This book follows the strange and unusual life of Amy Mah (Vampire) a very bored and downtrodden teenage vampire girl. What makes the book different from the normal run of the mill vampire novel is the main character's cynical view of the undead world around her, and to help bring the undead world to life the contains sketches by the famous manga artist Heby scattered throughout the book.
The Plot: Amy Mah was a Vampire, a blood sucking denizen of the night, or she would have been if it was not a school night, and to make matters worse she had just bitten herself (again), instead of her snack for the evening, a nice large and very bloody raw steak which having dropped out of her fingers was now leaving a very interesting stain on her new white t-shirt, and no matter how interesting a stain it made it did not make her mood any better. Amy knew from bitter experience that being a teenage vampire was not as much fun as the movies showed and as for the books about vampires, well they were all so wrong, for a start she could not fly but she could eat garlic, and as for going out in the sunshine, she did not glow or burst into flames, all that strong sunlight did was give her spots. So yes without sun block and a baseball cap the sun was dangerous as she could be the first teenager in history to die from terminal acne.
Amy Mah was a Vampire, a blood sucking denizen of the night, or she would have been if it was not a school night, and to make matters worse she had just bitten herself (again), instead of her snack for the evening, a nice large and very bloody raw steak which having dropped out of her fingers was now leaving a very interesting stain on her new white t-shirt, and no matter how interesting a stain it made it did not make her mood any better. Amy knew from bitter experience that being a teenage vampire was not as much fun as the movies showed and as for the books about vampires, well they were all so wrong, for a start she could not fly but she could eat garlic, and as for going out in the sunshine, she did not glow or burst into flames, all that strong sunlight did was give her spots. So yes without sun block and a baseball cap the sun was dangerous as she could be the first teenager in history to die from terminal acne.
I just Love Amy's world of vampires and her world is crazy but is a nice funny way.
If you want a book that is both funny and informative then this is the book for you as once you have read this you will look at vampire films in a different light.
Pros: I enjoyed the fact that the author was trying to make it sound like the book was written straight from the main character and thus had a fresh and natural tone to how the story was told. It was very straightforward and how a story might be told if an actual real life by a rambunctious and moody teenage girl. I like the bluntly honest portrayal of each character as it made you feel like you actually knew the characters and would either love them, hate them, and maybe even give them a good smack upside the head at times to get them to calm down. I understand that the author wanted to make this story very real and personable and she definitely succeeded.
Cons: Some of the very things I enjoyed about this book, also made me despise it. The natural tone of a teenager can come across as immature and obnoxious. Which is reality, but I don’t really care to read an entire novel in this tone. Some of the dialogue ended up feeling very jumbled and disorganized with typos nearly driving me insane. The manga drawings included throughout were cute, but made me feel like this book would work much better if it was switched over to actual manga form. I’m also a bit of a mythology/folklore snob and the portrayal of these vampires as fuzzy strange cats in heat just rubbed me the wrong way. I can appreciate a unique perspective on vampires (and thank goodness it wasn’t the sparkly nonsense at least), but the mash-up of old school movie vampires and a bunch of feral cat behavior just wasn’t cutting it for me. All in all, switch it over to full manga form and I think I’d like it a whole lot better.
Amy Mah is a riot, but she desperately needs an editor. This book reads like a first draft fresh out of NaNoWriMo: jumping between character POVs, no plot, no antagonists. It's just event after event, feeling all a bit thrown there hapzardly.
Her friendship with Ice and relationship with Max felt amazingly unconvincing, and most characters had absolutely no personality.
I would complain that the vampires in this world, with their obsession about mating, pink bats (weird why her family chooses bats as their symbols, when she complains constantly that vampires DO NOT turn into bats and that it's just another of those silly human mythological things), raising tails and having sex, are way too unbelieving, but what do I know about vampires, right?
Either way, I had to fight this book all the way through. I couldn't read more than a chapter or two at a time because I'd start getting a migraine. I think Amy's style works better in a blog. As a novelist, she still needs to improve a bit.
Amy Mah has one hell of a way with words. Her characters are sharp, well thought out, detailed, and extreme in their own ways. The author also isn't afraid to kill characters, something that I find a lot of other authors should think about. At any given point, you don't know who is going to live or die. It's like the walking dead with vampires instead of zombies! Read this well versed book now and enjoy the style, flare, and outright audacity of this amazing writer.
This was an enjoying, witty, sarcastic read. The beginning of the book was a bit slow going and I wasn't sure if I would get into it but I did and it turned out really well. I like the storyline it was heading towards, Amy is a very intriguing and likeable character. A different take on the vampire world which I liked. I would love to read more, definite potential for series of these books. If your into vampires, you should definitely give this one a read.
Some books wring out your soul. Others challenge every single feeling you've ever known. This does not--but it achieves what the author clearly aims to. Reading it is FUN. A little hard to get into if, like myself, you're not really a fan of anime (don't hate it, just not really into the genre). But I entered into this world to find it intriguing. Not only the humor, but also the intrigue and mysteries set up.
On another note, I do find this kind of vampire an interesting "take" on the monster. Even logical, with its efforts to see them as a predatory race of shapeshifters sometimes blessed/cursed with ancestral memories