Reviews with content warning for Body shaming - When Life Gives You Vampires

Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

When Life Gives You Vampires by Gloria Duke

37 reviews

thewellbitch's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

The premise was interesting: what happens when you hate your body but you get turned into a vampire and your body will never change for eternity? I truly could not stand the main characters after a while. However, it's a fast read and the plot is not too bad, so it could still be a fun read for someone who likes certain types of characters.

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malslibrary1901's review

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.5

This book caught my eye at Barnes and Noble. The cute cover and synopsis had me so excited. Now I regret spending money on this. This reads as a rough draft of a novel. The author constantly used "Obvi" in sentences which was very irritating. We meet Lily's best friend and for the remainder of the book Lily always says "my BFF" which was annoying because the audience already knows that. It came off as the author trying to convince the audience that these two characters are best friends without actually building up their relationship at all. Lily as the FMC is just an idiot. The author was clearly trying to write a strong character but failed miserably. Lily gets turned into a vampire on accident and then proceeds to not pay attention or listen to anything Tristan has to say about being a vampire. She just goes around New York like she knows everything. She's rude to everyone. She hates her body so much that it consumes her life. She is incapable of seeing her so called best friend as a person who could have a bad day or have bad shit happen all because she is thin. Like Lily is really out here thinking anyone who is thin has a perfect life, like come on. The sex scenes were so badly written and overshadowed by Lily's internalized fatphobia. She can't fathom Tristan actually liking a plus size woman at all which was insane. She constantly jumped to conclusions that were wrong because she has no critical thinking skills. All of this is also made worse by the author telling not showing through out the book, so much so that it doesn't read as a novel at all. Its more like someone just telling you a really long boring story. There's supposed to be a plot but it's overshadowed by all the fatphobia and negative self talk. The characters are all flat and one dimensional. The overall conflict with the vampire counsel was over in about a minute and really had no effect on the story. Overall this was a terrible read and I would not recommend this to anyone. Especially anyone who is struggling with their own body image. It reads like a boomer wrote a book about a millennial plus size woman but has no idea what it's like to be a millennial or plus sized. So it just comes off as cringy and fatphobic. I regret my life choices that led me to read this.

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bibble_kingly's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book was a challenging read. The vampire aspects were interesting but I wish there had been more explanations about other things.

I think the Mother's opinion doing a 180 at the end of the book felt incredibly unrealistic. Yes, she experienced a terrifying event. Also, when you spend your child's enitre life fat-shaming her and forcing your daughter to develop disordered eating, it takes a while to not only acknowledge your wrong doing but to also, unlearn all of that AND do better.

This book had a lot of moments of realism which kept it grounded in some aspects. I understand that when a person gets to be 100+ years old, there's probably a disconnect when it comes to the human understanding of the supernatural world but...

'Vampire Hunters are incredibly dangerous so you have to watch out for them BUT ALSO are rare so why would you worry about it?' is very weird especially when Tristan laughes about werewolves existing. Werewolves, the creatures that are the folklore adversaries of vampires?? How was Lily's question not an IMMEDIATE clue that maybe our new couple has a totally different problem from just the Vampire council????

Overall, this book gave me a lot to think about in terms of body acceptance, the facets of internal shame and how all of that impacts everyone around you. The supernatural aspects were interesting but also, kind of baffling. The romance plot was also a bit baffling at times but not terrible.

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corrupted_taco's review

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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cassmills's review

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adventurous reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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ninebookishlives's review

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funny lighthearted reflective

3.5

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rythebread's review

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funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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binreads's review

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funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Finished this so quickly! I am a lover of all things vampire and since spooky season is rolling around, I wanted to start it off with something light and fun. It was a funny, lighthearted read.

I will say though, heavy trigger warning regarding weight, body self image, disordered eating etc. It's a constant throughout the book and can be hard to read.

I feel like this lacked in the story building for the vampire rules and such. I've read a lot of vampire books, all with different lore, but this one seemed to rely heavily on those callbacks to pop culture references to other vampire franchisees (Twilight, Buffy..) so I feel like it didn't really stand on its own. But, as someone who unapologetically loves Twilight, I LOVED all the twilight references made in this book, I was laughing so hard.

There also was a lot of plot holes, or things that just didn't make much sense or were just a waste of information.

Like why did Tristan change her in the first place?? I know he says like it's against the vamp rules to turn a newborn without prior approval granted from the vampire council, but he never states why he even changed her in the first place?? I know he tried to use his vampire influence on her and he thought she gave him permission but again why? Or was it because she bit him back that caused her to become a vampire.....I feel like either I missed that or it was never answered.

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jensreadsromancebooks's review

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emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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mnemosyne139's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I'm torn on how to rate this book. I had a fun time reading it, and the main character was relatable. But I also didn't like the writing style. It felt like it was trying too hard to be "hip", using words like "natch" instead of "naturally" (which took me a few times to figure out) or "obvi" instead of "obviously", and these were used a LOT. Also, this book is set in New York, but then the main character says things like "drop trou" like she's British, so that was a little confusing.

Having said all that, I enjoyed the book overall and would recommend it to those who like smut-lite romance (more words than actions, if that makes sense) and don't mind a touch of the paranormal.

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