I was happy that a challenge got me to read this one b/c it's been on my TBR list for quite a while. It was different, so I gave it 3★, but story-wise it was about 2 - 2.5 for me. Interesting take on vampires, loved the gory details of all the different types of real parasites and the story was ... ok. The ending had a YA happy ending. Again, interesting, but not enough to make me hunt for book 2 right away. Definitely enough to make me consider Scott Westerfeld's other books though.