This review won't be pretty, and it will contain spoilers. You've been warned.

First, okay, let's start with the obvious one: Hacky-Sack-Zack. He's been dead since he was like 8 years old, lived in a mental institution for almost that long, survives on drinking "strawberry milkshakes," and breaks out in spots if sunlight reflects off of linoleum and bounces in his general vicinity. He reads books and watches TV for a living. His "best" friend visits him at night, because that's when he's active; Hacky can only walk around the institution at night, and spends every day shut up in his room with the curtains drawn.

*sigh* Okay. So, this guy lives close to a decade of his life DEAD, growing up the entire time (although he'll probably conveniently stop aging soon), and never notices that HE DOESN'T HAVE A HEARTBEAT. Never, not once, honestly. He thinks he's alive. He has his own personal nurse who comes in at night and whips him up strawberry milkshakes to drink, because anything else makes him sick. She isn't. Has he ever tried a strawberry? Smelled a strawberry air-freshener, perfume, soap--anything--and decided that it didn't smell like blood? No. He's "allergic" to sunlight, and with all of the TV and books he comes across, he doesn't put that with the strawberry milkshakes and missing pulse and maybe think it's a bit odd?

Oh, no. Hacky doesn't notice things like that.

Throughout this book, all the character does is go someplace, whine about his life, and wait for the cops to show up. Then he runs someplace else, and the cycle repeats. In the middle of this you get excruciating details about his love interest, with whom he has shared a handful of moony glances and a handful of words. Her name is Luna.

Let me explain something: Vlad the Impaler is the villain for this book. Again. (I swear, if he comes back one more time..... why do vampire villains always have to be Vlad or Dracula? Why can't they be someone original?) Near the end of the book, he captures Hacky's girlfriend and Hacky's best friend, puts them in front of Hacky, and says that one of them will die, blah, blah, blah--it's one of those useless monologuing scenes that's so long and repetitive and obvious, Dr. Doom would cringe at it.

Long story short, Hacky chooses Lovely Little Luna over his best friend who has known him basically since birth. Hacky then proceeds to get into a catfight with Vlad that lasts about half an hour and took me about twice that long to plow through, while (in the book) the sun is coming up and pouring through some huge windows.

During this scene, Nurse Vampire - remember his personal nurse who only showed up at night? - appears on the scene, and we are told later that Charlie and Luna are both "infected" with the disease that stops your heart from beating: vampirism. And vampires apparently burst into flames in the sun, so we've got Hacky, Vlad, Nurse, Charlie and Luna, all vampires, all in the same room, while the sun is coming up.

NOBODY DIES. 

Hacky HIDES UNDER A DESK, which is apparently a safe spot, although earlier in the book bouncing sunlight fried his face. Vlad, of course, disappears mysteriously...and so on and so forth. But nobody's dead, and at the end Hacky and his crew all throw a cheerleader fit and share a group hug and exclaim, "We're all dead vampires now, yay!"

Also, at one point in the book Hacky runs straight out IN FULL DAYLIGHT with a tarp over his head, his fingers clamping the top of the tarp, and neither the direct nor the bouncing sunlight get to him. He then proceeds to get into a boat, and we all know what sunlight bouncing off of water can do, but....oh, no. Holding the tarp over himself like an inadequate umbrella is enough to keep off ALL sunlight.

Also, there is a repressed memory scene where Hacky gets bitten by a "dog" (vampire), and he is SEEING THE MEMORY FROM OUTSIDE HIS BODY. As in, he's watching himself get bitten. And does he think it's the least bit strange? Oh, no. Hacky doesn't think like that.

This book was boring and brainless. The humor was forced and cheap and felt like a bludgeon hanging over my head, ready to whack me again at the first opportunity and worsen my headache. The characters were flatter than the paper they were written on. The romance was insta-love personified. There was no motivation for anything or anyone to move forward in the directions that they did. The plot was pathetic and predictable to a point that it was almost, ALMOST funny. I could call what would happen eighty pages before it did, and I would be right EVERY TIME.

Ugh. I don't like hating books, but oh my gosh, this one was like swallowing sewage. I wish I'd never laid eyes on it; I read it a while ago, and I still feel dirty.