Bite Me: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

Welcome to the crazy city of San Francisco as told by Moore. All kinds of dangers abound, (mostly) in the form of vampires. There’s the Countess Jody and the Dark Lord Flood, but they’re not much of a threat considering their human minion Abby Normal, emergency back-up mistress of the greater Bay Area night, wannabe vamp but settling for Goth, has bronzed them in a reproduction of Rodin’s The Kiss. Then there’s the Safeway night crew, but they’re not really a problem unless they get in the way of Abby trying to combat all things that go bump in the night (except for her vamp friends of course). Speaking of which, the new bad boy in town is Chet, the shaved vampire cat, who is recklessly killing or turning San Francisco’s street life will growing disturbingly larger. It might be more than Abby can handle, so she’ll have to call in reinforcements from Steve (better known as the manga-haired love monkey Foo Dog), her gay Goth buddy Jared, and Emperor of San Francisco (protector of Alcatraz, Sausalito, and Treasure Island) and his “men,” and a pretty awesome ninja guy. Then three old vampires show up, and life (and undeath) get a lot more interesting.

I would apologize for the rather lengthy summary, but I just couldn’t help myself; Bite Me is just such a riot, as I’ve tried to convey. Moore tells this story from a wide variety of perspectives, giving the reader hilarious insight into each character’s thoughts and motivations. Despite the frequently rotating points of view, often multiple times within each chapter, the story remains easy to follow and understand. There isn’t really much else I can say besides that this novel is one twisted adventure of vampire and human misdeeds and sloppy solutions that manages to succeed in being both interesting and wickedly funny. I thoroughly enjoyed this laugh out loud amusing tale despite not having read its two prequels, Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck; if anything, reading Bite Me only makes me want to read them more. Believe it or not, Moore was first recommended to me by my dad, who generally has bad if not horrendous literary taste, and this is one of the few things I’m glad I listened to him on. So, take if from my dad if not me, Bite Me is not one you’ll want to miss.

This novel is marketed for the adult audience but will also be enjoyed by more mature young adult readers. Bite Me also appeals to fans of the Blue Bloods series by Melissa de la Cruz and The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott who can enjoy a comic element to adventure.

Rating: 4.25

Review copy from Amazon Vine