Valet Reader

If I didn’t know better, I would think that Christopher Moore is a teenage girl whose cell phone bill (due to excessive texting) is upwards of $200. But, I do know better, which actually makes the way in which he wrote this book even more bizarre.

While some people these days are fascinated with the Twilight or True Blood series of vampire books I prefer the more comedy riddled vampire antics of Mr. Moore. I do not need some silly looking guy who is passed off as a hunk to turn me onto vampires, of course in my case a woman might do the trick (but I don’t buy into that crap that easily). I mean, sure the women (and presumably few men) who have fallen for this ridiculous marketing ploy and terrible writing have been searching for a bloodsucking bafoon for ages but I think they and everyone would benefit from putting down the garbage (the series’ I referenced) and start reading something a little bit more fun, Moore’s books. Ok, I realize that I’m being really harsh and mean, and no I have not read either of the other series, but any book that’s turned into a movie where people are willing to spend hours in line to see it strikes me as a bit absurd. (If you hate me for what I’ve just said, I’ll make it up to you, promise.)

Of course Christopher Moore’s vampire series would never be turned into a movie and for that I am eternally grateful. Firstly, it would make a terrible movie, secondly because we don’t need anymore teenage superstars and lastly because vampire movies are now played out.

I’ve actually just realized that I skipped the second book in the series You Suck: A Love Story but I don’t really think I needed to read it to understand what was going on. Honestly, I never really noticed, I thought this book started right where Bloodsucking Fiends left off. One point Moore, negative one point everyone else.

I guess I should actually provide you with a review of the book rather than just compare it to some other similar books.

While I bash and demean other vampire series it wouldn’t be fair of me to tell you that this is a great vampire book. It’s not. As of now I have read three of Moore’s books and unfortunately the first was the best and this latest one was the worst.

I’ll start by telling you that because of the way in which it was written, I had to re-read the first chapter three times. I mean, it’s only a recap of the two previous books but it’s so riddled with that teenage girl voice that it nearly gave me a headache and was so hard to understand that I felt like by the third time around I was reading it so slowly I could have read three other books in the meantime. One could easily say that that is a good thing. That Moore has done such a great job of emulating the teenage voice in the chapter and writing should be celebrated and not lambasted. Personally, I don’t really care, I think it deserves a solid dose of lambasting. But, once you do finally get through it, if you have not read the first two books you will be completely up to date.

As for the story and the rest of the characters they are equally as ridiculous but at least they are easy to understand. Moore’s style of jumping from character to character in the telling of the story was something which I enjoyed and it actually gave me, as a reader, a better understanding of the characters. The humor in the story was though very good in that x-rated “don’t tell your mother” kind of way. The jokes are crude, vulgar and as about un-pc as you can get, which I think is why I keep on coming back to Moore.

I’m not even going to attempt to summarize the story itself for you as that sounds about as daunting a task as reading that first chapter. It’s not that it’s that hard but it just seems as though there is always just so much going on that it would make this post much longer than it needs to be.

At the end of the day I’ll say this, I will continue to read Moore’s vampire series before I consider picking up any of the others. I may not have loved this book but it was still an entertaining, fun and a fast read. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Moore I would suggest reading Lamb and going from there, it is by far and away still my favorite of his work.

Pg. 87, great way to sum up neighborhoods.