New York City may be falling apart around them, but Moz, Pearl, and Zahler just want to form a band. Despite clear evidence that there are strange and ominous forces at work, from the black ooze creeping down streets to scores of people going crazy, the teenagers are determined to make cutting-edge, hard-core music that matters. Things fall into place musically when Alana Ray joins them as drummer, and Pearl’s friend Minerva adds her haunting, anguished vocals to the mix. But everything still feels fragile and explosive. Scott Westerfeld weaves together the voices of five teens living on the edge of a dark and dangerous shift of power in an engrossing novel that continues the story he began in Peeps (Razorbill, 2005), when the parasitic disease that causes vampirism began to mutate. Cal, the main character in Peeps, is secondary to this story, which has less laugh-out-loud humor (although there are funny moments throughout), and more gripping tension as it follows the lives and passions of the five distinctive teenagers whose music, it turns out, may hold the key to salvation. (Age 14 and older)