On the Radar: The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You

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By John A. Sellers -- Publishers Weekly, 3/26/2009

Are you nursing a pair of fang marks in your neck, but also a broken heart? Scholastic may have just the book for you, when it crashes The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You by Vlad Mezrich (if you need to be told it’s a pseudonym...) onto its fall list. “It’s a dating guide for dating the undead—forked tongue firmly in cheek—and to getting the vampire of your dreams,” says editor David Levithan, adding that the book's title came to him one evening while he was thinking about the current vampire publishing craze. “The title directed everything. Basically, we assembled a team of like-minded vampire-minded satirists—it was a team effort and a lot of fun.”

Levithan calls the speed at which the book came together “instant publishing at its finest.” The cover design, courtesy of Scholastic art director Tim Hall, was mocked up overnight and the text came together “in four weeks—realistically, in four weekends,” earlier this month. Scholastic turned to Quirk Packaging for the book’s interior design. The paperback original arrives in October and will feature activities, testimonials, top 10 lists and charts, as well as quizzes, which Levithan says are more Seventeen than Cosmopolitan. “It won’t be how to please your vampire in bed. It’ll be more like what do on a first date, and how to introduce him to your family and friends.”

The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You by Vlad Mezrich. Scholastic Paperbacks, $7.99; ISBN 978-0-545-20238-1