Jim McDoniel (1)Critiques

Well, it was whimsically charming, had plenty of gore and comedy, and was obviously inspired by the old TV show Dark Shadows. In the story, Puritans imprison an English Count Orlok-style Nosferatu (our main protagonist) then freed by the new residents of his old house, like Barnabas, becomes a fan of a Dark-Shadows-esque vampire-detective TV show which happens to employ real vampires; chaos ensues when he reaches out to meet them helped along by the child-genius brother and show superfan older sister homeowners. The vampire lore, especially concerning the “Old Ones” (ancient vampires), was very interesting with a few new twists. This novel does make good use of the fish out of water component inherent in the premise and delivers the horror with the old vampires as well as through the gruesome kills and the graveyard humor (pun intended) of the main character. It also cheerfully plays with vampire lore, another aspect of the novel that I really enjoyed.
To be fair, this is not a mind-blowing or completely original novel, but I do like it and would recommend it. For such a long book it read quickly, I was never bored by the text, and it probably would have gone faster had I actually read it rather than listened to it. I also enjoyed the themes of vampire identity and the gatekeeping of the “modern vampire lifestyle” by the pretty Ann Rice-style vampires (some of which sport glitter lotion while clubbing lol).

A funny and refreshing story about vampires. After so many vampire stories on literature, movies, and tv, we can think there´s anything new, but it definitely is. I thank Jim McDoniel for creating Yulric Bile and playing with cliches on vampire literature and, somehow, returning this figure.

I like Yulric. He's the perfect miserable sassy vampire.
Simon is good too. He's a funny kid.
The footnotes are hilarious.

Fantastically Hilarious

This is one of the best things I've read in vampire verse. Take an ancient, powerful vampire and throw him into the modern era where vampires are weak and beautiful. Throw in his nemesis reincarnated into the body of sociopathic eight-year-old boy, and an older sister who is taking zero crap. Shenanigans ensue. It's the battle of the ugly, ancient, and powerful versus the beautiful, famous, and not-so-bright.

While I did find the sister, Amanda, to be extraordinarily annoying, I found Simon, the boy nemesis to be very amusing. He kept Yulric--and basically everyone--on their toes. And I am totally on Yulric's side, because vampires are not actors pretending to be human, pretending to be vampires, and they certainly do not sparkle...But we can keep the good looks, lol.

It's a must read for fans of humor and vampires, and people who thought WTF?! after reading the sparkly vampire books.

A friend recently asked for new vampire books, something different and unique. That reminded me of a book I had put on my “For Later” shelf at the library, so I bumped it up to check it out. It was the title, you see, that drew me. An Unattractive Vampire, are they even allowed?

It turned out that An Unattractive Vampire is intriguing and special in more than one way. It is published by Inkshares, the book publishers that crowdsource their selection process with some crowdfunding thrown in. The author, Jim McDoniel was standing in line behind some women discussing Twilight and was inspired to write the anti-Twilight. So, I have not read Twilight, I tried, but could not do it. I watched half of the first film. That this book was inspired by a bit of Twilight loathing made me anticipate some fun.

An Unattractive Vampire delivers on the fun. Jim McDoniel is a witty, amusing writer. He can also move things along. For example, if you have read any of the Nicholas Flamel series, it can take an entire book to meet and greet everyone who needs to gather to handle the bad guys. McDoniel can handle that gathering of the gang in one chapter. This is such a relief as there is nothing more boring that hail-fellow-well-met catch me up on the gossip sessions in chapter after chapter after chapter when all they are doing is getting a bunch of folks together to go bust heads.

Amanda, a sassy young woman who likes the sparkly vampires and wants to be one, discovers than an ancient vampire is buried in her basement. She digs him up, expecting glittery glamour, but instead Yulric Bile is, as the title says, unattractive. Very unattractive, in fact Amanda does not believe he is a vampire, or vampyr as he insists on calling it. A werewolf or a zombie, maybe, not a vampire.

Yulric has been asleep for 300 years so she sets him down in front a TV to catch up on progress. When she insists on watching her favorite show, a vampire soap opera, Yulric is fascinated, even obsessed. He must meet thing, but the meeting is disastrous as he discovers the modern vampires have been genetically engineered, and worse, they are not evil.

Well, this means war and that’s what we have, a sarcastic, caperish war between the old ways and modernity…and we are all firmly on the side of the ancients. Of course, it’s all incredibly violent in the kind of Richard Rodriguez violence-is-funny way. Particularly since the ancient vampires most definitely don’t want to kill the new vampires because then they won’t know how the soap opera turns out. So yes, it’s hilarious at times.

An Unattractive Vampire is a light book. a quick and easy read. There is a message to readers about our obsession with physical beauty, or its lack. There’s plenty of action and things keep chugging along, keeping me intrigued and turning the pages. There is one glaring weakness, though. It is unclear what motivates some of the characters. Why doesn’t Yulric just kill Amanda and Simon, for example. Why don’t they kill him? But if you quit asking why and just sit back for the ride, it will be a fun one.

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This book is HILARIOUS

Go buy! Go! Why are you still reading this review? Go read the book!

There have been a few books that have poked fun at how the concept of vampirism has changed over the years – especially how the most common portrayals tend to have vampires who are attractive and sexy above all else.

Enter Yulric Bile, an old school vampire who has woken up after an unfortunate period of downtime (damn those puritans. In fact can we have an aside where I just hail the awesomeness that was the depiction of puritans here. It takes a lot of work to make puritans hilarious but my gods they’re excellent) has woken up in the modern world in the basement of Amanda – a woman who has been trained to take on any adversary since being the guardian of her little brother Simon, who always has a hatchet.

Yulric has problems. There is the huge culture shock he faces after centuries away (he is now trying to bottle electricity and hates cars. Really really hates cars). Then there’s the problem of Amanda not putting up with his bullshit and regularly backing him down with a cross and her little brother Simon who is definite evil genius material and keeps experimenting on him.

Then there’s the fact no-one even believes he’s a vampire - because vampires are beautiful and he certainly is not. He is not putting up with this and makes his own nefarious plans to find out who is behind this and remind them exactly what vampirism is.

And it is awesome. Yulric manages to be so ridiculously sinister and powerful, while continually being mocked and thwarted by Amanda who is infinitely more awesome. These characters are so much fun together, her capability along with her slightly sad history and refusal to tolerate any nonsense excellently works with Yulric’s endless evil and her little brother’s twisted genius. I couldn’t have imagined a better dynamic between these three

The whole book made me laugh repeatedly. The interactions, the puritans (including the female cultist following Yulric who was, again, awesome, hilarious and an excellent challenge to misogyny). The characters, the world and the whole war between ancient vampires and young pretty ones in body glitter kept me smiling with every page – and repeatedly laughing out loud.

I laughed at the idea of a teenage Vampire show where all the actors were actually vampires. I laughed harder when a fight between these vampires and Yulric became fraught because Yulric refuses to kill the actors because he’s marathoned the dvd series and NEEDS TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. I collapsed with laughter when this fight became more fraught because Amanda and Yilric had a side fight with the main writer because he refuses to acknowledge her One True Pairing and insists on redeeming one the villains!

Top it all off with Simon, the extremely ominous little brother actually having the highest death count (while Amanda and Yulric scream at him to stop for the sake of their fandom!) and I just can’t applaud enough

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An Unattractive Vampire is a strange tale of a strange vampire that is buried for centuries only to be awakened by a strange boy. He stays with the boy and his sister and learns this odd world where vampires are pretty, sparkling, and fake. The book has a dark, odd sense of humor that is amusing. I would not say it is a laugh out loud book but maybe a smirk or two, a wry smile, or a happy grimace. A strange tale but I liked the odd characters, not sure if there was a real plot, but I liked it anyway. I think you have to be in the right mood to read a book like this. I received this book for a honest review from NetGalley.