Kirsty Eagar is such a fantastic writer. She sketches characters so clearly that even though you're introduced to so many at once, there isn't that "Who is he/she again?" moment of confusion where you have to flip back through the book. Her characters in this book actually reminded me a bit of Ellie, Lee, Homer, etc from John Marsden's Tomorrow When the War Began series, which I loved. Having said that, I wish the vampire element was removed from this story because that was the weakest part. If I could ban one word from all novels published henceforth, it would be "thirst." At this point, what hasn't been written about vampires? We even have sparkly (non-)fucking vampires for crying out loud. Unsurprisingly, the vampire sections of the book felt like retread and dragged the story down and away from what I would've rather read more about -- the relationships between Jamie/Dale, Jamie/Kelly, Jamie/Talia/Tanner, and Willem/teachers.