REVIEW, Fat Vampire

    Prod dets

Fat Vampire: a never coming of age story

Series: --

Pub: 2010, Balzer + Bray (HarperCollins)

Author: Adam Rex

Genre: paranormal fiction

Format: paperback (mid); 324pp w/ 37 chapters

Age Range: YA

            Synopsis

DOUG LEE is undead quite by accident—attacked by a desperate vampire, he finds himself cursed with being fat and fifteen forever. When he has no luck finding some Goth chick with a vampire fetish, he resorts to sucking the blood of cows under cover of the night. But it’s just not the same.

Then he meets the new Indian exchange student and falls for her—hard. Yeah, he wants to bite her, but he also wants to prove himself to her. But like the laws of life, love, and high school, the laws of vampire existence are complicated—it’s not as easy as studying Dracula. Especially when the star of Vampire Hunters is hot on your trail in an attempt to boost ratings....

Searing, hilarious, and always unexpected, FAT VAMPIRE is a satirical tour de force from one of the most original writers of fiction today.

Excerpt

“Vampires don’t change, right? I’m never going to get any older, and I’ll always look like this. Short. Doughy. If I can’t lose weight on an all-blood diet—”

  “So is that why you wanted me to go outside with you? You were going to drink my blood?”

  Doug dropped his eyes, but then he was just staring at her bare belly. At the hypnotic whorl of her navel that would certainly bewitch him, make him stupid with want.

  “Only if you wanted me to,” said Doug. “I just would’ve showed you my fangs and then...maybe you’d be, you know...into it.”

  “Okay, time to go,” said a really tall guy who came out of nowhere. He grabbed Doug’s arm and escorted him, backward, stumbling, toward the door.

  “Don’t be too mean to him,” the girl called after them.

  Don’t be too mean to him, thought Doug. Not too mean. He was fifteen years old, he would always be fifteen years only, and it was possibly the nicest thing any girl would ever say about him.

            Thoughts

Okay..... *sigh* Okay.....

And this is after a few hours I’ve given myself to mull over what it was I want to say about this book.

I think the worst thing is that it wasn’t good, and yet it wasn’t bad. It sat so averagely in my mind that I don’t really know what to say.  

So.... it’s one of those books that didn’t really seem to have much to say. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be I just didn’t get it. I’m thinking this could be ‘cause I’m so old. Maybe the message was so subdue that you actually...

Who cares, really, who cares?? I know I don’t.

It’s about a kid who is...well....less than anything in life who ends up getting stuck at that point. It’s about him knowing that’s what life got for him. That nothing was going to get any better. I guess.

Him and his best mate Jay get into a lot of kinda funny situations because Doug needs blood.

And then there is this part, it’s about Sajal who has this problem of her own, and it’s actually pretty bad, I guess, only they brush over it slightly and, like, well, it’s all about her wanting to be a better person, and they tell us why, but....

There’s also a bit about a TV show that’s called Vampire Hunters and that’s okay. Actually that parts kinda funny.

All in all, the book is easy to read, it’s got bits you laugh at, though it’s not a funny book, really, I didn’t find it to be. There isn’t really anything deep in it, though I’m not sure if that’s meant to be true or not.

It’s just a little wishy washy when it came to the fact and what it was you were meant to have coming out of it.

It kinda felt like a contemp fiction novel that just happened to have vampire shit throughout it. And I loved that about the book, while I also found it kinda lame.

But like I said. I’m not; maybe that’s why I didn’t get it. Maybe it just isn’t meant to be got!!

The cover is really cool, though.

Oh, just thought of one of the things I really liked about the book.

Doug’s voice.

It’s so good, I like that awkwardness that isn’t really awkward, just a kid being himself when he knows no one likes him for something he can’t help. Like really....how can he change genetics?! I thought that was really nicely done, along with Jay who is....I don’t know, a straight laced geek. But those two characters in this book are awesome and it’s because of them, and how they are, what happens between them, sorta, that makes me really like the book.

Others

The true Meaning of Smekday,

☼☼☼