hybrid

Hybrid tells of 16-year-old Emily "Dallas" Reed, who's family relocated from Texas to West Virginia after the murder of its youngest member, a 4-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome. Though nervous about attending a new school, Dallas makes friends quickly and even scores a dreamy boyfriend. She's a likable lead, more confident of her good looks, in a non-manipulative, non-obsessive way, than is typical in the teen television and books I've been exposed to. The plot could move along a little more quickly perhaps, but this is the first book in a series, so an excess of exposition is not unreasonable. She doesn't give too much away, so you are left curious about what will happen as the series develops. I like that Reed is unafraid to develop her own vampire lore, how they live, die, and live again, what their powers and vulnerabilities are and all that. She should also be commended for creating a complicated bad boy whose fuckability leaps off the page. Not that our heroine is necessarily going there yet, but you can bet she's thinking about it.