Night Road

Reviewed by Lynn Crow for TeensReadToo.com

Cole isn't quite like most hemes--as in hemovore, one who devours blood. The soft life of those living in The Building in New York City, with willing omnis offering their blood in exchange for the high feeding gives them, makes him uneasy. But he's drawn from his solitary lifestyle when the leader of the hemes asks him for a favor. Cole's friend, Sandor, has accidentally created a new heme, and it's up to him and Cole to teach Gordon about the "disease" he must now live with: how to feed, how to avoid detection, and how to control the mind-warping Thirst.

Cole, Sandor, and Gordon set off on a cross-country road trip, easing Gordon into his new life along the way. As Cole overcomes his frustration show more with Gordon and starts to feel sympathy for him, a long-buried guilt from his past starts to rise to the surface. When the trio encounters a stray heme with murderous tendencies, and Gordon goes on a hunger strike in an attempt to refuse accepting his condition, Cole finds himself questioning everything he thought he believed about himself and about what it means to stay human.

NIGHT ROAD is a dark, thoughtful novel that will draw readers into its mysterious and often dangerous world. Its take on the vampire mythology is fresh and layered. Despite his predatory nature, Cole is both easy to relate to and likable in his doubts, his respect for the omni humans on which he feeds, and his attempts to do right by those around him without risking too much of himself in the process.

Jenkins doesn't shy away from tough issues, like what might happen to hemes when they appear to be dead, whether they have souls, and how someone doomed to forever watch life passing in and out of existence around them can keep some semblance of humanity. The characters and ideas will stick with readers long after they've set down the book. Highly recommended, even for those who think they couldn't bear to read one more "vampire" book. show less

Not your typical teen vampire novel, The Night Road is a pretty quiet book. No love triangles or violent battles here; instead we're pretty much inside the main character's head the whole time. The book is more about his internal struggles than anything else. In fact, so little happened that I might have quit reading if the originality of the story and the characters (especially Sandor) hadn't kept my interest.

Liked it-didn't love it, but I'd probably read something else by this author.

Cole is a “heme,” a vampire, living in a Colony of other hemes in a world full of “omnis,” or regular human beings. They congregate in a nest called the Building, which is located in New York City, and while most of them may be over a hundred years old, they were turned as teenagers. Thus Jenkins plays on the recent fascination with vampires by turning vampires into teenagers and giving them the same struggles. Cole is called upon to mentor, if you will, a newly turned vampire named Gordon; in the process, Cole is required to reflect and examine his own life. I found Jenkins book and tropes to be tiresome and poorly written; it was very difficult for me to care about the characters and I felt them to be very superficial. When I show more looked online to see other reviews, I noticed the book had five reviews on Amazon, all positive, which surprised me. I would not recommend this book to children as I feel the writing and characterization is quite weak. For instance, in the beginning of the book, Jenkins emphasizes that Sandor is responsible for Gordon at least five times. It became repetitive, tiresome, and plain insulting after the third time.

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Some quotes:

“Cole did not like open feeding; he was out of the habit, and it made him uncomfortable. But he always took a feed when it was available—that was only wise, to keep desire from taking recognizable form so that it would never, ever turn into need” (12).

“’Our bodies heal…Our minds don’t. And in sun, your mind goes too, before the end…But even when it’s all gone, when all that’s left of you is just a heap of charred bone and tattered flesh, you’re still alive’” (45).

“The first time he’d felt the Thirst—he remembered that better than anything. Not an emotion, not hunger, not sexual need, but all three wrapped into one. Thirst was an ever-expanding hole” (168). show less

A.M. Jenkins has created an interesting, contemporary take on the "vampire" legend. "Hemes" as they prefer to call themselves (short for hemophores, living solely off of blood) do not kill to slake their thirst, but merely feed off of unsuspecting humans. Feeding to the death is greatly discouraged in the heme community, because if hemes do so, the freshly killed human then becomes a hemovore. The art of just how to feed off of someone without their knowledge is one of the many survival skills that Cole must teach to Gordon, since Gordon is having a hard time adapting to his life after being accidentally created.

This book was engaging and explored some ethical questions that reach beyond the supernatural world. My only quibble was that show more much was unresolved at the end (perhaps leaving room for a sequel or two...). Although the book is 361 pages long, it was a very fast read. show less

Cole is a heme - short for hemovore - who lives by a very strict set of rules. The hemes are immortal and unchanging, but it is only in the last few centuries that the American hemovores have formed a community, and have created an insular society. Hemes either live in this community, or as eternal wanderers, forever moving from place to place. The organizer of heme society, Johnny, has asked Cole to take the newest heme, a young man named Gordon, out on the road. Cole will teach Gordon the methods the hemes use to survive and remain unnoticed, along with the more congenial Sandor. However, Gordon is not ready to leave behind his human life, and his intransience, and a stray hemovore, create a dangerous situation for the contained and show more controlled Cole.

There are definitely things to like about this book. It has a remarkably unromantic view of vampires and their eternal life. The organization of a society full of unchanging and immutable super-beings has potential too. However, this book falls short in the character department -- Cole has a stake up his butt, Gordon is a whiny little brat. The most interesting chararcter is Sandor, and he is kept eternally in the background. Also, the plot felt a little weak -- the idea that someone as careful and contained as Cole could be surprised by a nutjob sort of fell flat for me. People looking for a vampire book where the vampires aren't glittery and schmoopy could do far worse than this book, but it's not my favorite. show less

Starts out like your typical "nice-vampires-who-don't-kill-humans" story, but develops into a deeper look at the life of one particular vampire. His struggles, his pain at seeing the humans he loves die, while he never ages, and how he deals with all of this. A good and more serious look at the vampire's perspective.

Cole and Sander, old hemovores (the word "vampire" has so many negative stereotypes associated with it) take Sander's "Accident", Gordon, on a road trip to teach him how to survive among the omnivores. Along the way Cole has to face past guilt from both his pioneer childhood and his one attempt to make a hemovore companion for himself. More of a road trip/coming of age/finding a male role model book than a vampire novel, it is still a good read.