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!

Thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I thought this was fun! It felt kind of like a modern True Blood without all of the annoying characters. I think that it had a lot more politics than I was expecting and as a consequence I think that the romantic lead was undersold. I didn't really like him! And I didn't really want the main character to be with him! But other than that I appreciated the vampire lore and all that because it did not take itself too seriously but was still fun and made sense.

3.5 stars.

This book really didn't grab me like I thought it would. I had some issues with the attitudes of the characters when it came to body positivity and some of the issues around consent with the main characters sort of rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't connect with the characters. I probably wouldn't recommend this to my circles.

I had seen mixed reviews for this one that said it focused too much on body image/acceptance, and while yes, the FMC mentions her body a lot and is trying to accept her body as it will forever remain in her vampire form, I think people cut out too soon. I enjoyed this book, it was fun, it was different. I liked that when the FMC became a vampire the author didn't automatically make her prettier or skinnier, or "vamp" her up as we see sometimes in books or media with vampires. The FMC remains as she is, and I think that's important. Overall, this is a fun story that's a little different and unique from your regular vampire stories and I think it deserves a little more credit, because ultimately, it's got everything you want this spooky season - romance, mystery and spooky fun.

This book felt very juvenile. The characters were annoying and the plus size storyline was forced. It had good potential but fell very flat.

This book had a lot of potential that was never realized. Tristan was a great potential love interest with his broody past and romance writer career. The vampire council and new vampire hunter were a good foil for Lily. However, Lily wasn't a great main character. I never got on board with Lily's narrative voice. Her dialogue and character were over the top and didn't feel realistic. I never cared about her, and I wasn't compelled to keep reading. This book had a good foundation, but I didn't love the finished project.

Quick and Dirty⁣
-lol moments⁣
-forced proximity⁣
-open door 🌶⁣
-plus-size representation ⁣
⁣ ⁣
The first thing Lily craves when she wakes after a night out is blood? Wtaf? Did she somehow wake up as a vampire? By the looks of her nonexistent reflection in the mirror, it’s safe to say the answer is a resounding yes. Not to mention the new fangs protruding from her jaw. Seriously, wtaf!? She better call her BFF. Maybe she’ll know what happened last night?⁣
⁣
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, warts and all! If you look at some of the reviews on Goodreads you’ll likely be a bit turned off. People complain that some of the themes/topics are a bit repetitive, but I think it really drives home the struggle of body image and body dysmorphia. Let me tell you that this one is worth it if 1) you’ve ever struggled with body image/yo-yo dieted, 2) enjoy writing that features slang and foul-language, and 3) don’t mind a misogynistic (but also romantic) love interest. To be fair, said love interest is 400 years old (think American Jamie Fraser with fangs) and learns a lot from the leading lady. But he’s still a misogynistic paramour at times. I like that he has the opportunity to grow! This one might be triggering for anyone who grew up in a fat-phobic household, so be sure to go in with your eyes open. Overall, I found the writing hysterical, the main character relatable AF, and the plot worth sinking my teeth into…I had to 😂🧛🏻‍♀️

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4 🌟

🦇 This book is just what I needed right now! A very cute little spooky season contemporary romance/rom com

🦇 Without getting too deep here, I loved the journey that the MC was on regarding body acceptance and body positivity, fatphobia, and anti dieting. I loved to read through it because it reminded me of how far I’ve come in my own journey with dieting etc!

🦇 The love interest is super swoon-worthy and he reminded me a ton of The Vampire Diaries guys!

There are a lot of varying opinions on this book, but I will just say it was an easy, quick romance with a spin.

Lily wakes up one day, and finds herself to be a vampire. Soon she has to figure out a way to live her new life, and balance the overbearing, protective vampire that turned her.

So here's the thing: love a book with a plus size character. However, this book is almost solely about Lily hating her body, and believing no one could ever love her, with a SIDE of turning into a vampire. Seriously. It almost feels falsely advertised, so know that going in!

Not for me although I would recommend it for vampire lovers! In time for the spooky season. I would give her other books a chance!

"When Life Gives You Vampires" reads like a rough draft. The characters are unfortunately one-dimensional and defined by a singular trait. Lily is defined by her body issues and Tristan by his old fashioned nature. Beyond that, we really don't learn much about who either of them are. There's a lot of insta-love in this book that strains believability.

DNF at 66%

I cannot understate how much I disliked this book. I tried so very hard to get past my initial reservations with the overall style, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to. I first saw the cover art for this book back in late 2021, so it’s been on my radar for a very long time and I was excited to read and love this, but I just couldn’t.

The most egregious thing was this author’s writing style - I wasn’t meshing with it at all. I saw another review say that it sounded like “elder millennial speak,” and now I can’t stop thinking about that. The tone is extremely conversational, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but it’s presented callously and without any finesse. A lot of sentences start with “FYI”, “Obvi,” or “Let me break this down for you,” instead of actually sharing. There is a scene where the main character, Lily, is in a meeting and instead of writing out the meeting, the author just starts a new chapter and says, “Okay, so I’m not going to make you sit through the rest of our meeting. All you really need to know is…” and fills in the blanks. This goes straight back to “showing” and not “telling” the readers what you’re thinking. Something will also happen to Lily in one chapter and then she’ll recount it to her best friend or to the love interest, Tristan, in the next - we just read that, we don’t need to see it again.

Lily’s whole schtick is that she’s fat and doesn’t love her body - which normally, I love to see in romances, especially, because it provides excellent room for character development. The problem is, the fat rep and body positivity is not done well at all and feels more harmful than good. Lily hates herself and that, in turn, makes her bitter and angry to all other women, even her best friend. There’s a moment where Lily’s friend Cat mentions how Lily makes her feel shitty about being thin and that she has problems too (after the author spends multiple paragraphs talking about how Cat is perfect and has no problems), but the whole scene reeks of “but not ALL thin people are happy…” I found the ways that Lily and her mother talked about her body to be extremely harmful, and I found the dieting representation to also be toxic. Tristan is shown to “love” Lily’s body, but all of their attraction is superficial and you can’t believe any of their connection to be real.

This is more minor, but I also really disliked the vampire lore in this book. It’s just your standard Nosferatu rules: no sunlight, no reflection, stake through the heart, etc. There are a lot of vampire stories out there - if you want yours to be impactful, you’ve got to actually do something with it instead of say the same things over and over. With fantastical settings, you’re given the perfect opportunity to build memory points and this does none of that. Instead, it relies on best friend Cat to recap all of Twilight NUMEROUS TIMES to Lily…because that’s helpful. The only “unique” thing is that you can request consent to bite a human using the vampire thrall, but that never worked on Lily - so she was non-consensually turned into a vampire. It just feels gross.

At the end of the day, I just couldn’t bring myself to care about this story any longer. I could have probably pushed through and finished it, but why would I finish something that I’m ACTIVELY disliking. I’m so disappointed that this one didn’t end up working for me, but I can’t recommend this, nor do I think I’ll pick up another book by this author again.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the advanced copy - I’m sorry I didn’t love this one!

When Life Gives You Vampires was just an okay read for me.

It was entertaining, but it tried to do too much and it sort of failed on all fronts. I was not fond of Lily very much, and I have to say I have no clue what Tristan saw in her. I thought I would like her being a fat main character, and while I sympathized with her, especially about the mother thing, Lily made such a big deal about it the whole time it got annoying.

I honestly didn’t get the story at all Lily wasn’t great, and Tristain wasn’t super great either. Both of them seemed pretty one-dimensional, and I did not really care about what happened with them.

The build-up of Gideon was not great; I wanted more payoff than I got. So while I’m not surprised it ended up less of a big deal, I was disappointed. In fact, I was pretty disappointed in this whole book.

This was a new author & I thought this book was a fun paranormal read! I liked that our heroine, Lily was a plus sized woman. Though she did have a hard time accepting her body…it was a journey for her to self love and become body positive! That was shown so wonderfully! Our hero is a vampire, Tristan, who wasn’t supposed to change a human but ends up doing so to Lily during a night of steaminess! They have to work together in order to convince the vampire council not to kill Lily. Tristan and Lily have great chemistry. I do wish there was more romance in it. I think it was an entertaining fun read!

Spice Level: Medium (on the mild side)

TW: fatphobia and internalized fatphobia both in this review and the book, mentions of blood and injury, and some issues of consent and mind control

I requested this from NetGalley because we love a plus size romance. While that’s still true, I felt like this book was a little over-stuffed with the body hatred on the way to the fleeting acceptance scene at the end. I also felt like the thin secondary characters were a bit dismissive about Lily’s insecurities about her body, at times, though they were always supportive, with the exception of the mom who is clearly the root of a lot of insecurities. In these ways, this book was both very true to the experience of existing in a plus size body and also a bit heavy handed with that experience for a book that is supposed to be about acceptance of yourself. That acceptance also felt like it came very quickly, with not much development beforehand, at the beginning of the book, so it felt somewhat out of the blue when it did happen.


I will say, the author does give a trigger warning for fatphobia on the road to body acceptance at the beginning of the book, which I appreciated and think should be so much more common.

Beyond the slight ick from the focus on internalized fatphobia, I did really enjoy this book. It’s cheesy and a little silly, but it is fun. There are Twilight and Buffy shout outs. There’s an evil mastermind, a slayer, and a vampire club. The plot wouldn’t stand up to heavy scrutiny for plot holes or things that just don’t make much sense/are mentioned then never dealt with. But if you can just read this book to enjoy it, then you probably will enjoy it. It’s a good time.

Overall, if you’re reading for a fun, silly vampire plot, I’d recommend this. If you’re reading it to feel seen for the difficulties with accepting your body the way it is, you’d probably find some of that. However, if you’re going in looking for body positivity and acceptance in the vein of Olivia Dade or if you’re triggered by heavy references to internalized fatphobia, I would skip it.

I had super high hopes for this book, but it's was actually a little too cringe for me. Personally, I think it had too many twilight references & didn't feel completely original. It wasn't terrible, but I probably won't pick this one up again.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed this one. I unfortunately DNF'd. I wasn't connecting with the story or the character. I applied because as a plus size woman this called to me, but it just wasn't what I was expecting.

I didn’t finish this book cause I felt like it was fat-phobic and I couldn’t get past that. The story seemed like it would have been fun had it not been so into diet culture. I

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. I thought the premise was very original and cute but the executi0n of the story telling felt disjointed to me. I had a difficult time connecting with the characters, some of the vernacular felt forced or awkward, and I was very turned off by the insensitive/unhealthy handling of body image representation and discussion of fatphobia/diet culture etc. I ended up DNF-ing.

Thank you Sourcebooks and Netgalley for my copy.

Sigh.

The fat/plus size representation in this book was abysmal due to the negative, outdated and downright harmful nature of it. Lilly equates her value so much with her weight that after she’s turned into a vampire she’s most worried about being fat forever rather than being immortal or in danger or where she’ll continue to get blood supply to survive.

Lilly’s mother is the personification of toxic diet culture and Lilly’s best friend is dismissive of Lilly’s feelings about her body she shares with her because she “has problems too.” I don’t understand why her best friend can’t just share her problems with Lilly in their conversations??

When Tristian turns Lilly into a vampire it’s by accident and their relationship is reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast-esque Stockholm syndrome. Lilly isn’t held prisoner by him but she needs him to navigate life as a vampire and learn anything about it and he actively keeps things from her and after a brief bout of anger she’s almost instantly smitten with him?! Also, it mentions he couldn’t handle the independent of his then lover in the 1800s?! EXCUSE ME?! Smells like misogyny. Plus all the non-consensual memory wiping. Oof.

I did really enjoy some of this story, the slayers potentially being able to work with the vampires. The history of the grand master and why he has a vendetta against Tristian.

However, the end even when Lilly learned to love her body it was as if it was only because she could see it through Tristian’s eyes and not because she actually loved herself at her size. It also felt really unrealistic that her mother who imposed harmful behaviors to be thinner throughout her entire life would suddenly with the flip of a switch be content with Lilly’s body.

I do think in the hands of the wrong, impressionable reader this story and the fatphobia and negative stereotypes could be actively harmful.

Two stars

⭐️ ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.