Review: Bite Me by Christopher Moore

I have, of course, gone on record as not being the world's biggest vampire fan. I prefer characters not potentially vanting to suck my blood. But, as I have also noted before, I do love Christopher Moore's warped (or should that be varped) sense of humor and so I dip into the world of the undead for him. Unfortunately, this third and final installment in his vampite trilogy didn't live up to the other two for me. Because it is Moore, it is still funny but it pales in comparison to Bloodsucking Fiends and doesn't quite reach the heights of the middling funny of You Suck, the previous two books.

Picking up where You Suck left off, Abby Normal, Jody and Tommy's minion, has trapped our intrepid vampires in bronze statues (aptly modeled after Rodin's The Kiss). But while Jody and Tommy are out of commission, a new threat crops up, requiring Abby and her new boyfriend to take on a blue whore vampire, the Animals, and Chet the Bald Vampire Kitty who is turning all the cats in San Francisco and busily stalking human prey. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? That just makes it a typical Christopher Moore story. Somehow he manages to take completely disparate plot lines, even wacko plot lines, and weave them together so that they not only work but that they make the reader giggle.

Abby Normal is a major focus in this third book of the trilogy and that was a bit of a problem for me since I didn't love Abby in the previous book and found nothing here to change my mind. She is an annoying and ridiculous character and in a book full of entertaining zanies, that is a distinct handicap. I winced each time I turned the page and was faced with her journal (narrated in her own unique voice, a strange combination of goth and bubble-gum) or her over the top adolescent shenanigans, especially when in the company of her boyfriend. However, given that it was Moore and that I wanted to know what happened to the rest of the crazy characters and whether or not they would be successful in their quest to save San Francisco from the hordes of the undead, I soldiered on with the book. I even chuckled a time or two.

I'm sure that my high expectations for Moore's work made this perfectly adequate book feel more disappointing than it otherwise would have been. This is probably really only of interest to established Moore fans or those who have already started the trilogy and want to follow it through to the end. Don't make this book your first ride at Christopher Moore's carnival. It's not a bad book, it's just not one of his best. And his best, let me tell you, they are worth the price of admission.

Review: You Suck by Christopher Moore

Following on Moore's hilariously warped Bloodsucking Fiends, this novel takes up where that one ends. Opening with Tommy chastizing (probably too polite a term, incidentally) his girlfriend, Jody, for turning him into one of the undead himself, this is really a long and twisted look at Tommy and Jody's evolving relationship and the mundane details of life as vampires. For instance, it is incredibly important, when a vampire, to have a minion to whom you can delegate your daylight hours tasks. In Tommy and Jody's case, now that Tommy is himself a vampire, they recruit the cheerful and therefore inauthentic goth girl, Abby Normal. She is to do their bidding and protect them from the vampire hunting Animals, former Safeway night stockers and pot heads with whom Tommy used to work. Many of the characters from the first book make appearances in this one with the addition of some completely new kooky folks. There's Blue, the money hungry and completely sadistic prostitute who has dyed herself entirely blue. There's a homeless alcoholic with a fat cat who provides a reasonably stable blood source for Tommy and Jody as long as they keep him supplied with alcohol (nevermind that his blood makes them beyond tipsy). There are more twists than in a bag of pretzels as the vampire population in the Bay area explodes with unintended consequences and a completely original resolution.

In true Moore fashion, there are giggles and nuttiness and entertainment galore in the pages of this one. I will say that I didn't love You Suck as much as I did Bloodsucking Fiends, but I have high hopes for the third (Bite Me) as not only was the end of this one left gapingly wide open but it was also a bit rushed. I was slow to warm up to Abby Normal herself and found her early journal entries ridiculous and overwrought but as the novel progressed, I realized that they were written this way intentionally and that her fawning over the whole concept of vampirism making way for cool appraisal and steely nerves was itself a major plot development. In the end, I enjoyed the book and will be curious to see where the madcap vampire series careens next. Moore has a very warped sense of humor and he's not for everyone but I think he's a kick. More discerning and sensitive folks will want to know about the profanity, graphic vampire sex, and complete crassness that dots the pages of the book. But if this sort of thing doesn't bother you, you're in for a ride.

Give Me Moore Reading Challenge

I know. I don't even like vampire books. If seeing a review for Twilight on this blog didn't send you into terminal shock, me joining a vampire book reading challenge probably will. But those of you who read me carefully (and really, why haven't you anything better to do with yourselves?!) know that I love Christopher Moore's writing. And if you read me microscopically carefully, you'll already know that I did once declare that his vampire books were the only ones I'd be happy to read. Besides, I like throwing you all for a loop sometimes. And so I am cheerfully jumping into the Give Me Moore Reading Challenge at the Unread Reader. Even more surprisingly, I have already read and chuckled my way through Bloodsucking Fiends so I only have two books in the trilogy to tackle for this one: You Suck and Bite Me (which sounds shockingly like the sniping conversations I overhear between my oldest children these days).

The official rules are:

There are three books in the series, Bloodsucking Fiends, You Suck, and Bite Me. If you’ve already started this series, you can still participate in the challenge. You can either start all over again as a refresher or just start where you left off.

• Anyone can join at anytime between now until the week before the challenge ends. You don’t need a blog to participate. If you don’t have a blog, you can post your comments or reviews in the comment section of the wrap-up post.

• Any book format is acceptable, including audio books.

The challenge runs March 23rd to June 23 so everyone has a full three months to savor Moore's wicked humor. (And when you're done with the vampire books, make sure to read his other stuff as well since I love it even more than I loved Bloodsucking Fiends--it's that vampire thing for me again, ya know.)