Dead High YearbookIvan Velez
When I got a glimpse at this at ALA, I was really excited. The production value looked really nice, great colors, and a terrific textured cover. Plus, it was a horror graphic novel involving vampires and zombies! How could you go wrong?
Well, now that I have had a chance to read it, I have to say I was pretty disappointed. The main theme of this book seemed to be pointless violence. The characters were generally unsympathetic. The plots didn't make sense, other than compelling towards a gory ending. I've debated if I should just do positive reviews on this blog, and this is the book that made me decide anything I have strong enough feelings about should be featured. This book makes me feel strongly disappointed...it could have been so much better. Even if it had just stuck to a yearbook format, that would have been cooler. But it really didn't play that up much at all, just used it as the loosest of frames. Bleh. For teens who love violent gory horror films, maybe.