Notes from a Totally Lame Vampire by Tim Collins

Notes from a Totally Lame Vampire by Tim Collins

I picked this book up off the new book shelf at the local public library branch. It was a vampire book I hadn’t seen before. It’s an easy, fun read. It is a juvenile/teen fiction title, but that did not stop me, of course. The author basically makes fun of all of the various vampire legends and lore – including Twilight. (Anything that makes fun of Twilight makes me laugh.)

Nigel is a nearly 100-year-old teenage vampire. He has been going to school all of this time, to blend in, but he slacks off in certain subjects (hey, he’ll be learning it all again in the years to come!) He still has the typical and not so typical arguments with his parents (after all, they are hundreds of years old). Nigel did not get the beauty, the speed, and the power that most vampires acquire when they become vampires. It may have been due to his age. When he is exposed to the sun, he even breaks out in pimples! So this is what makes him “totally lame.”

Because he has no natural vampire attractions, how does he get Chloe to go out with him?

This book is written in diary format (Nigel is a talented writer, painter and musician, but he can’t show his talents to the world, or people might become suspicious as to the family’s vampire natures), and really well done. It becomes obvious that Nigel has followed the times . . . he loves various video games and game systems.

I won’t give away the ending! I look forward to reading the sequel.

The Wilder LIfe

The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure is the book (actually in e-book format) I am reading at present.

What I liked:

- Ms. McClure gets the idea of "Laura Land" (as she calls it) right in that I had a “Laura Land” of my own, but as she finds out, everyone’s is just a little different.

- The comparisons between the actual Little House books, the real lives of the Ingalls and the Wilders, and then the TV series. I have such a trained eye when it comes to all of the differences that I could have been bored by things maybe other people don’t know, but I have enjoyed making sure Ms. McClure gets things right.

- Ms. McClure also visits all of the actual Little House sites. . . I haven’t even been to them all, only a portion, so I have enjoyed reading her impressions and descriptions of these places.

- Some of her descriptions of attempts to enter “Laura Land” as an adult quite funny.

- I am jealous that she got to camp during a hailstorm on the Ingalls’ Homestead in DeSmet, SD. . . that would be the ultimate experience! (Besides a triplet tornado in the distance . . . )

- That she came to the realization that she was really searching for her mother and her younger self.

What I am not sure I have liked, or don’t agree with:

- Ms. McClure finds it creepy to walk on gravesites in Pepin. Oh, come on, that is ridiculous! I grew up next door to a cemetery that was a delightful playground in every season. When I am buried, I wish to be in a small cemetery where small children will play hide-n-seek.

- She (the author) always desired as a little girl to be able to have Laura come visit her in present day to “show her around.” I never wanted to do that. I always desired a time machine so I could go back to Laura’s time. I used to imagine going to school with her in about 1880 or so!