending chunk makes me hesitant. I think the only time he DIDN'T do this was in the Uglies series.

Anyway...you should read The Last Days if you've read Peeps, because it's interesting to know what happens next, and because Pearl is awesome. But DON'T read The Last Days if you haven't read Peeps, because you'll be utterly lost and confused and mad and you probably won't read Peeps because of that. So, I'll just end this incredibly and unexpectedly long review by saying...The End. There. ;D

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moz and buddy Zahler are struggling musicians in New York City, waiting for their big break. In the meantime, however, Moz witnesses a woman in a nearby apartment throwing all of her belongings out of her window. Amazed by these events, he barely manages to catch a 1975 Fender Stratocaster as it comes tumbling down toward the sidewalk. The girl who helps him, Pearl, turns out to be a musical genius, and offers the boys the opportunity of forming a band. How can they pass that up?

Pearl knows the band needs a powerful singer, and can think of nobody but her best friend Minerva. Although she's recovering from a mysterious illness, one that makes her sick to hear her own name or see her reflection in a mirror, she manages to sneak out of her parents' apartment to join the band.

Soon, the members begin to discover that their music is more powerful than they thought. Maybe it has to do with the mysterious black liquid leaking from the sidewalks and fire hydrants...or the large number of rats that have suddenly appeared... Either way, the band knows that Minerva is getting her lyrics - and inspiration - from the very illness that connects her to these deadly forces threatening to take over the city. But will the band succeed...or be called to a higher purpose by the rumored "Angels" populating the city?

[Booknut 101 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scott Westerfeld's writing is a gift to the senses.

Unlike some books, where you're tempted to skip the large chunks of description between the relevant pieces of dialogue, The Last Days' descriptions are...lavish. There are just no other words to describe it! The descriptions transport you right into Scott Westerfeld's kooky, paranormal world, overwhelming your senses and making you feel as if you were standing right alongside his characters :)

[Tabea Vanessa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was so incredibly bad!! What the heck?! 300 pages of band practice were 1 not what I wanted from this and 2 unbelievably boring!

[Steph | bookedinsaigon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scott Westerfeld is arguably the master of modern-day sci-fi. His books, whether they are set in this present world, or in a future place, are always easy to relate to and understand. Even readers who have not read PEEPS (and you should) will enjoy this one.

THE LAST DAYS is essentially a story about five wannabe musicians getting together to form a band. There’s Pearl: musically talented, smart, rich, an entrepreneur, and a little bossy on the keyboard. There’s Moz, the talented but untrained guitarist who along with Pearl saves a rare Stratocaster guitar that a crazy woman was chucking out of her apartment window. Zahler is Moz’s best friend, guitarist turned bassist, who constantly feels as if he’s the band’s weak link and has a penchant for making up new words (fawesome!).

The threesome hire Alana Ray, a talented but neurotically challenged drummer who drums on paint buckets and can see what music looks like. And finally there’s Minerva, Pearl’s friend who was bitten by something and now exhibits vampirish and vaguely cannibalistic tendencies—but whose singing talent somehow connects the whole band together into something paranormal.

When the band rehearses, strange things happen. The ground beneath them rumbles, as if something is struggling to reach them from underground. Meanwhile, the infected Minerva develops a relationship with Moz, as the parasite inside of her tries to spread itself by making her horny and irresistible.

In their journey to find an agent and get signed up to a label, the still nameless band learn that there is something very powerful about their music, as it has a way of summoning up the human race’s greatest enemy from deep within the earth where they reside. Now, the five young men and women must use their musical and supernatural talents to help the peeps, infected humans who can control their vampirish tendencies and who were created to help save humanity. Together, they will summon and fight the enemies until nearly all are extinct. Until next time.

The world that Scott Westerfeld has created is creepily realistic. I got chills from reading this novel, and anything that moves me to such a reaction is extraordinary.

[Colleen Houck]

The concept of a singer able to summon monsters is super cool. Loved seeing the characters from the first book again. Gained a new appreciation for musicians. Also the invented words are fun =)

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was a satisfying ending. It was also really, really, really weird. It was an interesting take on vampires, and I'm not really big on vampires, and this totally put them in a whole new light, and I think I like these vampires more than the ones in 'other' books. I actually enjoyed this book more than Peeps, which is a companion novel, but the first one made less and more sense. But that's why you should read them in order, so you know about what happens in the first book and you can apply that to the second book. That's why this book is called the sequel.
I don't think you were supposed to like the main characters. Or at least not all of them. I definitely liked some, but the other two were bleh. They all had their downfalls, but I felt like I could hang out with them and have fun. Not so much with Minerva. She was just downright creepy. And I know that part of this is due to her not entirely human thing, but it was still *shivers* weird. And Moz started out okay, but he went down from about halfway through.
One thing I really enjoyed were the Night Mayor files. I thought those were simply fascinating. It supplied a completely different view on history and how things happened. I also forgot a lot of the first book, so I was pretty confused at first, but the files helped.
The music aspect was really refreshing. I like books with music as a focus, since I play two instruments, and I really enjoy music and it was fun to try and imagine what the music sounded like. I think it may have been a 3 star without the music, but I just really loved the music, and I always have in books and in real life.
The plot was a bit scattered. And I don't think it was meant to have that perfect storyline arc. It felt intentional, and I liked that. It wasn't just your standard story. That being said, I liked the (sort of) plot line a lot. It didn't have some amazing epic peak, but rather there were a bunch of little peaks, but it wasn't like a bunch of anecdotes. I can't explain it well, but perhaps if you'll read this book you'll understand. (Of course you might not like the first one and just not read the second one. Who knows). It felt unique, and yet still kept me interested and wanting more.
This book wasn't perfect, but it was still highly enjoyable, with a great cast of characters, and *interesting* character dynamics. I really enjoy Scott Westerfeld's books as some of his books are some of my favorites of all time, and I'm glad I enjoyed this one too.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also positive I read!

[riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was so much worse than the other one smh. i wanted the same main characters as the other book, but no. it’s mid wtv.

[GAREAD BOOKLER]

I guess every book I read this year has to feature giant worms?

[Rebecca]

It took me a really long time to get around to reading The Last Days, which is funny because Peeps is one of my favourite books and this one is kind of a sequel to Peeps. Needless to say, while I loved Peeps, I didn’t think The Last Days was one of my favourite books.
I liked The Last Days, it had some really interesting parts. At the same time, it just didn’t feel as awesome as Peeps did. I really liked the parts where you learnt a little bit more about the disease, or those who are parasite positive.
I also thought the music aspect was really cool. As well as there being a story about the end of the world, there was the story of a bunch of people trying to create a band. It was quite interesting how the two tied together to be honest.
One thing I really didn’t like was that the book was told with five different perspectives and for the most part, they all seemed to be very similar. There were one or two things that set some of the characters apart but I found that I still had to check the chapter each time to see whose perspective I was reading from.
I think my favourite characters were Moz and Pearl. Unfortunately, the characters in the story didn’t do what I had wanted them to do. It was good to see a brief appearance of a couple of characters in Peeps though, which was pretty cool.
There was one thing that wasn’t explained that I will be wondering about for a long time, because there was a bit of a big deal made about the issue but it was never bought up again after a while, which I found a little weird.
Overall, I found The Last Days to be really entertaining but it wasn’t the best Scott Westerfeld book I’ve read. I think if you don’t think of it as being a sequel to Peeps, which you can do, it would be better that way.

[Carie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as Peeps, but an interesting, entertaining sequel. The story kept me reading, but I had some issues with one person and the direction the plot went for some of the characters. I didn’t care AT ALL for the character of Minerva, although I really enjoyed everybody else. I liked Moz best, but didn’t like the evolution of things with his character. But, the ending was satisfying, the music/band stuff was fascinating, and the book held my interest.

**SPOILERS**: I was not AT ALL happy with Moz + Minerva. I hated that Moz fell for her and I didn’t see any reason for it--except physical attraction, which I found depressing. I couldn’t really see a future for this relationship--other than that they both ended up vamps. I guess the whole thing did highlight the dangers of jumping into something with someone crazy/creepy just because you think they’re “hot,” but it was really depressing. (Clue: If you need to steal a key to break someone out of a room they’re being kept in, maybe you might want to think twice about kissing and/or becoming intimate with them?!) I would’ve much rather had a Pearl-Moz relationship--that’s what I was rooting for from the very beginning of the book!!

[Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this very slowly, I enjoyed it even although I haven’t read Peeps. The whole story was inspirations of young musician’s gathering up a band and the lead vocalist really just getting over some mysterious sickness of her own. This sickness though I thought caused by her boyfriend relationship with Mark prior breaking up the band Nervous System and had complete mystery to me. I found the new lives of Minerva worth thinking about, which involved her becoming close to Moz. While the city seems to be going through changes only noticeable to people seeing these changes. All things else seems to have gone as normal. But the haunting horrors occurring in the city perpetually around five vivid dieharding musicians have accepted Minerva as their new band lead singer. The drummer is unnerved by her allowing the singer sing, strangely enough. Pearl, Minerva’s best friend, finds Moz one night while stopping and witnessing a strange suicide attempt. Moz played well. Five fawesome musicians of The Last Days work at learning how they sound as a new band in a city that needs a New Sound, and they then take a chance to find a studio signer.

[Gerri Leen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I live in awe of this man's ability to world-build. In this series, in the Uglies collection, and in the Midnighters trilogy, he has created unique and fun worlds that are derivative of pretty much nobody (not an easy trick once, let alone three times). Uglies takes the world-building to the most extreme angle, with its own language and an Earth society definitely very far away from our own, but he can do it with things closer to home, too. The Last Days is a sequel to Peeps, one of the most unique takes on vampires I've ever read (and I've read a ton of them). I don't want to spoil things by telling you what The Last Days is about other than a rock band, but definitely start with Peeps (you'll learn a lot about diseases as you read it, and in a very fun way). Both books read incredibly fast, with characters you will care about--even though some of them are way outside the norm. That's one of his gifts, making the not normal seem within reach.

Rated: A+

[Crowinator · Rating 3 out of 5]

Posted to my Livejournal in April 2008, saved here for posterity:

I liked this one less than Peeps, but perhaps that's to be expected in a sequel to a book I hardly found any fault in. Peeps was a great mix of smart humor and B-movie brilliance -- not only did Westerfeld totally rework the vampire myth, he used it to spin out a larger, crazier story about underground worm-like monsters soon to rise from the depths to devour mankind. Who would have thought vampires would save us all, right? The Last Days followed up with that pretty well, and I did like the way he used music as a pied piper sort of lure for the worms and vampires, but I missed the humor and irreverence of the first one. I missed the characters from Peeps, too, especially Cal and his snarky little lectures on parasites. But at least now I can say I have read all of Westerfeld's books except Extras, and I'll get to that eventually, too.

[Afira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ooh.. I always did wonder how the Night Watch would eliminate all those worms and wipe the parasite outta all those people.. Guess this books answers it. It was totally fawesome *Zahler's odd word*. Basically, this book is about how five teenagers make one song that manages to save the world. Funky huh?

What displeased me about this book was the fact that Moz didn't end up with who I wanted him to. He ended up with Girl A, not Girl B *frowns* Sure, there was that little sort of friendship-y moment at the end, but I'm still not satisfied. At all. I'm gonna go scour the fan fiction sites for Moz/Girl B fics. This might sounds so stupid, but pairings in a book are important for me. And Moz/Girl A is just.. wrong o.O

Anyways, this is a good sequel to a good book that *sorta* satisfies the readers and ties up the loose ends that was leftover from the first book =)

[Jackie "the Librarian" · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spoiler alert!


The sequel to Peeps, a parasitical disease is changing people into vampire-like mutants with enhanced powers. Cal is a carrier, but you don't see much of him here. Instead, you follow a guitar player as he meets some fellow musicians and puts together a band. But there's something unusual about the music they are making.

It has weird rhythms, and if they play long enough it draws gigantic worm things from deep underground. The worms have a connection to the parasites.

I enjoyed all the details about the group and the music. I thought the worm plot was silly, but not enough to ruin the book for me.

So if you are a musician who enjoys teen vampire stories, you will love this book!

[SR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as Peeps, less...visceral. But then I've always been better at relating to science geeks than to music people, although I've had a fair amount of experience with music...

However. Must nitpick. Alana Ray keeps using factorial notation (n!) as referring to (n) + (n-1) + (n-2) + ... + 1. Factorial is (n)(n-1)(n-2)... There's no name or notation for the addition sequence. The factorial notation - rather, phrasing the number relationship as an equation - emphasizes her ability with numbers, but...dude, it's wrong. The first time it said 6! = 21 I completely fell out of the story. It's bothering me.

finished: This would make the best movie EVER. Just sayin'.

[Jessie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whether this was a sequel to Peeps or not, this book was a big disappointment compared to Peeps. I loved Peeps so I was hoping for more of the same from the author--unfortunatley, not so. This book was strange to say the least. Everything in it was over the top from the characters names to the description from the musicians POVs to the setting. It just sort of lost me. It switches POV so frequently that it is hard to follow the storyline let alone care about the characters that make up the storyline. I was really left thinking, "What!?" when I finally finished the book. I would not recommend this book even to the fans of Scott Westerfeld. I really like the others I have read by him and will not let this (in my eyes) OOPS! taint my view of him or his other books.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This sequel to Peeps is fairly well-written, but it lacks the pacing and development of the first novel. I don't find the characters as likable, nor the story as compelling. Some plot points just seem weird to me, and far-fetched even for a novel about parasites that turn people into vampires. Still, it's enjoyable enough, an easy read overall. I highly recommend reading Peeps first, because the author seems to assume the reader knows the backstory from the first book. I would have found The Last Days hard to follow without this prior knowledge, because explanations are few.

[Heather G Gentle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably would give more like 2.5. It was "ok" but I spent the first 1/2 of the book wondering what this one had to do with the book it was allegedly a sequel to. About 3/4 of the way through you finally come across some characters from the previous book and then after chapters and chapters of "building" it's over in a few pages.
The story was "ok", the characters were "ok", the ending was "ok".
I just think this had a lot more potential than it actually delivered.
And if I ever have to hear the word "fawesome" again I think I'll puke.

[Kathy (Kindle-aholic) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think with fewer narrators (there were 5), I would have given this one more points. I really like the whole idea behind "vampires" in this book (they are caused by parasites). I liked the characters pretty well, but with so many different POVs, it was hard to get attached to any of them. And for me to really enjoy a book, I need to get attached to at least one of the characters. The action was all right, but there would likely have been more, again, with fewer narrators. Interesting, and still a fast-paced read that kept my attention, but not as good as Peeps.

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a sequel to Peeps, but I didn't like it as much. I do generally like band books, so that wasn't it; I think it might have been the multiple POVs, which made it feel a little unfocused to me. And the characters I liked the most -- Alana Ray, Zahler -- got the least POV time. It just all felt a little sketchy, I guess: fun to read, but doesn't stick in my mind the way Peeps did.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first book in this series was great with Cal from Texas as the main character. In this book you are introduced to members of a band and each chapter is from their point of view. I liked the characters, but having so many characters made it a bit confusing. I felt like Pearl was the strongest character and maybe it should have been from her point of view for the whole book. That's my two cents, anyway.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sequel to one of my favorite vampire novels, Peeps. All new characters, though Cal and co. make appearances in the background, and all high school aged. It's a great tale, but by the end, when the apocalyptic battles have finally come, it's all related after the fact, rather than shown. It's effective, but annoying.

[Catalina Gonzalez]

1.5 ⭐️
I liked this one about as much as the first one, which is not a lot. But I’m glad I reread this, this was a favorite for me when I was a teenager (15ish years ago) and the nostalgia was fun. But I think that’s all there was.

[J Wren · Rating 3 out of 5]

i liked it. many people don't, but i thought it was interesting. not quite as suspenseful as peeps, but still nice.