I have to say, I read the reviews and was fully preparing not to like this book, but I also like to draw my own conclusions. There was definitely an over use of certain words, but other than that I found the story very good. I also am a large woman, one who wants to lose weight but loves food. I took a different view after reading this and loved that she was able to love herself by the end of the book. Thank you to Netgalley for this copy.

When Lily wakes up with fangs, she tracks down the previous night’s hookup. Tristan hadn't meant to turn Lily-it's against vampire law-but now that she's here, they need to team up to save their hides. They strike a truce, fending off other vampires, Lily's work-rival-turned-slayer, and her mother's tone-deaf romance and fitness advice.

This was so stupid. I kept hoping it would get better, and it just didn’t. HARD PASS.

DNF at 22% - I really struggled to get into this one, but I'm sure it will have its readers, but unfortunately it was not for me.

This book was pretty over-the-top but in all the best ways. In short, I loved it.

25-year-old Lily Baines wakes up one day...with fangs. WTF happened? Turns out a little make-out session with her date the night before led to some pretty serious consequences. Now she has to navigate her new reality and figure out how to move forward.

Tristan didn't mean to turn Lily, it was all a big mistake, and against vampire rules. But they're going to need to team up to save themselves from other vampires, and Lily's tone-deaf mother.

It's funny, flirty, a little steamy, and an all-around delight.

This was an entertaining and enjoyable paranormal romance. When Tristan unintentionally turns Lily into a vampire, this puts her (undead) life in danger and causes a series of events that no one ever expected. Lily and Tristan's lives become more entwined than they ever believed they would be. The narrator does a great job voicing this entertaining listen.

When Life Gives You Vampires could be a good book if it were not for all the body shaming/obsessing. Protagonist Lily wakes up after a night out but instead of the hangover she is expecting she turns out to be a vampire. Lily struggles to remember what happened to her while her bestie fangirls over her being a vampire and in true BFF fashion steals her some discarded blood bags. Tristan is a romance author/vampire with a dark past and a not so promising future having broken vampire law in turning Lily. There is action, romance and humor and an unique premise but the protagonist is incredibly self deprecating on her body image that it not only spills onto other characters but is triggering for the reader. She faces fatpobic family members which increases her negative internalization until she forms assumptions of others based on their looks while complaining how no one will treat her as (insert description here) because of the same behavior she is exhibiting. I imagine the goal was to show the transformative powers of realizing self worth outside of body image but the method that it was done does not sit well with me.

Special thanks to Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

When Life Gives You Vampires
by Gloria Duke 🧛‍♂️🧛‍♀️

Pub Date: October 4, 2022 | Sourcebooks Casablanca

Thank you @netgalley and @sourcebookscasa for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review!

I enjoyed the plus size representation l, however I think the mixture being Vampires didn't land for me fully.

Synopsis:
Twenty-five year old Lily Baines is used to waking up hungover, overweight, and underemployed. Waking up with fangs? Not so much. But when it turns out a little light necking has more serious consequences than she ever imagined, Lily's determined to get to the bottom of it.

Tristan hadn't meant to turn Lily—it's against vampire law—but now that she's here, they need to team up to save their hides. They strike a truce, fending off other vampires, Lily's work-rival-turned-slayer, and her mother's tone-deaf romance and fitness advice—all while Lily faces down her insecurities about the fact that she lives in a diet-obsessed world with a body that will never age, never die, and never change. Can she learn to love the (plus size) woman she'll be forever more?

The beginning of this book was different from what I was expecting – most vampire books have the main character ready and excited to turn – while Lily couldn't even remember, and that was something that caught and kept my attention. I enjoyed the change of pace this brought!

Unfortunately, I had a hard time keeping up with the rest of the book.

From the beginning of the story I was invested in Lily as I could see myself in her. I can't imagine waking up and not remembering the night before to find that you were craving blood! I loved her best friend and her knowledge of vampires and how she took everything in stride when finding out her best friend now had fangs. I did enjoy the relationship between Tristan and Lily and how well adjusted of a man Tristan was (a romance writing respectful vampire - as if my standards for regular men weren't low enough how can they possibly live up to that?) Lily's mother, her body image standards for herself vs others and her overall personality really hit home. The story seemed like it was setting things up for a possible series so I there was a need for a lot of world building that slowed the story down, but when we got to the last few chapters things picked up. I think it's interesting to see that the newborn vampire triggered the new vampire slayer and who better than a work enemy. I think I'll read more from this author in the future to see what else they have.

I liked the premise of this book more than I like the actual book. I’m not a huge fan of vampire stories in general but I like the underlying themes this story was said to have but it felt more body shaming than body acceptance.

I was really looking forward to reading When Life Gives You Vampires by Gloria Duke because I love books with plus sized heroines and vampires. I was really disappointed with this book though. I found the relationship between Lily and Tristan to be unnatural and forced. The book was more about Lily coming to terms with her body never changing. I feel that this book did more body shaming than body positivity. I also thought there was entirely too much comparison to the Twilight series. I had a very hard time finishing this book.
Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to receive an Audiobook version. All opinions are my own.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the audio ARC, but wow, this book immediately turned out to not be for me. I know it’s for some people though, so let me take this moment to spotlight it!

Essentially Lily wakes up and thinks she’s hungover, but actually it turns out that she’s accidentally been made a vampire. Lily is not skinny and she’s struggling with her body image and her mom is sort of awful about it. If you want a feel good about your body (by the end of it) and some chick lit with a vampire romance, then I think this book could be perfect for you! Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me at all.

This was such a fun read, and surprisingly hilarious!
It gives some twilight vibes but also jokes about it at the same time. I loved the friendship in the book and the romance was interesting. I haven’t read a ton of vampire books but it was a fun read for the season for sure.

I will say, the main character says the word “obvi” maybe every other paragraph, so that was a bit obnoxious, but if you can get past that and not take this too seriously, it can be a fun read for the season.

After Lily Baines goes on a night in the town with her best friend, she wakes up to discover that the man she met the night before 1) is a vampire and 2) has accidentally turned her into one, which is against vampire law. He takes a vow to protect her from the vampire ruling counsel that is now out to kill them and her male coworker, who has become a vampire slayer.

I think this has the potential to be a good book. I like the idea behind the set up. I really do. This fails in the execution, mainly because I couldn’t get behind Lily as a person/character.

Lily is a plus sized woman and it feels at points like that’s her only character trait. She’s constantly talking about how big she is and how gross that makes her. She spends 98% of the book talking about how much she hates herself. She constantly compares herself to her thin best friend and then is shocked that her friend is mad that Lily obsesses over her body and assumes that everything must be awesome for her because she’s skinny. The body of literally every other female in the book is commented on and it drove me up the wall. To top it off she’s more upset when she realizes that being changed into a vampire means she’s going to be fat for the rest of her life than she was when she realized she was a vampire in the first place.

The way the book talks about her mom is disgusting. Like I get it. Her mom isn’t a good person. Her mom constantly talks about how Lily needs to lose weight and the things she can be doing to lose it. She buys her daughter a dress that’s too small “for inspiration”. She orders takeout and then doesn’t bother to share with the daughter (gives a plate to everyone but her). (The author tries to give her mom a “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel bad about yourself” moment at the end of the book really quick but it 100% didn’t work for me). The mom is super thin and has had plastic surgery and the book goes out of its way to use the worst descriptions of her. I distinctly remember jabs at how her face is frozen because of Botox and calling her lips swollen and bulbous. Lily says her new vampire sight just makes it more obvious how terrible the mom looks. Also her having a professional manicure is apparently a bad thing? It’s not cool.

The guy that changed her into a vampire is named Tristan. He repeatedly tells her that he thinks she’s attractive and is into her and she absolutely refuses to believe him because there’s no way a hot guy could be into a fat chick. How he’s had thin girlfriends before so there’s no way he’s into her. Dude he’s 400 years old if you can understand his morales may be different is it so hard to believe that he might have different beauty standards too? Or even barring that lots of “hot” guys date bigger women it’s a thing that happens all the time in actual real life. I could write for several pages about all that’s wrong with this attitude but I’ll spare anyone reading this.

I really didn’t like the relationship between Lily and Tristan. It was super instalove. The entire book takes place over the course of three days and by the end they’re suddenly madly in love with each other? I don’t see it. There are a couple of short spicy scenes at the end of the book and I really didn’t like them. They were super cringe to me. I’m glad they didn’t last long.

Lastly I listened to this as an audiobook and the quality was lacking in several places. Most of the time it was fine but there were portions with drastically different audio quality. It sounded like they had to re-record sections of the book but the sections the did that with sounded very tinney and washes out.

I really like her relationship with the vampire slayer coworker. I liked that she was the only person that managed to help him keep is control and calm. I wish I could have seen the two of them interact more.

Overall I don’t really recommend this book. Between the super misogynistic attitudes and the instalove this far from the best paranormal romance I’ve read. May still be willing to try the author out in the future though.

I did not read this book before the audiobook was archived. But I plan to read it soon and purchased the ebook when it became available.

I enjoyed this book so much more than I expected to, and it definitely reinvented my love of vampires. I loved the nods to cliché vampire things - *cough*twilight*cough*.
The characters were likeable, well written, flawed, and honest. The overall lesson of learning to love yourself just the way you are is one I hold close to my heart and I found that in this story. All in all, definitely would recommend to a YA reader.

This book has: strangers to lovers, a plus size heroine, and a beautiful journey to embracing body positivity!
I was so excited about this book because it screamed rom-com vampire book and the character on the cover was not a straight-size. But I honestly couldn't get through this book without rolling my eyes with the narrative voice. She used short-term slang like "perf" and "obvi" and literally typed out BFF.

Thank you to Netgalley for a chance to listen to the audiobook for an honest review.

Overall, i enjoyed the audiobook experience.

Now, to the actual book. Per the synopsis on Goodreads, "Twenty-five year old Lily Baines is used to waking up hungover, overweight, and underemployed. Waking up with fangs? Not so much. But when it turns out a little light necking has more serious consequences than she ever imagined, Lily's determined to get to the bottom of it.

Tristan hadn't meant to turn Lily—it's against vampire law—but now that she's here, they need to team up to save their hides. They strike a truce, fending off other vampires, Lily's work-rival-turned-slayer, and her mother's tone-deaf romance and fitness advice—all while Lily faces down her insecurities about the fact that she lives in a diet-obsessed world with a body that will never age, never die, and never change. Can she learn to love the (plus size) woman she'll be forever more?"

I liked the book but there were a couple things that truly hindered my enjoyment. The main issue I had with the book was the main character herself. Lily's constant commentary on her weight and how she views herself was very overbearing. It was all she really talked about. The way she viewed herself and talked about herself was very disappointing. I am all about representation, but this was not at all healthy representation. The few moments that she came to '"accept" her body didn't seem genuine at all and I felt like there was no actual growth with her character. She just had a very immature attitude and that was annoying.

The love interest, Tristan, was okay. I didn't hate him or love him. With that said, I wasn't really rooting for anyone. I was interested in his backstory.

Lil'ys mother was just horrendous... and I was not sold on the so called growth of her mother in the end.

What kept me interested, was the plot. It was fun and light. I was interested to see where it was going to go and how we were going to get there. But the characters....not the biggest fan of.

I decided to pick this one up after reading a quick synopsis, and thought it sounded like a fun read for spooky szn.

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU VAMPIRES is a story about a girl named Lily who finds herself turned to a Vampire by Tristan. They team up, fending off other vampires while Lily faces living sin a diet-obsessed world with a body that will never change.

There was action and romance, but I got a bit tired of the repetitive diet talk and fat culture discussion.

*many thanks to Dreamscape Media and netgalley for the gifted copy for review

There was so much good humor in this book but I quickly got tired of her constant remarks about her body and what not that it kind of killed it for me. Overall it was cute but I wouldn't do a reread.