The Vampire Stalker

Van Diepen, Allison. (2011). The vampire stalker. Point/Scholastic. High school junior Amy Hawthorne is in love with Alexander Banks, a fictional vampire hunter from a series whose popularity rivals that of Harry Potter or the Twilight series. Rabid fans of the series wait in line at bookstores to get their hands on the second book in the series by Elizabeth Howard. Set in 1920s Chicago, the stories Amy relishes center around an Otherworld Chicago where vampire Vigo Skaar has settled, wreaking havoc on the city and preventing technological advances. Alexander Banks is the never-say-die hero who has dedicated his life to killing Vigo. If only the guys who attend her high school were more like the dashing Alexander, then Amy knows she could find someone to love. Unexpectedly, as she walks home from a school dance, she meets someone who looks like and claims to be Alexander. When he shows her scars that could only belong to Alexander, she realizes that somehow he has crossed into her Chicago from his Chicago--and Vigo is somewhere on the city's streets as well. Suddenly, Amy is living in her fantasy world rather than simply writing fan fiction about its characters.

Not surprisingly, Amy and Alexander become close, and she teaches him about the modern world while he continues to try to track down Vigo. But time is running out for them all since the portal through which they crossed from one world into another is about to close. While the personality changes in Amy seem somewhat unbelievable, and there is so much crossing of the portal from Chicago of the past to Chicago of the present that things are likely to become a bit crowded, this is a delightful send-up of authors of these sorts of books, popular book series, fan fiction, fanatic fans, vampires, popular culture, and the club scene. Some of the lines left me chortling in self-recognition. The astonishment expressed by the vampire series' author once she realizes that the world she thought she created actually exists is palpable.

Favorite Lines:

"The thought of being jealous of a character in a book was silly, but I couldn't help it" (p. 4).

"When a person knows they've hurt you, they have trouble looking you in the eye" (p. 205).