The Vampire Stalker by Allison Van Diepen

The Vampire Stalker
Allison Van Diepen
Publisher: Point
Release Date: June 1, 2011
Pages: 272

Rating: 3 stars

What if the characters in a vampire novel left their world--and came into yours?
Amy is in love with someone who doesn't exist: Alexander Banks, the dashing hero in a popular series of vampire novels. Then one night, Amy meets a boy who bears an eerie resemblance to Alexander. In fact, he IS Alexander, who has escaped from the pages of the book and is in hot pursuit of a wicked vampire named Vigo. Together, Amy and Alexander set out to track Vigo and learn how and why Alexander crossed over. But when she and Alexander begin to fall for each other, Amy wonders if she even wants him to ever return to the realm of fiction.

The Vampire Stalker was a cute book, but I had several issues with it that kept me from loving it completely. Most of the characters were great and the plot was fun, but some of the things that happen in the book had my on edge.

The plot is super unique - these characters from the books Amy likes come to life. It's literary physics - the idea that some books are actually real and the authors just tap into their dimension when writing, which was super awesome. The world she crafts was also a lot of fun.

My big issue with this one is the fact that everyone obviously doesn't know these book characters have come to life, and when they assume some murderer is pretending to be a vampire, they blame the author! They have this whole interview and sit down and are like "Your book came out the week before, do you think it's a coincidence that this happened?" First, books are NOT that big of a deal, I don't care what world you live in. Yes, I love books, but it would not be the first conclusion people think of when a serial killer is going around. For that assumption to be made like a huge huge percentage of the population would have to read these books, and even then, since this book takes place in a normal world I just have a hard time believing this. And if the book only came out the week before, I seriously doubt enough people have read it in that time period. Plus, they basically interrogate the poor author and it's almost like they're trying to get her to admit something. After this I had a bit of a hard time taking the book seriously.

This is also a really small thing, but during the above mentioned interview the author kept mentioning how she wrote fantasy books. Her books are about vampires. I know it's a small technicality, but vampires are most definitely not fantasy, they are paranormal.

The characters drive from Chicago to New York in one day - and I get they think it's important, but to go half way across the country and in one day?! That is not short drive - it's like 17 hours without traffic.

The characters were all really easy to relate to. I loved Ms. P - she was such a cool character. I wish my school had had a librarian like her! The only character I wasn't too crazy about was Chrissy, she drove me nuts. Amy was a great main character; she was such a crazy reader.

I absolutely love the cover - it's just so cute! Overall, this was a fun book, you just have to really step back and let some crazier notions run their course. I loved everything else about it, and the characters were one of the best aspects of the book. A fair read.