*Real life intervened last week so you’re getting a triple play of L.J. this week instead of a double. Enjoy!*
“It was on the first day of summer vacation that Poppy found out she was going to die.”
Doesn’t that just go straight for the gut? Secret Vampire, the first book in L.J. Smith’s Night World series, is about a teenager who discovers she’s going to spend her summer vacation in extraordinary pain as pancreatic cancer kills her.
Disclosure- My mother died of cancer when I was 9, so this book had a special ring to it for me. It was the first book I read facing the C-word since I’d been through it myself, and reading Secret Vampire let me admit that ever since then I was scared what happened to her (and Poppy) would happen to me.
To top it off, Poppy is such a vibrant, cheerful character. It’s hard to read this book and know she’s going to die. And all she wants to do is enjoy her summer with the boy she secretly loves, and maybe actually tell him this time.
But James has a secret all his own. He’s a vampire, and while he loves Poppy he’s not allowed to because it will get them both killed.
“Until today she’d assumed it was her unconditional right to live. She hadn’t even been grateful for the privilege. But now she knew it wasn’t something to take for granted–and she also knew it was something she’d fight for.”
“You don’t love a girl because of beauty. You love her because she sings a song only you can understand.”
Ah, it’s a heart breaker!
Secret Vampire, despite being a story about a vampire and a dying girl, is a hopeful story. Readers get to learn about Smith’s Night World, which in many ways is worse than ours. (You’d think being a witch, or a shapeshifter or a vampire would be awesome, but instead the Night World is an oppressive, patriarchal society where you can’t escape your elders because they can live forever.) They spend a lot of time hoping Poppy survives in some way, James admits he loves her and the Night World sees the value of their love.
At the end of the book you can’t help identifying with Poppy and James as they both set out into the very real, very dangerous world with only each other, which is how a lot of teens begin to feel as they hit the end of high school. The end of the world as you’ve known it for your whole life is coming and you don’t feel ready for what’s after.
Here’s the truth: You don’t stop feeling that way as an adult either.