Book Review: Vampire-ish: A Hypochondriac's Tale

"I could have done something else you know. Something more glamorous, but I choose to stay here."  


I had a book review that I was extremely excited for (and worry not, it is in the works), but first an ARC review.

For those who are not familiar with ARC reviews, if you are really into books and really into reviewing books, you can do ARC reviews.  ARC stands for "Advance Reader Copy."  Basically, this book is not yet published. But I got a copy for the express purpose of reviewing it for its impending publication.

I've always kind of thought it would be fun to do some ARC reviews.  So, I took the plunge.  Maybe I'll do some more in the future.  Maybe not, but it's kind of fun.

So, disclaimer that you  have to include when you do ARC:   I was given an advanced reader copy by the author in exchange for an honest review.

 

Oliver Brixby takes a lot of medication.  And he is quite sensitive when it comes to his health.  He's allergic to...mostly everything.  So, when he starts to experience some symptoms one morning after a mugging in Central Park--sensitivity to the sun, loss of appetite, pale skin, etc--, he assumes that he's just allergic to his newest addition to his personal pharmacy. Well, it's a little bigger than that.  He's now a vampire.  And this gets complicated when he learns that his medical bizarreness didn't die with the rest of his body.  He's probably the first vampire in the history of vampires who is allergic to blood.  And Oliver, squeamish with blood, a vegetarian (!), is having a bit of trouble adapting.

This book was apparently inspired by working in a blood bank, so as a medical lab scientist, I'm sort of bound by honor to like it.  And I did like it. 
   
I loved the characters, especially Oliver, and found all the major characters to be extremely compelling (with the glaring exception of Kryztof). All the minor characters felt very real, notwithstanding their lack of character development as woodwork characters.

The concept of this story and the accompanying humor were engaging and intriguing--a vampire that's allergic to blood!

However, this book is in desperate need of a copy-editor before it can hit the shelves, I'm hoping that's just an ARC situation. I did find two glaring scientific inaccuracies that made me what to scream inside, but I did major in blood...and I doubt even most doctors would notice them (they were the color/appearance of platelets on blood smear, and the reasons why we wash blood in blood banks).

Really, my biggest criticism is I didn't see the villain's motivation. The secondary villain's motivations made sense.  But the big-bad...his actions really made no sense to me. Just for his own amusement? That really hurt the overall reading for me.

All in all, it was an enjoyable story, with a feel-good ending. Is it the next great piece of literature for English classes to read in thirty years? Absolutely not. But I'm not sure that's what it's supposed to be anyways. It's a nice book to engage you for a few hours and unwind. 

 3 stars.

 This book will be available for purchase July 30th, and is currently pre-ordering on Amazon. 

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