Hearts & Other Body Parts

Reviewed by: Brooke Faulkner - McArthur Public Library, Biddeford, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: October 10, 2017

Review

Placing Frankenstein's monster (or in this case, Frank N. Stein, who goes by his middle name, Norm) in a current high school sets the stage for this fantastical, campy tale, that also involves three witch sisters, Esme, Katy and Veronica, also students at Middleton High. When a handsome vampire transfer student named Zack Kallas arrives with his father, pitting the three sisters against one another and girls from the town begin to go missing, it's up to smart Esme, her talking cat, Kasha, and kind-hearted Norm to sort out the truth. A decidedly silly reworking, the clever details will be best appreciated by teens who've read Shelley's Frankenstein and Stoker's Dracula, but may not appeal widely and often get in the way of the storytelling, which suffers from slow pacing and underdeveloped characters.

Overall Book Score: poor