Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Book Publish Date: October 4, 2022, Pre-Order Here
When Life Gives You Vampires was a paranormal rom com that I was looking forward to reading to start off the fall season for me. It kind of fell a little for me in the end even though it started out strong.
Lately I have been picking up or drawn to rom coms that has a fantasy element to it. Fantasy and romance are my two favorite genres, so I find that I tend to enjoy these more often.
There are good and bad things I liked about When Life Gives You Vampires. I will warn you, possible SPOILERS ahead.
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Format: EBook
Pages: 320
Genre: Paranormal Romance
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Lily one day woke up one morning half naked and craving blood. Not sure why or even how she ended up in this state, she couldn’t remember what happened the night before.
She rushes to her best friend’s place and that is when it all comes rushing back to her. Her night where a vampire tried drinking from her and then accidentally turned her into a vampire.
Being forever undead could have its perks. But Lily realized that the one thing she can’t undo and has always struggled with was her size. She will forever be plus size as an immortal vampire.
Lily always struggled with her weight by going on crash diets, being pressured by her mother to lose weight and consistently bringing herself down. So, you see the journey Lily goes through to accept her body as it is forever.
Then there is Tristin, the vampire that accidentally turned her. The thing is, in the vampire world, that was actually considered illegally turning her and now they must pay the consequences. They both must be put to death by the grand master vampire.
So, Tristin and Lily must hatch a plan to save them both from that fate. Along the way the attractions grow, and they end up developing feelings for each other.
What I liked:
I loved how there were issues addressed on body positivity and Lily’s attitude that seems to do more harm than good. Her attitude towards herself and focusing so much on what other people thought of her really held her back from enjoying life.
I really liked how there is a slayer introduced and how they come to be in the world.
I love her relationship with her best friend Cat who was willing to stick it through thick and thin for her.
**SPOILERS**
What I didn’t like:
The pacing of the story was really off in this story. There would be a buildup of action and then it flat lines into nothing.
The chemistry wasn’t really there for me between Tristin and Lily. Lily spent a lot of time being mad at Tristin and cursing him out. Then when she needed to drink blood, BAM now I like you.
Gideon, the bad guy, felt absent in the story even though he was sending her death threats. There was no build of character for the villain. You finally meet the guy for a few pages, then it is over. You find out at the end why this guy hated Tristin so much at the end, but I felt that it would have been better placed in a different part of the story.
The ending. Lily’s mom with no question now accepts her size and her being a vampire. Kind of says I love you; this is who your random biological father is and moves on. I did not know that Lilly really cared about knowing her father was. Then when you found out, your first reaction was “huh?” then it followed with “who?”
All the Twilight and Buffy the Vampire Slayer references. It kind of got old after a while. There wasn’t an incredible amount of world building, just an urban setting and compared it to Twilight or Buffy throughout the whole time.
Personally, the kidnapping aspect would have been better if it was Cat and not Lily’s mom. The relationship between her and Cat was fleshed out more than the mom was, and I would have been more on the edge of my seat if it was Cat.
I really wanted to like this book but felt the execution wasn’t done well. This book had so much going for it that I wished it was written differently to have a better flow and plot line.
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