Peeps

Up next, was PEEPS by Scott Westerfeld (Penguin Group, c2005, ISBN 1-595-14083-2). Yeah, I know...I was on a vampire kick this month.

First of all, you need to know that PEEP stands for Parasite-positive, or short for vampire, more or less. Set in New York City, Cal Thompson is a carrier and he shares several characteristics with the Peeps although he's not a full blown Peep. He works with a group called Night Watch that works at keeping the Peeps under control and to aid in keeping normal humans safe and he has been trying to track down the women he infected with the parasite via sexual contact to get them the help that they need. When he meets Lacy, or Lace for short, he gets a bead on the woman, Morgan, who infected him and the two of them set out to track his progenitor down.

The story begins:

After a year of hunting, I finally caught up with Sarah.

I'm a big fan of Westerfeld and I'm working my way through all of his books. I'm not huge into science fiction and fantasy type material but Westerfeld has played a big part in my changing opinion of this type of book. I like that the books he writes are for the young adult crowd so my head isn't swimming with words and concepts that are too hard for me to follow or believe. His has the right consistency and I've enjoyed eating his books up!

If you read this book, be prepared! The even chapters are filled with information about real parasites and let me tell you, some of them are positively "icky". (How's that for an adult word?!?)