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Help! I'm Trapped...
Help! I'm Trapped in a Vampire's Body
At first it seems that there will be no bad effects when the intelligence transfer equipment malfunctions near Vlad, the night-shift custodian, until the night of Jake's Halloween party, when Jake turns into a vampire.
144 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2000
7 people are currently reading
91 people want to read
About the author
Todd Strasser
216 books786 followersTodd Strasser is an American author of more than 130 novels for adults, young-adults, and middle graders.
His most recent novel is Summer of '69
Booklist review: "Drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll, those hallmarks of the summer of 1969, are all here, but there's so much more. In this loosely autobiographical novel, Strasser introduces 18-year-old Lucas, who is bright and sensitive but also a screw up…. The picture painted of the Woodstock music festival shows the dark side of peace and love, and the prevalence of drugs is on almost every page…The best part of the book, however, is the one that transcends eras: Lucas' introspection as he contemplates his place in the world."
Kirkus review: "Strasser perfectly captures the golden haze of youth and life on the cusp of adulthood. Readers fascinated with this time period will find much to enjoy... Vietnam, Woodstock, road trips, and acid trips: a sweetly bittersweet, surprising, even melancholy bildungsroman set against a world in flux. Groovy, man."
His most recent young adult novel is Price of Duty:
2018 New York Public Library Best Book for Teens
“Compact and suspenseful, the novel raises important questions about war.” – Kirkus
“This thought-provoking book is both welcome and imperative.” – Booklist * (starred review).
"Rather than attempting to sway the reader, it offers awareness." - VOYA
“Tightly wound and compelling ... appropriate for an older middle school and high school audience. VERDICT: Highly recommended.” – School Library Journal
Bio: Todd was born in New York City. When he was young his parents moved to Roslyn Heights, New York (Long Island). Todd went to the I.U. Willets Elementary school and then attended the Wheatley School for junior high and high school. His best subjects were math and science. He also liked to read, but he had trouble with spelling and grammar, and didn't do well in English. His favorite sports were tennis, skiing and fishing. Todd went to college at New York University for a few years, and then dropped out. He lived on a commune, then lived in Europe where he was a street musician.
All the while, Todd wrote songs and poems and lots of letters to his friends back home. Finally he decided to try being a writer. He returned to the United States and went to Beloit College where he studied literature and writing.
After college, Todd worked at the Middletown Times Herald-Record newspaper in Middletown, New York, and later at Compton Advertising in New York City. In 1978, Todd sold his first novel, Angel Dust Blues. He used the money to start the Dr. Wing Tip Shoo fortune cookie company. For the next 12 years, Todd sold more fortune cookies than books.
Todd now divides his time between writing books and speaking at schools and conferences. When he's at home, he likes to spend time with his children and dog, Cooper. He still likes to play tennis and ski, but his favorite new sport is surfing.
His most recent novel is Summer of '69
Booklist review: "Drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll, those hallmarks of the summer of 1969, are all here, but there's so much more. In this loosely autobiographical novel, Strasser introduces 18-year-old Lucas, who is bright and sensitive but also a screw up…. The picture painted of the Woodstock music festival shows the dark side of peace and love, and the prevalence of drugs is on almost every page…The best part of the book, however, is the one that transcends eras: Lucas' introspection as he contemplates his place in the world."
Kirkus review: "Strasser perfectly captures the golden haze of youth and life on the cusp of adulthood. Readers fascinated with this time period will find much to enjoy... Vietnam, Woodstock, road trips, and acid trips: a sweetly bittersweet, surprising, even melancholy bildungsroman set against a world in flux. Groovy, man."
His most recent young adult novel is Price of Duty:
2018 New York Public Library Best Book for Teens
“Compact and suspenseful, the novel raises important questions about war.” – Kirkus
“This thought-provoking book is both welcome and imperative.” – Booklist * (starred review).
"Rather than attempting to sway the reader, it offers awareness." - VOYA
“Tightly wound and compelling ... appropriate for an older middle school and high school audience. VERDICT: Highly recommended.” – School Library Journal
Bio: Todd was born in New York City. When he was young his parents moved to Roslyn Heights, New York (Long Island). Todd went to the I.U. Willets Elementary school and then attended the Wheatley School for junior high and high school. His best subjects were math and science. He also liked to read, but he had trouble with spelling and grammar, and didn't do well in English. His favorite sports were tennis, skiing and fishing. Todd went to college at New York University for a few years, and then dropped out. He lived on a commune, then lived in Europe where he was a street musician.
All the while, Todd wrote songs and poems and lots of letters to his friends back home. Finally he decided to try being a writer. He returned to the United States and went to Beloit College where he studied literature and writing.
After college, Todd worked at the Middletown Times Herald-Record newspaper in Middletown, New York, and later at Compton Advertising in New York City. In 1978, Todd sold his first novel, Angel Dust Blues. He used the money to start the Dr. Wing Tip Shoo fortune cookie company. For the next 12 years, Todd sold more fortune cookies than books.
Todd now divides his time between writing books and speaking at schools and conferences. When he's at home, he likes to spend time with his children and dog, Cooper. He still likes to play tennis and ski, but his favorite new sport is surfing.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 11, 2021
We're going in a different direction with this one. You'll recall I covered one book from this series a bit ago. While doing research on the series for that, I discovered it happened to have a Halloween one and I couldn't resist slipping in here. It'd be a nice break from all the kid/teen friendly horror I usually cover anyway, like like the one I reviewed was. I hadn't read this one and thought it'd be fun to look at one I had no nostalgic attachment to.
The result was...lesser than First day of school. I'd rate it Decent as eventually it settled in and I started to enjoy it, but I can tell the series can only do so much when it doesn't have character development to fall back on. Then again, this was the next to last one, so I suppose diminishing returns happened.
In this one, Jake's parents go out on Halloween, leaving him and Jessica on their own as they feel their ready for it. Jake's first thought is to throw a Halloween party, but at least try to keep it small and make sure the invited kids only tell certain people. This is mostly to stop party crashers such as local bully Barry Dunn.
Eventually, they discover the school has a night janitor named Vlad, who's creepy and pale. Later, Vlad is cleaning Mr. Dirsken's room and water gets on a seemingly broken DITS (the machine used for the body swaping). You'd expect thi9s is where Jake and Vlad switch bodies, as they discover Vlad is indeed a vampire.
Kind of. Instead, they don't switch bodies and switch...natures, as Jake and Vlad keep their bodies but now Jake is a vampire and Vlad is not. Yeah, they switch up the formula although it's weird how this can happen.
Anyway, this doesn't happen until a bit over halfway through. Although there does end up enough time to play around with Vampire Jake. It's still annoying it takes a while though. For the first quarter or so, i wasn't feeling this.
Mostly because Jake and his friends are more dick-ish. Not horribly so all the time (and the friends are a bit worse I guess), but there's this whole thing with them dunking on this girl Amanda just cuz she's nerdy I think? There's this whole situation regarding a cow that isn't very funny. Without focusing on an arc, this is able to lean more into hit or miss humor. It's more for kids which is fine, just means there's not as much for adults to get out of it.
That stuff is lessened later on, and we have one nice bit with Jessica. Despite some things he may say about her, they have an amusing back and forth, and he does help her at one point when the bully shows up. The story is constructed alright with setup and payoff, including that cow thing. At least it actually lead somewhere, and it works into the solution.
At first it annoyed me that it wasn't quite a body swap, but I appreciate them trying to mix up the formula at least. It picks up when it happens, as there's fun to be had with Jake being a vampire, and there's even some action during the party as the bully crashes it. I wish we had more time with Vlad though, I like how they handled him as it's another change to the formula but we don't get to know him that well, which is a bit of a shame.
The Halloween factor isn't super strong, most of it as at the party and as I've noticed, parties don't make things feel that Halloween-y unless you put more into it. It makes for okay set dressing though.
In the end, there was enough fun to be had once things picked up. It was a quick read that was written in a way that made it easy to get through and despite taking a bit to get into the vampire stuff, it felt like enough was happening. It just gets bogged down in other stuff and humor that just wasn't that funny, and the characters were lesser here.
I did like the callbacks though, Ollie gets a mention but sadly doesn't properly appear. Speaking of that book, Amber is here and she and Jake have a thing at the party, so he;s still interested in here if you care about that thread.
It's fine, just fairly flawed and not as fun as I expected out of the concept. I may re-visit more someday but I'll perhaps stick to ones where I can fall back on nostalgia. Ah well. Next time, hopefully, we go back to Monsterstreet.
SIDE NOTES:
There's a Far Side name drop. Didn't expect that.
Despite not being the usual full on horror stuff, this still has a twist ending of sorts, go figure.
The result was...lesser than First day of school. I'd rate it Decent as eventually it settled in and I started to enjoy it, but I can tell the series can only do so much when it doesn't have character development to fall back on. Then again, this was the next to last one, so I suppose diminishing returns happened.
In this one, Jake's parents go out on Halloween, leaving him and Jessica on their own as they feel their ready for it. Jake's first thought is to throw a Halloween party, but at least try to keep it small and make sure the invited kids only tell certain people. This is mostly to stop party crashers such as local bully Barry Dunn.
Eventually, they discover the school has a night janitor named Vlad, who's creepy and pale. Later, Vlad is cleaning Mr. Dirsken's room and water gets on a seemingly broken DITS (the machine used for the body swaping). You'd expect thi9s is where Jake and Vlad switch bodies, as they discover Vlad is indeed a vampire.
Kind of. Instead, they don't switch bodies and switch...natures, as Jake and Vlad keep their bodies but now Jake is a vampire and Vlad is not. Yeah, they switch up the formula although it's weird how this can happen.
Anyway, this doesn't happen until a bit over halfway through. Although there does end up enough time to play around with Vampire Jake. It's still annoying it takes a while though. For the first quarter or so, i wasn't feeling this.
Mostly because Jake and his friends are more dick-ish. Not horribly so all the time (and the friends are a bit worse I guess), but there's this whole thing with them dunking on this girl Amanda just cuz she's nerdy I think? There's this whole situation regarding a cow that isn't very funny. Without focusing on an arc, this is able to lean more into hit or miss humor. It's more for kids which is fine, just means there's not as much for adults to get out of it.
That stuff is lessened later on, and we have one nice bit with Jessica. Despite some things he may say about her, they have an amusing back and forth, and he does help her at one point when the bully shows up. The story is constructed alright with setup and payoff, including that cow thing. At least it actually lead somewhere, and it works into the solution.
At first it annoyed me that it wasn't quite a body swap, but I appreciate them trying to mix up the formula at least. It picks up when it happens, as there's fun to be had with Jake being a vampire, and there's even some action during the party as the bully crashes it. I wish we had more time with Vlad though, I like how they handled him as it's another change to the formula but we don't get to know him that well, which is a bit of a shame.
The Halloween factor isn't super strong, most of it as at the party and as I've noticed, parties don't make things feel that Halloween-y unless you put more into it. It makes for okay set dressing though.
In the end, there was enough fun to be had once things picked up. It was a quick read that was written in a way that made it easy to get through and despite taking a bit to get into the vampire stuff, it felt like enough was happening. It just gets bogged down in other stuff and humor that just wasn't that funny, and the characters were lesser here.
I did like the callbacks though, Ollie gets a mention but sadly doesn't properly appear. Speaking of that book, Amber is here and she and Jake have a thing at the party, so he;s still interested in here if you care about that thread.
It's fine, just fairly flawed and not as fun as I expected out of the concept. I may re-visit more someday but I'll perhaps stick to ones where I can fall back on nostalgia. Ah well. Next time, hopefully, we go back to Monsterstreet.
SIDE NOTES:
There's a Far Side name drop. Didn't expect that.
Despite not being the usual full on horror stuff, this still has a twist ending of sorts, go figure.
July 27, 2011
Entertaining book about body swaps with a halloween theme. Our oldest has discovered this series and is reading them avidly. I'm not sure if I can or will try to keep up with her, but I plan to read at least a few of these to get an idea of what they're like. Humorous, but they have some dialogue that's not all that appropriate. Interesting view of preteen relationships and how kids speak with one another at school.
Read
December 13, 2011(quoted from my 9 yr old son) "This book was crazy wicked awesome, I loved it. It couldn't get better."
August 9, 2020
I don’t know why I was expecting a slightly corny children’s version of “Quantum Leap” where a kid learns from having the experience of being someone else- because this didn’t even meet the low expectations I had for it.
The child characters in this story were dreadfully obnoxious- rude and ignorant even for youngsters- readily making fun of other kids they thought were “uncool” and deceiving adults. The main group of friends are also surprisingly callous, abandoning one of their group defenseless against the school bully, and often backing out of promises to help one another.
The actual “body swap” occurs three-quarters through the story (which is also the first mention of the machine that causes the swap). Although the title would lead one to believe otherwise, the main kid and the vampire do not swap bodies, but only the quality of being a vampire. Instead of using this situation as a way to discuss different perspectives or perhaps responsibility, self control, or consequences to the young hero, the author simply has the main character gad about with some new abilities (like the ability to change into a bat) and he quickly finds a solution to his new dietary needs by subverting them by drinking vegetable juice... which does not quite seem a well-thought out solution.
One thing the story did well was the vampire character, Vlad, being so excited to be free of being a vampire, and the humor in his immediately trying to sunbathe in a lawn chair even though it was in the middle of fall. The character could have had some more development though, and the cliche accent was quite irritating.
The ending, which I will not reveal here, is not a solution brought about by thought and struggle, but a cheap fix which the children enact thoughtlessly and hastily. None of the characters had any concept of the consequences of their solution, nor did any learn from the experience.
I guess I’m just overwhelmingly disappointed. I was expecting too much, I suppose, from this little children’s paperback with a corny cover- but to be fair, I wasn’t actually expecting a lot.
The child characters in this story were dreadfully obnoxious- rude and ignorant even for youngsters- readily making fun of other kids they thought were “uncool” and deceiving adults. The main group of friends are also surprisingly callous, abandoning one of their group defenseless against the school bully, and often backing out of promises to help one another.
The actual “body swap” occurs three-quarters through the story (which is also the first mention of the machine that causes the swap). Although the title would lead one to believe otherwise, the main kid and the vampire do not swap bodies, but only the quality of being a vampire. Instead of using this situation as a way to discuss different perspectives or perhaps responsibility, self control, or consequences to the young hero, the author simply has the main character gad about with some new abilities (like the ability to change into a bat) and he quickly finds a solution to his new dietary needs by subverting them by drinking vegetable juice... which does not quite seem a well-thought out solution.
One thing the story did well was the vampire character, Vlad, being so excited to be free of being a vampire, and the humor in his immediately trying to sunbathe in a lawn chair even though it was in the middle of fall. The character could have had some more development though, and the cliche accent was quite irritating.
The ending, which I will not reveal here, is not a solution brought about by thought and struggle, but a cheap fix which the children enact thoughtlessly and hastily. None of the characters had any concept of the consequences of their solution, nor did any learn from the experience.
I guess I’m just overwhelmingly disappointed. I was expecting too much, I suppose, from this little children’s paperback with a corny cover- but to be fair, I wasn’t actually expecting a lot.
May 19, 2023
Not much about the actual vampire. Mostly focused on throwing a Halloween party.
September 19, 2012
This book is AWSOME
February 21, 2015
kinda weird
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews