Suck It Up by Brian Meehl

Meehl, Brian. Suck It Up, 318 pgs. Delacorte Press (Random House), 2008.
Rating : PG (5 swears, no f- words, sexual innuendos, some supernatural violence)
In an age when new vampires are always beautiful twenty-somethings, Morning McCobb is different. He's scawny, only sixteen, and has never tasted blood. He has spent the last year, since changing, at the International Vampire League, where vampires learn to control their thirst for human blood, develop their CD (cell-differentiation) skills, and prepare to lead a life of obscurity among humans. On graduation day, the league's president Luther Birnam, invites Morning to be the first vampire to show himself to humans. Morning realizes that this may be a way to pursue his childhood dream of being a superhero or a firefighter, instead of just fading away. The road to full media exposure, however, is full of pot holes. Not only is his publicist's daughter bringing out the previously latent bloodlust in him, he is being pursued by Ikor DeThanatos, the only vampire who did not sign the treaty at the end of World War V between leaguers and the world's other vampires known as loners. Morning is not so sure about his suitability for this role, but Luther Birnam unwaveringly pursues his dream of a Worldwide Out Day regardless of what may need to be swept under the rug.

This is a funny story, with tongue-in-cheek parodies about teenage angst, physical attraction, and the vampire genre. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
MS - ESSENTIAL. Reviewed by P.K. Foster, MS teacher-librarian.