Author: Flynn Meaney
No of Pages: 234
Release Date: 5 October 2010
Attention, all girls reading this:
We get it. The message is coming through loud and clear: You think vampires are hot. Your little sister thinks vampires are hot. Your mom thinks vampires are hot. Every single female on the face of the earth thinks vampires are hot. Girls love vampires, and I love girls. Unfortunately, girls don’t seem to love me.
So I’m making a change. For all the guys reading this, say a little prayer to the high school dating gods for me. Here’s hoping that girls think fake vampires are hot, too.
My Thoughts:
Bloodthirsty was a non-stop laugh for me, purely because it was so true.
Finbar is for want of a better word, a loser. He is painfully awkward in social situations, doesn’t have the looks or charm of his twin fraternal brother, Luke, and just to make his life that much worse, he’s allergic to the sun.
Finn was an amazing character for me; he wasn’t a whinger which took some expert writing on Meaney’s part. His plan to turn himself into a vampire to break away from his life time of social ineptness made for one of the funniest books I have read in a long, long time. His ability to laugh at himself through some of the more cringe-worthy experiences with girls was refreshing for me, as usually main characters want us to feel sorry for them and their horrible life.
Finn’s family was also completely hilarious. His dad didn’t play a huge role in the story, but made for some of the funnier moments – especially getting excited that Finn had been in his first fight and wasn’t in the hospital. His germ phobic mother constantly cleaning and leaving him notes to boost his confidence and being sneaky in her ways of finding out what the boys were up to.
Most of all I loved Finn’s brother Luke, he had Finn’s back no matter what, whether it be helping him to enhance his vampire abilities or letting Finn think he was getting away with going to the library instead of exercising, Luke had what Finn thought was everything and still cared. Yet, Finn also understood Luke in the way he was completely hyper and unable to sit still for more than five minutes.
The humour in Bloodthirsty wasn’t nasty in any way; it was just plain funny which was what I loved so much about this book. Meaney was able to poke fun at the characters and make it funny without being malicious. Making fun of the boy’s mother about cleaning without being mean or putting anyone down for being different.
This story walked a fine ledge of hilarity, cringe worthiness and horrific failure; I bow down to Meaney for pulling this off so perfectly. The perfect balance of laugh out loud funny and feeling bad for Finn whilst at the same time occasionally slapping one’s head for his awkwardness was ingenious.
Bloodthirsty worked for me because it is so close to the truth. People are so caught up in the vampire craze (even me) that they will believe close to anything that gets them closer to their fantasy coming true, even if that means a guy whose allergic to the sun and walks around trying to be aloof becomes so popular it nearly gets him staked by fake Buffy’s.
Bloodthirsty was a fun read, I enjoyed every second of the book. Sure it’s silly to think about a guy getting girls because he’s a fake vampire, but Meaney wrote it so incredibly well that everything about it worked and left me with laughing pains.
