(thank you the the publisher and netgalley for sending an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.)

a spine-tingling read that kept me hooked from start to finish.

I am a member of the American Library Association Reading List Award Committee. This title was suggested for the 2022 list. It was not nominated for the award. The complete list of winners and shortlisted titles is at <a href="https://rusaupdate.org/2022/01/readers-advisory-announce-2022-reading-list-years-best-in-genre-fiction-for-adult-readers/">

The Mellification by Nat Buchbinder is set in the catacombs under the Green Hill Cemetery. Apparently, humans can become vampires by eating honey that was made in or from human remains of one man.

In this book, it is called taking the “Honey Route.” Before the man died, he ate nothing but honey. After he sacrificed himself, someone else covered his body in honey, which preserved the body while it also deteriorated. Now those who want to become vampires, can buy a vial of the honey on the internet.

I think I would rather be made a vampire the old fashioned way.

Review
Holly is a transgender vampire who has requested a name change. In this vampire colony, a name change is a sacred rite of passage. Holly wants the name change in order to proceed with their life as a male. In real life, people have to jump through hoops to get the gender changed on their forms of ID. It can be a long process. At this point, Holly has waited about ten years for a name change. He’s tired of waiting but everyone is still telling him to be patient.

Holly notices that weird things are going on in the catacombs. He gets trapped in the library. By summoning his spirit animal, Holly was able to escape by turning into a swarm of bees. There are a lot of bee and honey references. Holly feels like the vampire colony is becoming more like a bee colony. He isn’t a fan of all of the new rules. I don’t think he would appreciate a good bee joke like “What’s a happy bumblebee’s blood type? Bee positive!”

Holly tries to get his boyfriend, Cain, to leave the colony so they can beeeeeee together. Will Cain leave with Holly? Will the colony be wiped out by vampire hunters?

Recommendation
If you are a bee keeper who is also interested in vampires, then this book could bee the one for you. Also, you might enjoy this book if you want to read more about transgender vampires.

If you don’t like bees or vampires of every gender, then it sucks to bee you.

I received this ebook from NetGalley. All opinions are my own. Obviously.
Book Reviews

this was a really unique and beautifully done story about vampires. I really felt for the main character, they felt like a real person and not just a stereotype. I think it was a well done read and I'd be interested in revisiting this world.

This is the transgender vampire story I've been waiting for! In a way. I was so happy to get the change to read this one for Netgalley and I absolutely loved it. The characters were amazing - especially Holly and I loved that they incoporated vampire hunters as well - which I, for the life of me, could not take serious; it's hilarious to read.
The ending, however, was something I did not like; the book felt unfinished and I wish that there's going to be a sequel, even though I fear this won't be the case, I need more transgender vampire stories; this one was an absolute treat!

I received a free copy by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

It's not that I disliked this book, but I don't think I fully understood it. I feel like it may have been too short? There were so many unexplored plots, characters, relationships etc. I got the symbolism of the ending but it just didn't satisfy me. I wanted to know more about Holly and Cain and Lila and Claudia. However, I think the story was well written and had a lot of potential, maybe as a long novel or maybe a trilogy expanding the world and the characters. Of course I respect the author's decision in ending their novel this way and outside of my personal opinion, the book was very good objectively!

The problem is... I NEED MORE! I have questions! I need the answers! There isn't going to be a second book, right?

I pretty much loved this book, except for the pacing at the end and the fact that I still have questions (but that's not like 100% bad). Other than that, this was a great read and I was intrigued and fascinated by the new things added to the vampires (although honey?), and I really liked the main character too.

I liked this book, especially its premise, but the execution was just kinda meh for me. I didn’t hate it, but I definitely didn’t love it.

Holly is a young transgendered vampire living in an underground vampire community. For him, becoming a vampire was his choice -- a way to escape his current situation and start over. The only thing that could make his new life better is to his vampire name, to no longer be known as "Holly".

The Mellification has the bones of a great story, but I don't think it's quiet there yet. There was too much and not enough happening simultaneously.

Overall, I enjoyed this story. I look forward to reading more of Nat's work in the future and am excited to see how their writing develops.

I'd like to thank the author, IBPA, and NetGalley for this courtesy copy in exchange for an honest review.


There are some spoilers included below.
I was pretty far into the story when I find myself thinking "what is the point of this story?", other than Holly wanting his new name and maybe there being a bit of tension between him and Cain, there didn't seem to be much driving this story forward. Then there was the inclusion of the vampire hunters which added a nice conflict element, but the pacing was rushed and I think this idea was introduced too late into the story. Lastly, I don't think the addition of Lila and Claudia's story line added anything.

There were also a few instances where I noticed little detail discrepancies that brought me out of the story for a moment -- for instance, Holly states his room doesn't have a door, just a curtain, and then a few scenes later he's unlocking the door to his room.
Two other things I wondered were:
1. when he was stuck in that honey-coffin room, there was a lit fire. Well, someone had to light that fire so you would think this person would be back at some time soon and then would be able to rescue Holly.
2. Holly's obviously able to turn himself into another creature, so why didn't he turn into a swarm of bees to escape the cemetery or to escape being buried in the ground.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review, courtesy of NetGalley and Nat Buchbinder

For being only 200 pages I found the vampire world of The Mellification to be as full and engrossing as a 500 page novel. The cult-like vampire world that the protagonist, Holly, lives is perfect balance of unsettling and mysterious. You understand why he’s there but also wonder how he hasn’t noticed how problematic it is.

The story is told through two main POV’s. Holly, a young ftm transgender vampire, and Lila an elder Queer vampire. Even though I myself am a trans reviewer I found myself more drawn to Lila’s story.

I unfortunately found the ending to both Lila’s and Holly’s stories to be a little rushed and left many unanswered questions. Some of the choices Holly made near the end of the book felt kind of strange and out of character, I had a tough time figuring out his motivation.

The Mellification is a perfect little bite that any fan of horror and queer stories would love to sink their teeth into.

**Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review**
“The Mellification” by Nat Buchbinder is a novella about Holly, a young transgender vampire who'd desperately waiting to have his name changed.
I loved how this story not only did a great job of relating the classic mythos of the vampire in a new and fun way, but also brought so many unique and interesting aspects to it, like their relations to bees and honey, and it's interesting to see how being trans and dysphoria affects a vampire.
However, I never really understood how vampires are seen from outside the community, if everyone knows about them or not. How did Holly and the hunters find out? How did he make the decision to become one? How did he know it would work?
I liked the multiple POVs, but the vampire hunter one, though central to the climax of the story, wasn't that interesting and felt a bit jarring, we could've gotten that same ending scene from the POV of Cain or the Hierophant. I never learned which vampire hunter was which.
Though I liked the lack of closure in Holly's side of the story, I wish Lila's had had more of an ending.
Overall, I rate this 4/5 stars! It was such a good and quick read.

"The Mellification" is a vampire novel focussing on the issues of being part of an old fashioned community and trying to discover one's identity in a prejudiced community. Holly, a trans vampire, is in need of a new name to accept himself fully because his dead-name reminds of everything he left behind.

My interest in vampires and night creatures will never stop, so when I first saw the cover I was so excited to read it. My first thoughts were that I truly enjoyed reading a fast-paced vampire novel about being part of a community and trying to change that community. Most of the vampire novels talk about these issues but they were usually written in the Victorian era and I could rarely find a proper vampire novel. The only thing I questioned in this book was that I needed more to answer the questions I had. I am hoping that there will be a second book coming out in the future because I am intrigued by the whole concept. Being queer and loosely being part of the LGBTQIA+ community are not new to the vampire world but having a trans vampire, whose struggles need to be validated and accepted in their community is definitely what is needed in our generation.

Holly's struggle with trying to his the authorities accept the request of changing his name is portraying the issues in the 21st century: most of the public do not embrace the fact that the world is changing and we need to accept the new ways of living together. I would highly recommend it to vampire book lovers and supernatural stories.

I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Concept: Dealing with Transgender rights as a vampire.
This is unique and literally so overdue. I hadn't experienced this before I really enjoyed it. The idea was really fitting, that no matter how forward-thinking someone (even vampire society is) they can forget how important things are.

TW: Deadnaming
I was very uncomfortable because the main character was forced to go by their dead name and I think that was a point; they have to struggle and be uncomfortable being called that and we should feel it with them.
While I loved the concept, there was a lot of pointless storytelling; the female vampire, the hunters, randomly being thrown in in the middle and the ending. There was no build-up; it felt rushed and uneventful.

I really loved the representation in this book and how the different identities shown were normalized by the narrators. LGBTQ vampires!! We need more of that in the world. Learning about the vampire society created and their leader was fascinating, though I would have loved a deeper dive into the history of the society. I also really enjoyed Holly and his determination and his insight and the way his insecurities haunted him.

However, it didn't feel like the story fully developed. I wanted to know more about many of the sides characters-- such as Cain and Methuselah, neither of whom were ever fully sketched out. Our second narrator's story was also not as fleshed out as Holly's, which is really disappointing as she was a much older vampire, a lesbian, and could have had more of an impact on the vampire society. I never felt any closure on her story and still don't understand why her perspective was in first person while Holly's was in third person.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the story. Though bleak, the ending was a satisfying conclusion that fit the story perfectly.

Thanks to the publisher for the free review copy!

After hearing amazing things about this book by other trans reviewers, I was absolutely hyped but got harshly disappointed. Have we even read the same one??
The book isn't objectively bad but it was really not my thing.
It is incredibly fast paced and therefore doesn't really explore the depths and feelings of the characters. Every single scene felt incredibly rushed and the author really said "Tell, don't show".
The characters' feelings and thoughts were only described really briefly and matter-of-factly which led to me having no connection to them. I could understand Holly's struggles as a trans person wanting andnpt receiving a new name but that's about the only feeling I actually connected to and the only way in which I cared about a character.
Cain, his love interest doesn't seem to have anything appealing and the other characters were just...there.
Some positive things I liked are the last paragraphs and the world building. A vampire colony and everything connected to the honey were actually interesting and the end didn't feel as generic as I had expected.

Overall, this book was a mild waste of time to me but if you prefer extremely fast-paced, plot-heavy stories, you might like it.

Wow
So many cool concepts and interesting characters.
Dark and sometimes funny and just cool!
the main couple was so sweet and the main character was real and so likeable

I'm a huge fan of retellings and of narratives which take fairytale / folklore tropes and weave them into something new. Buchbinder's take on the vampire tale is, much like meat, a fresh one. As an extended metaphor on gender and transition, it's impressive; as a narrative, it's engaging, although it did sometimes feel a little incomplete, particularly some of the less well fleshed-out (sorry) side-characters and that ending. Still, if Buchbinder were to use that incompleteness to write a sequel, I'd be all for it.

This novella felt like a snapshot of an interesting and creative world. Holly is a trans vampire who wants a new name more than anything else. His vampire community prizes patience above all else and so, Holly is left waiting even as his name reminds him of his painful past. But it isn't all bad. Holly has his lover Cain and a place that, on the surface at least, seems safe.

Intertwined with Holly's story is that of Lila Lynton whose story begins many decades before. Through her we learn about the beginning of the community Holly has joined while also learning about her lifelong feud with Claudia, a girl from her hometown.

I found both of these stories to be interesting. There is much more I want to know about these characters and this world. I love background information and having a deep understanding of the world I'm reading so I do wish there was more. It's also possible I would have a greater understanding of the world if I knew more about vampire lore.

Overall, this was a short fun read. If the author decided to write more in this world I would interested to read it.

The Mellification was an incredibly interesting story. I love vampires so a new take on vampires always gets me excited. I really enjoyed the vampire community and culture that Buchbinder built here. It was very interesting to see a different kind of community being created for these vampires.

I found this story super creepy in the best way. It was one of those stories where you know that something is off but you can’t figure out what it is just yet. I really felt for Holly and his struggle. It was so upsetting to feel like everyone was working against him. The atmosphere and general vibe of the story really made me feel like how Holly might be feeling throughout the story.

I really enjoyed this story and honestly I would love to read more about Holly in the future.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Initially upon reading the synopsis I was intrigued. I’ve always loved fantasy novels that include supernatural creatures. Vampires are a classic one. I hadn’t read any books with trans vampires so this was a first.

I liked Holly as a character. To him a name was so much more than just a name. It signaled a change in his life and shedding behind an old one. I like that he realized the colony wasn’t the paradise it claimed to be. Holly sees through the promise of unity and community to see the truth of what is going on.

I wish this story was more fleshed out. I wanted to see more of Holly’s journey. The other characters weren’t as captivating and fell a little flat for me. I was a tad bit confused at the start of the alternating stories because the transition between the two was abrupt. Overall this was a short read that told a different vampire tale than normally seen.

I received this eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.