I received an Earc of this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this book. It was such a fun read for October. I loved the main character and her development that we saw throughout the novel. I also loved how realistic her and Cat's reactions were to her becoming a vampire. It was just so comical. This story was just such a fun read and I can't wait to check out more from Gloria Duke.

“My name is Lily Baines. I’m twenty-five years old. I live on Bleecker Street in the West Village. I work as an overnight web editor… And apparently, I’m a f*cking vampire.”

When Life Gives You Vampires is a fun paranormal romantic comedy debut from Gloria Duke.

When Lily wakes up with little memory of the night before, she’s stunned to find she has fangs and no reflection. It takes prompting, and a bag of blood, from her best friend, Cat, to remember the gorgeous guy, Tristan, she went home with from their local bar, and biting his earlobe in retaliation when he unexpectedly sank his teeth into her neck. As far as Lily can see, they’re aren’t any upsides to becoming a vampire -she can’t go out in the sun, she’ll outlive her friends and family, will have to scrounge for blood, and she will forever have a plus size body.

Lily is likeable enough, smart and funny, but with a negative self image due to being overweight. The promise of a body acceptance journey was what drew me to this novel because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a female vampire that was anything but svelte. I appreciated Duke’s attempt at that goal, and felt Lily did take some steps towards changing her negative view of herself and recognising how it affected her relationships.

The romance between Lily and Tristan is a not particularly convincing, though Lily’s lust felt sincere at least. I think mainly because they don’t spend a lot of time together so there isn’t the opportunity for chemistry to develop, and though we get some background on Tristan, including that he is a bestselling romance novelist which I loved, I didn’t feel his personality was well defined.

Conflict between Lily, Tristan and the leader of the Vampire Council with a grudge that threatens both their lives provides some suspense and action. As does Lily being stalked by a newbie vampire hunter she feels kind of responsible for.

I did enjoy the author’s blunt, sarcastic and sometimes sweary sense of humour, and Duke’s experience as a sitcom writer shows in her dynamic dialogue. However, one thing that struck me as odd was the reference to Tristan looking like ‘Clint Eastwood and Indiana Jones had a superhot baby’. I doubt that’s a reference anyone younger than Gen X would be able to visualise, and it fits uncomfortably with mentions of Twilight, and the use of terms like ‘obvi’.

I enjoyed the distraction When Life Gives You Vampires offered. With the loose ends remaining at the end of the book Duke obviously has hopes for a continuing series. Light and funny, I think the potential is there.

This was a really funny rom-com - perfect for halloween! I enjoyed the main character, the story line and the numerous literary vampire references, however it fell a bit flat for me.

This was such a great quick-witted rom-com that is perfect for any vampire fan. The amount of references to so many vampires from literature history made the reader in me so happy (not afraid to admit that the boat load of Twilight references made me the happiest). I think that this book is the perfect fall rom-com to help you get into the Halloween mood while still being a fun lighthearted rom-com we all know and love.

When I heard this was a plus size vampire romance I jumped on the chance to read this. While this book wasn't terrible, many things gave me an ick feeling. The biggest being the blatant fatphobia. When I read a romance with a plus size MC, I don't want half the plot to be the mc hating themselves. The amount of internalized fatphobia the MC had and the fatphobia and comment around her was depressing honestly. Nothing about it was uplifting about it. I understand having insecurities but this is a vampire romance and the fact the biggest part of this book was the MC being fat was weird and annoying. I wanted more vampirism and romance. This book just didn't mesh with me.

This was just adorable and heart-breaking.
Lily has been accidentally turned into a Vampire and will be the same size she is now for the rest of eternity. She is trying for body positivity but as she says "How am I supposed to embrace my size when everyone from so-called experts to my own g*damn mother has told me I should want to reduce it."
As a plus-size person I really felt for her and knew how hard it is to get out of your own head. But Tristan was such a great advocate, he saw her and not her size ad did his level best to shore up her confidence.
The action and mystery were just right in between the sweet and the smutty.
Genuinely enjoyable.

I enjoyed it enough to finish it but now enough to binge read. This was the book I read when I had nothing else to do I.e commuting to work. Gen Z humour, new twist to the vampire trope. Empowering women etc all these things were done and done well. Something just was missing that made it a slow read

this book was just so much fun to read! i truly enjoyed my time reading this book. i am so thankful to netgalley for letting me read this book before the release date! please pick this up!!

This was really fatphobic and self-depricatinf and we need to stop writing these type of books. We cannot use these things as plot devices anymore. Stop.

After a night out, Lily wakes up with no reflection and an odd craving for blood. After consulting with her best friend, Cat, they determine she is definitely a vampire. In comes Tristan, the vamp that accidently turned her. Vampires, romantic tension, conflict, and navigating the world as a new vampire is all in the pages of When Life Gives You Vampires.

This was a fun read. It took a while to grow in me, but in the end I enjoyed the story. The romance was fun and flirty. Lily, was not my favorite. I loved that she had body issues and insecurities. I really like characters who I can relate to in that area' however, Lily comes off a self centered and has made her body shape her identity. I don't think this was intended specifically by the author. The fact she is educated, a journalist, and very intelligent is completely overshadowed by her constant dwelling on her body size. In the end, she does grow and becomes stronger as a person, but readers have to get through nearly the entire book to get to that point. To be honest, I was more interested in her friend, Cat. Unfortunately, Cat's presence in the book is small. The love interest, Tristan, is interesting. I do like his character and what we are given of his background. I would have loved a two point of view alternating between Lily and Tristan. I feel like the story may have been a bit more balanced had Duke approached it in that manner.

Duke does give us some drama in the vampire community. There is conflict and some pretty heavy concerns, but the issues are concluded really quickly. It is almost an afterthought. Personally, I would have liked to see that story line fleshed out a bit more. It would have really added to the conflict and drama of the whole story. Again, the main conflict was Lily's lack of self confidence and body image issues. It really overshadowed everything. That being said, I did like when the interaction between Lily and her college rival, Kelly. I adored the revelation that Lily had after the conversation, realizing her dislike for Kelly was likely routed in her own insecurities and inability to see anything but those insecurities about herself.

Overall, it was a cute fun read, and in the end I really liked how it wrapped up.

The fact that Lily had to squeeze into restricting shapewear to fit into her vintage Levi’s wasn’t enough - Tristan, the man who she left the bar with… bit her? When she bites back with more than just words, she throws herself into a world she didn’t believe existed - as a vampire.

Despite its paranormal ties, this books skewed more contemporary for me, and I thought it was pretty sweet. I loved Lily’s best friend, Kat, and how supportive of a friend she was, even knowing that Lily is a vampire. We love a ride or die who won’t let you hurt yourself in your ignorance about vamps and sunlight 🙌

One thing that I was apprehensive about at the start of this book was the toxic diet culture behaviours that Lily was sucked into - buying clothes that don’t fit, trying different diets, assuming that being skinny is the key to happiness, etc. Especially, given the dynamic between Lily and her mother, it made me nervous about how this was handled. It takes a while (uprooting yourself from something so ingrained in our society is not a quick task!), but there is growth from her as she accepts that no aspect of her body would be changing from this moment on, as being a vampire basically freezes her current body in time due to her immortality. That being a big part of Lily’s identity that she is deeply uncomfortable with lends to a arc of acceptance that I really appreciated.

The heat between Lily and Tristan is fun, but after I finished the book, it was her friendship with Lily, the start of healing the relationship with her mother, and her new outlook on her body that I want to remember most.

Overall, this was a fun read, and I’d recommend it this spooky season! Be mindful of the diet culture talk if that’s a sensitive topic for you, and do what’s right for you 💖

This book tells the story of Lily, who wakes up and realizes she’s a vampire, but has no memory of it.
The next day (night) she discovers what happened and meets her Maker, Tristan.
They have one problem: it’s forbidden to make a new vampire without consent of the Grand Master. Now they have to keep eachother safe whilst (not so slowly) falling for eachother.
Lily has another problem: she has some severe body image issues and now she’ll never be able to lose weight again and she has to come to terms with the way she looks.

This story was quite entertaining. Lily was really funny in her discovery what it’s like to be a vampire. She’s quite quirky and I laughed out loud with all the Twilight-references.
The storyline of her body image issues & eating disorder is quite prominent though. It’s definitely not the main part of the book, but as it’s a big part of Lily’s life, it’s also a big part of the book. I didn’t really relate to Lily on that part, but I definitely got a better picture on how body image issues can have a big impact on your life.

Some of the character growth came a little bit too fast. For example, Lily’s mother is kind of the cause of her eating disorder, and from one day to the other, she has accepted Lily the way she is?
Lily’s acceptance of her own body came quite suddenly as well, which I didn’t think to be realistic.
I did really like the relationship between Lily & her best friend Cat. They were very wholesome. I also quite liked Tristan, but I’ve always had a weak spot for broody, self-tortured vampires.

The writing style was very fluent, what made it a very easy read. There were a few smutty scenes as well. They weren’t the best I’ve ever read, but they weren’t exaggerated or very long, which I appreciated.

To summarise: it was a fun book about vampires that didn’t take itself too seriously & it read very fluent. Body image issues and eating disorder are very important trigger warnings though!

On paper this book had the earmarks of something I would love: plus sized heroine, vampires, mystery, sexy male lead.

Unfortunately it did not live up to expectations. It could have been ok if either of our main characters had any personality. Actually, correction: the female main character had a personality only it was entirely based on her body image.

As a larger girl myself I resent when plus sized women are represented as their weight being the only thing worth knowing about them and that’s all I got about this character. We find out she’s a writer but not really what sort of writer. The fact that she’s overweight is literally the only thing she’s concerned with. And she had JUST been turned into a vampire!!

Mild spoilers but I kid you not she receives a death threat in one scene and is like “oh boogers” then in the next scene has an actual Meltdown when she realizes that she will now never be able to lose weight again.

Please writers of plus-sized characters: do better!

Lily is a modern woman with some self esteem issues when she meets Tristan by accident. When he accidentally turns her, she finds her life in danger from an enemy of Tristan’s and they are thrown together. She learns it is ok to like her body and this is a great story!

3.5
It was an interesting story, it's interesting enough for you to try but not if you are triggered by fat shaming and fat phobia. I like the accidental turning her into a vampire part. It wouldn't have been so bad if Lily wasn't so hard on herself and fatphobic about her own body. In small doses it's fine but it seemed like it was the majority of the book was centered around it because everything she did and thought was because her low self esteem. I also wasn't that crazy over the stereotypical undead vampire. They are fine for antagonist but not love interest, ick.

The blurb seemed very interesting and there were some funny moments. Unfortunately I wasn't a fan of the female character as I felt she was very unsure and a bit too obsessed with her weight.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I could not connect with the main character in this one. Her intense body issues and thoughts were aggressive. They made me sad, and uncomfortable. It was hard to read and detracted from the story for me.

I wanted to absolutely love this book because it was the first one I have personally seen with a plus size person on cover. And vampires?! Sign me up. The concept is wonderful but when reading I didn’t find myself wanting to continue reading it. I just wasn’t interested the whole time.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC. This book was so fun. I really enjoyed it. This book kept me interested and i enjoyed the book and this genre

This book was so silly, but so cute! It’s the perfect rom-com for spooky season.

I love the way the book started out. It got straight to the point and there was no waiting around for something to happen. I loved Lily’s relationship with her BFF and the evolution of her relationship with her mother. The banter in this was cute, too. It was comical and done well.

However, I did not like Lily’s inner monologue about her weight. I felt like it was super incessant and just too much. To me, it felt more like whining than someone who actually struggles with their weight.

Overall, it was a pretty good October read!