Author: Allison Van Diepen
Release Date: June 1, 2011
Publisher: Point
Pages: 272
Source: Bought
Overall: 3.5 Stars
Summary:
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. He 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.
My Thoughts:
Have you ever dreamed that your favourite character from a novel would come to life? I know I sure have! So when I read the plot description for The Vampire Stalker, it was like seeing every bookworm's dream come true and I just had to see how Allison Van Diepen would bring her story to life.
Allison Van Diepen has created a wide range of characters in The Vampire Stalker, some with loveable traits... and others, not so great. I think everyone will be able to relate to Amy on some level because not only is she a true book lover, but she also has such a warm, caring heart. Although she does find herself in spots of trouble with Alexander's unexpected arrival and the subsequent urgency to stop Vigo before people get hurt, you'll still think she's the luckiest girl for having her favourite character somehow escape the pages and actually be a real person. Alexander was rather sweet for a vampire hunter with his old-fashioned, chivalrous ways and I laughed out loud to his reactions when seeing modern technology for the first time.
Surprisingly, I didn't really fear Vigo too much. I think this had more to do with the fact that there was a lot of telling in the book, rather than showing... if you know what I mean. We're told that he's a really evil person, but he didn't cause as much trouble as I would have liked and the severity of it was too low for me to really panic about the situation as much as Amy and Alexander were in the book. Instead, the character I most hated was Amy's younger sister, Chrissy, because of her annoying attitude and the poor choices of judgement she made while Amy could still easily forgive her as though nothing was wrong.
Although the cover for the novel is really dark, its contents are actually rather light. The solutions to the roadblocks that stumped Amy and Alexander were rather simple and convenient when I wanted more suspense and challenge, but on the other hand, it did keep the pacing for the novel fast. I liked learning about the explanation Van Diepen had created to justify how Alexander and Vigo could be real people instead of fictional ones. I thought it was rather creative and she somehow made the theory seem plausible!
The Vampire Stalker was a fast-paced, entertaining read with the pages easily flying by in no time at all! The novel may have had its faults but I did see Allison Van Diepen's second foray into the supernatural genre as an improvement over Raven, which I'm glad to say. I may have been left with mixed feelings after reading The Vampire Stalker, but overall, it was a satisfying and enjoyable novel.
