THICKER THAN WATER

Kia’s life is not a fairy tale. A high-school art student, she spends most of her time at her mother’s side, watching her fade away with cancer. Forced to move in with her single father, Kia finds he’s more involved with his work than interested in what’s happening in his daughter’s life. When depression threatens to overwhelm her, she slices thin cuts into her arms, letting her rage flow out with her blood. She knows this isn’t healthy, but is so ashamed that she cannot even share it with her best friends, adding to her isolation—until she drifts into an underground society of goths posing as vampires. Finally, she’s with people who accept her as she is, people with whom she can blossom into someone new and glamorous. Most exciting of all is the handsome and mysterious DJ Damon, whose sensual persona awakens feelings and concepts that are life-altering. Are vampires real? Is Damon one of them? Will he make her one, so that she can offer her ailing mother a new life? Under all this, Jablonski deals with serious issues, including the search for reality, awakening sexuality and how teenagers’ perceptions of those around them impact their life choices. (Fiction. YA)