OK gonna start this out buy saying I've never read twilight, vampire diaries, or buffy (except the original movie --RIP Luke Perry) but everything I heard about this was amazing including a Podcaster I love so I shot my shot and was approved and it did not disappoint. Tess is young woman dealing with some personal stuff and she gets into a vampire show (we've all been there for me it was greys anatomy) then she starts to find out about all these conspiracy theories that it's a real world (imagine a real Seattle Grace) one of the brooding vamps shows up at her door! This book has so much in it so much representation, queer, fandoms, friendships, books- I can't say I'm a twi-hard (is that a thing) but maybe I've been missing out all these years ) I loved this book Def recommend

Tess Rosenbloom is trying to remake her life after everything she work for reminded her of a traumatic experience. She loves to read her comfort book Blood Feuds and romanticize the hero Felix.

Tess is such an amazing FMC. She's trying to survive after trauma and then gets sucked into a world of vampires. Tessa finds her voice and the courage to belive in herself and other's through ac twist of events she never expected.

Fresh take on paranormal romance! Appreciated the author’s trigger warnings. Fun read if you liked Twilight or Vampire Diaries as a teen.

When Tess is invited to her favorite fictional place, with the characters she's read about, who is she to decline?

Tess loves the series Blood Feud, so much so that she dabbles online about whether or not vampires exist, and she doesn't believe they do until one walks through the door.

Fang Fiction makes for a delicious read to sink your teeth into! You get drama and romance, with vampires and smut! I could not put this read down until I devoured all of it!

This book was good! Was is my favorite, no. But it did get me into the fall mood! Great for seasonal readers who are looking to start transitioning into the Halloween reads!

What in the name of Buffy did I just read?

I love romances, I love vampires, and naturally I dig a good vampire romance. I am 100% the audience for this. So please believe me when I say that this is an unholy mess, and not the sexy kind of unholiness you can expect in the best vampire romances.

Most critically, the relationships here suck. Again, not in the good way. There are two romances a-bloomin’: the central one features Jess (human) and Callum (vampire), and on the side, we have Octavia (Callum’s twin and a vampire) and Joni (Jess’s former roommate and best friend). The characters are paper-thin. It’s a problem when the defining qualities of your main duo seem to her trauma and his ethnicity/nationality. Jess and Callum do things because the plot dictates it’s time to do things, including suddenly having feelings for each other. I wasn’t sure until halfway through the book who Jess was even supposed to be falling in love with, and then all of a sudden, he is ready to die for her? The book is all tell, no show.

Plot-wise, there is simply too much going on, leaving the plot feeling underbaked. It’s predictable, so you absolutely won’t be surprised when someone comes back from the dead or a magical item appears. There’s no consistent logic to the world-building—things just happen because it’s time for something to happen.

So, underdeveloped characters, underdeveloped plot. Fine. But I deeply disliked having a sexual assault being the primary motivator for the heroine, not the way it was done here. It forms her entire personality and was used to drive the plot forward in a way that felt lazy or cliché. She loves the vampire books because they helped her through her assault. The love interests are anchored by her rehashing of the assault. She decides to fight the bad guy because she doesn't want to feel like she did when she was assaulted. The way this was written just felt regressive.

There are great vampires romances, great contemporary rom-coms, and great adventure romances out there. Read one of them instead.

Thank you Kate Stamen-London and Netgalley for this arc.

Starting off, this book is very solid and I am so glad that I got to read it. I love vampires, I love when women get to know vampires. The book was fun and unique. The beginning is kind of slow and I was a little confused as to the different characters, but it wraps up nicely.

I wish that the characters were a little flushed out and I wish there was a deeper explanation about the vampires to the sexual assault and why the sa was important. Nonetheless, I am excited for this book to become published and I hope others like it as much as I do.

I can't wait to see what Stamen-London does with her career and the future books!

This was a fun book with a lot of adventure. I'm not a vampire person but that did not put me off or make me feel like I was missing something. This was a fun book to read at the beach, it didn't take too much effort to keep up with the plot and there was a lot going on at sometimes with a lot of characters coming in and out and having varying roles. I'm not sure I fully connected the lesson from the vampire adventure to the trauma she faced in grad school but maybe just getting some confidence back and sharing what happened to her with her friends from the time was enough.

I legit screamed when I was approved to read this!!
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House publishing for this ARC of Fang Fiction and for allowing me to read this before its release.
I am so so so glad I got the chance to read this. It is refreshing, tantalizing and hello Vampires!! I will say mind the warnings because there are some strong scenes in this book. Overall for me it’s a solid three out of five. I wish the characters were fleshed out a bit more but I enjoyed this and will most definitely be purchasing a physical copy!

"Fang Fiction" offers a unique reading experience with its integration of various media elements like book excerpts and podcast transcripts. While this creative approach adds an interesting layer to the story, it can become disjointed and challenging to follow as the novel progresses. It’s an inventive read, though a clearer indication of chapter perspectives and purpose would have enhanced the overall experience.

I loved this author's debut novel, One To Watch, so I had high hopes I would love this vampire novel, but unfortunately, this just couldn't hold my attention. Instead of being the good kind of cheesy, it just felt.....incomplete, or too cluttered by all the POVs and excerpts. I found the writing style/dialogue too immature and could never get invested in the characters.

This book was so much fun! It follows two friends who are big fans of a vampire book series, and they end up meeting their favorite characters from the story! There's sapphic romance, heterosexual romance, mystery, adventure, all in beautiful world building! This is definitely one of my favorite authors, her books bring such joy! Please see my TikTok review for more!

This a book that took me by surprise as I did not think that I’d actually enjoy it, but surprisingly I did!

This took me a long time to get through. I really wanted to enjoy the story but the “quirky” chapter introductions were not it, and caused me to skip a lot. The story was oddly paced, and it was very formulaic. But not in a fun “romcom” way that I was given the impression of from the ARC.

Thanks NetGalley and the Author for the arc.

FANG FICTION was a unique and fun vampire read, but was a little over the top and didn’t live up to the author’s debut novel. The story felt long and meandering at times, and wished it was overall a bit shorter, but was still an enjoyable read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press for the opportunity to read and review FANG FICTION.

"Fang Fiction" starts at a low point in Tess' life. She's working as a night manager at a bougie hotel and estranged from her best friend after she was sexually assaulted and dropped out of grad school. She's thrown herself into her favorite vampire book series as she lives in this liminal space, only to be forced out of it when she learns the characters and premise are real.

The plot summary should sound heavy because it is. "Fang Fiction" is a strange juxtaposition between heavy topics like sexual assault, trauma and PTSD paired with something intended to be a rom-com? There's almost a bit of whiplash in the constant back-and-forth. I often needed a moment to catch up that the author didn't provide.

I wanted "Fang Fiction" to be so painfully cheesy that it's addictive, i.e., "Twilight," "Vampire Diaries," etc. Tongue and cheek humor, sassy main character, hot and mysterious love interest… That's what the cover gives off. Unfortunately, that's not what we get and it's actually quite the opposite. It's messy and not in a way one would hope. There's simply too much happening throughout. The reader is introduced to these real-world traumas but also has to figure out the established lore of this book series. Plus, there are timeline jumps, four different POVs and interstitial media ranging from Reddit posts to Yelp reviews and Snapchat text. These stylistic choices start before we get into the meat of the story, which feels disjointed and distracted from the story's heart. There are simply too many moving parts that undercut what worked here.
Also, Octavia and Callum felt way too close with their relationship bordering on incestual. I repeatedly felt like the twins were more interested in each other than either of their love interests.

"Fang Fiction" is a unique and interesting concept — and that cover!!! However, it just didn't work for me in this form. Thank you to the author, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

P.S. I AM SO OVER TAYLOR SWIFT REFERENCES IN BOOKS. It's become common in contemporary romance/romcom books and feels overdone and cliche. These "Easter eggs" are alienating for someone who isn't a regular Taylor Swift listener.

3.5

This is, without a doubt, written for fanfiction girlies. If you’ve been in the trenches of AO3, or even the before times of FFN, then you know the fic where an OC falls into their favorite fandom, learns the characters are real, and goes on an adventure. (you also most likely know that it’s a crack fic, but it’s so entertaining you’re unlikely to put it down.)

This is so fun. Thank you so much for both a digital and print arc of this. I have several lines (and paragraphs) underlined, tabbed, and my copy is well loved from being read in one sitting.

I wish this book focused purely on Tess and Callum though. I can’t lie; I didn’t connect with Octavia and Joni as much despite wanting to. It’s a little all over the place. It makes for a fast pace read in the second half of the book but I will say I’m somewhat confused by the final act. There’s a lot going on, honestly. The mesh of the fictional world colliding with the real one creates a jumble.

I love it for the nostalgia of fandom, while disliking it for being tedious to keep track with.

Fang Fiction is fun, not at all serious, and an easy way to pass the time.

Fang Fiction is written as an easy read but deals with some heavy topics. It does a good job handling the topics but I wish the novel was more clear on what it was about before opening the book.

The novel includes lots of different media within the chapters such as Blood Flued book segments, podcast transcripts, and more. This was really fun at first but by the end I was skipping reading them as they felt disjointed and disconnected from the rest of the story. These segments also made it difficult to tell whose POV the chapter was from. I wish there had been a better indicator going into each chapter.

Overall, the novel was a creatively done and a unique story!

I was provided an advanced copy of this book, courtesy of the publisher and author via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

(3.5 stars rounded up to 4)

Ex-PhD candidate, Tess Rosenbloom is now *just* the night manager at a hotel who keeps re-reading their fav series: Blood Feud. Well, she did have an article on Buzzfeed go viral about the fan-spiracy that the vamps in Blood Feud were really trapped in another dimension that was roughly located atop of Manhattan. Other than that, her life is mostly spent day-sleeping, regretting lost friendships and trying to avoid dealing with a traumatic event she experienced while in grad school.

Tess's life is forever changed when a vampire waltzes into the hotel and proves the conspiracy real. Tess must team-up with the vamp and help her reunite with her twin - the notorious Callum. As Tess travels to unknown territory, she'll learn there is a lot to learn and unlearn about her favorite series. Fang Fiction is an ode to fandom, friendship and finding yourself post-trauma.

What a fun world to spend some time in. This brought back some amazing memories of writing fanfiction myself, and I loved the way Stayman-London was able to incorporate lots of nods (and direct worldbuilding!) to fandom. It’s imaginative, fun, and feels a little different from some of the fantasy currently out there, in the best way.