Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign

Gr 7 Up—A mysterious virus kills adults but spares children, causing human society to collapse. Unfortunately, this makes way for vampires to take over, enslaving the human children and bringing them down to an underground city. Yuichiro is a single-minded protagonist, a boy who yearns to destroy the vampire overlords, but who lacks a plan to achieve that goal. His friend Mikaela acts as though he is a willing victim, but he uses his time with powerful vampire Lord Ferid to get information that will help Yuichiro escape the city and ultimately discover that there is still life in the human world after all. This story is filled with action and conflict, both physical and emotional. Readers looking for action will be thrilled by the vampire fight scenes, while readers looking for emotional conflict will be moved by Yuichiro's attempts to connect to his fellow humans. Yamamoto's black-and-white illustrations are eye-catching and powerful, capturing architectural details of crumbling cities, extreme close-ups of conflicted characters, explosions, and fight scenes with equal skill. By the end of this story, readers will be eager to get to the next titles in this series to find out what will happen to the human race and what role Yuichiro will play in the war to come.—Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library