Peeps ~ Scott Westerfeld (Peeps #1)
★★★☆☆
This is sort of hard to review.
On one hand, I read it in basically one sitting, but it is fairly short so that doesn't mean much. I liked the mystery element, but found the actual ending to be... stupid? Like, Extras ending level of stupid ~it was all just a misunderstanding!~ kind of stupid that frankly pisses me off.
The world was pretty cool (until the literal big reveal) and idk something about Cal just screamed "I'M A SELF INSERT CHARACTER FOR SCOTT WESTERFELD" I mean, they're both Texans in New York, they're both boys for one thing, and I've never met Scott Westerfeld, but I've read a crap ton of his books, and after a while, the author's personality bleeds through. Cal's a self insert character if I ever read one, and that's pretty disappointing because I wanted more normal guys as YA protagonists. Also, he was half assertive cool guy, half nerdy loser, and that's an annoying combination. Lace was really annoying and didn't feel like a person. No one felt like a person in this except for Manny, the lobby guy. And he showed up only three times for the best cameos in the book.
Also, like, half this book was just Cal narrating a nonfiction book on parasites. That's not necessarily a bad thing (I personally kind of liked it) and it did actually sort of connect with the plot and was a clever way to do worldbuilding, but like...it started to feel a bit like a BuzzFeed list: "10 Freaky Parasites You'll Never Guess Are In Your Body!"
Also, the ending kind of just showed up and felt extremely unresolved and unearned. There's a sequel, but I'm probably not going to read it. They really should have been just one book.
It should have been an adult book, not YA. The thing that initially drew me to this was the premise of "sex addicted guy finds out he's a carrier of a vampire STD and has to hunt down all his past flings because they're all zombies now" but it played out more like "awkward 19 year old has to file a lot of paperwork and meet with his creepy, borderline pedophilic therapist after going and sedating one of his past girlfriends (because the rest were caught before the book began) and avoid making out with a girl who keeps following him around". If it had been adult, it could have actually delivered on the premise promised.
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