Natalie’s Reviews > Saltwater Vampires > Status Update

I want to like this book more than I do — a lot of it reminds me of Vampire Beach by Alex Duval, another YA romp — but the interconnecting plot lines are too ambitious for this type of story; the writing is a total wipeout trying to pull it off. There’s too much filler, too, which would be absolutely fine if it just focused on the teenagers versus the vampires. As for the historical event of the Batavia, turned fictional, it’s a fangtastic concept in theory, but it’s not blending well amidst everything else. I feel the book doesn’t quite know what it wants to be, and because it won’t commit to either altered history or teen horror, it’s failing to catch the wave it wants to ride.