Thicker than Water - Hardcover

Jablonski, Carla

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1595140239 ISBN 13: 9781595140234

Publisher: Razorbill, 2006

Synopsis

With her mother in the hospital and her father working all the time, seventeen-year-old Kia finds comfort in an unusual group of people who act like vampires at night in the dark clubs around town, yet when she meets Damon and begins to believe vampires may truly exist, Kia wonders if he is able to provide the solution that can alleviate all her problems.

About this title

About the Author

Carla Jablonski has written dozens of bestselling books for middle-grade and YA readers, including two Charmed books and was the author of the six-book series Books of Magic, adapted from Neil Gaiman's hit comics. She is also an actress, playwright, and trapeze artist.

Reviews

Grade 10 Up-Kia, a 17-year-old New York City teen, cut herself for years before she stopped. Now, with her mother ill with cancer for the second time, she has started again. She meets an older, goth girl at the hospital, who invites her to vampire night at a club in Brooklyn. She quickly alienates her two best friends, begins neglecting her schoolwork and her mother, and becomes obsessed with Damon, the older, seductive DJ and leader of the vampire scene, who has a taste for sadistic, kinky parties. Kia's descent into this world is a strong metaphor for her sense of alienation and her need to belong, but most of the story is told rather than shown, and the protagonist herself is often unlikable. Characters are flat, even Kia's best friends, who are merely sketched in, and dialogue is sometimes clunky. Strange occurrences make Kia (and readers) believe that Damon may be a real vampire, leading to the climax. The concept is tackled more effectively in Annette Curtis Klause's The Silver Kiss (Delacorte, 1990). The ending-therapy, reconciliation with her friends and her father, and possible acceptance of her mother's death-is too quick and easy for the lengthy buildup. While there is always an audience for vampire books, even if the vampires turn out to be fakes, teens will prefer Pete Hautman's Sweetblood (S & S, 2003), which covers similar territory.-Karyn N. Silverman, Elizabeth Irwin High School, New York City
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gr. 12+. When 17-year-old Kia discovers a network of Manhattanites who embrace their "shadow selves" as role-playing vampires, she thinks she has found a niche where her occasional self-mutilation might be acceptable, as well as a respite from grief at home. Despite concerned pals who see the detachable fang-wearing crowd as "freaks . . . working out some deep dark secret inner weirdness," Kia finds herself drawn to the elaborately staged parties (and to their alluring DJ), hardly noticing as the lines between reality and fantasy dangerously erode. Although Jablonski's storytelling prompts intriguing contemplation of the allure of rituals and cults, her interweaving of subplots feels strained, and her graphic descriptions of the vampires' sadomasochistic revels (notwithstanding Kia's position as observer rather than participant) may widen the eyes of some readers, even those accustomed to graphic YA fare. All the same, a huge population of older teens (and some twentysomethings), especially fans of Pete Hautman's Sweetblood (2003), will exult in the rococo tour of a bizarre subculture and respond to the questions Kia's intense experiences invite about the nature of true belonging. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Prologue

The feeling threatened to overwhelm her. That intense throbbing in her veins, the area midway up the arm where several tributaries branched off. Or came together; she wasn't sure. They vibrated; it was almost as if she could hear them hum. No she would resist, she wouldn't do it, not anymore.

The sensation stayed with her all afternoon. She went for a walk after school, hurtling past shops, trying to find something to look at, searching for distraction. She walked fast, then faster toward the brisk autumn sunset, trying to keep the sun up, dreading darkness.

At dinner she alternated between silence, so focused on hiding the yearning of her forearms, and talking too loudly, trying to drown out the sound of need. Her dad didn t notice. Just a mood, just her, just a teenage girl going through stuff.

They went their separate ways her father to watch a game on TV, she to her improvised room.

Homework loomed and beckoned her, but it was a false offer, a cover. She knew closing her door was dangerous; she did it anyway. Books pulled from her bag, notebooks opened, pen at the ready. She stared at the blue lines on the loose-leaf page. She shrugged, took in breath, stood up, turned on the TV, and still she could feel her veins filling, rushing, circulating.

She went into the bathroom and splashed water on her face, gazed into her hooded eyes in the mirror. What was it? Why the drive, the pull? Why tonight? Was there even a trigger anymore or was her body making demands all on its own?

She could hear music far away down on the street, out the bathroom window, and echoed in a counterpoint in the living room from her dad's TV. There was a tinny sound coming from her own television and then shouting when it changed to a commercial. What she heard more clearly was a pounding in her temples, an oceanic roar in her ears. Tense tense tense. She wanted to cry and couldn't no tears would come; she even tried to force them. She didn't know where this deep agitation came from, but she sure knew how to get rid of it.

She flipped open the medicine cabinet, erasing her reflection by leaving the cabinet open, the mirror facing the wall. She yanked out the razor, gripped the pink plastic disposable with her right hand, squatted on the floor, straightened out her left arm, and held it steady between her knees.

She still had a moment not to do it, but she couldn't come up with any reason not to. Her breathing became deeper but faster and she dragged the razor against her arm. She had to angle it so that the sharp edge could cut her skin, hampered by keeping the blade in the disposable razor. That was the promise she had made herself she would never use naked blades again. That promise she could keep. She plunged it against her skin over and over, not really seeing, just experiencing the welcome release, the rise of the blood filling the lines, the inside moving outside, the invisible being made visible; it was like magic. Come out come out wherever you are. First a thin white line, then the growing color marking the traces she'd made. Making it manifest. Present in the world. Ah, release. Then the final dispersing of energy so that she could stop. She was done.

She slumped against the bathtub, spent and satisfied. Her breathing came more regularly, less frantic, less labored. Good. That was good. But even as the word good entered her head, its opposite appeared. Shame crept into her and she flung the pink plastic tool skittering across the tile floor.

Edition details

• Publisher: Razorbill
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1595140239
• ISBN 13: 9781595140234
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256