Christopher Moore: Bloodsucking Fiends

I think I heard this book mentioned a good year or more before it made it's way to my wishlist. My TBR pile was great already. With the Twilight series over though, I've been branching out to other vampire series, something I never dreamed would happen. It's not that I think books about vampires are bad, because I don't think that. I had just thought them all juvenile after spending much of my teen years buried in them. I had read L.J Smith's complete works. I had also read Christopher Pike's The Last Vampire series, a collection of six books. (The Remember Me books had been ones I reread over and over again as well.)

After buried in so many Young Adult books as a teen I had thought growing up meant no longer reading YAs, and definitely putting vampire books behind me while moving on to those great and wonderful classic stories. I think I needed a little reminder of everything on that list of classic books because I know now there is at the very least one vampire book on that list. It wasn't until more recent years and seeing how many adults read YAs that I began to pick them up again myself.

Christopher Moore: Bloodsucking Fiends
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The book I'm going to talk about in this blog entry today is not a YA at all, but it is a vampire love story. Vampire books as ordinary fiction books - who knew? I had never read any perhaps until now. And yet, this book was not simply ordinary. It was a rather humorous one. Jokes were far apart at times, but other times they were left and right. Sometimes they were buried without characters even taking note of them when the jokes were right in front of them. This is a good thing though, because innocent and unnoticed jokes by the characters are always jokes very much enjoyed.

I was very confused about the setting when I first started reading. An Emperor was mentioned and my thoughts were, 'Egypt?' The next thing I knew it was mentioning Oakland, and this might just be because I am from California, but when I think Oakland, I think CA. It's a pretty scary place at times. The violence and gangs keep me away from it. It's not a place for someone my size to be alone. It soon became apparent that it was indeed the San Francisco Bay Area where this book takes place, and the Emperor was in fact Emperor of Chinatown. I obviously haven't been there often enough.

When we first meet one of our main characters, Jody, she is walking to a bus stop at night on her way home after work. 'This is the last time,' she thinks of being out that late as she aims to go past passersby. Have I ever known that feeling! The details of events for the next few days will go unspoiled by me with warning and you may use your imagination. Otherwise... (SPOILER) Jody thinks herself at some point left for dead. Until she wakes up. Was she left for dead, though? This is where the story really begins. (END spoiler.)

Tommy Flood finds his way into San Francisco immediately seeking a roof over his head and a job. His only real desire is to write and he creates a name for himself. His roommates and apartment tenant are quite the characters. So is his strange crew of co-workers who are up to all sorts of things that really make you wonder just what exactly goes on in grocery stores at night. They really had me laughing. What does Tommy have to do with Jody? I said this was a love story.

It took me a while to really get into this book but once I did, I was very glad for my mistake of buying book two by accident when shopping for book one. It allows me to jump right into the next book if I so chose. I haven't read a book that has made me laugh as much as this in a while. I really recommend it. In some places I was looking for something more and it's not a book I love such as those I rate at four to five stars. It was however a good book, and I can't wait till I have a person to talk to about it instead of just trying to avoid giving spoilers here.