The Reformed Vampire Support Group

It’s a good book, althought written in a bit of a juvenile manner. The dialogue and descriptions don’t always flow 100 percent but it is targeted for young teens, afterall. The only thing to be wary is if you like vampires with supernatural abilities, which is what draws me to vampires in the first place, then this is not really the book for you. The vampires in this story are not terrifying creatures of the night but really just victims of an unfortunate disease. Nevertheless, if that doesn’t bother you I would recommend it. One last thing to look out for, if you are goth or have high regards for the goth subculture there are some unnecessary jabs made at goth characters in this and the sequel. Just a warning.

Title: The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks Pages: 362. Time spent on the "to read" shelf: 0 days. Days spent reading it: 4 days. Why I read it: I was drawn to the cover (I know, I know). But I was also interested in reading another book by Catherine Jinks that sounded interesting, but it was quite a bit longer. I figured I'd try out her writing to see if I liked it with the shorter book. Brief review: The Reformed Vampire Support Group was a pleasant read. It was not the greatest book I ever read, but it was fairly original, told as a fun narrative, and full of great sarcasm and wit. I enjoyed reading it. The story is a blend of comedy (filled with Vampires who don't drink human blood, instead they fang hamsters), mystery (a vampire is killed in the first few chapters, who killed him and why drives the story), and vampire lore (they DO sleep during the daylight hours, but they are not super-strong or particularly cool). I liked how it blended vampire lore and at the same time tried to make its own lore. Jinks wrote this book with some great twists on who vampires are and what they do. There were a few parts of the story that bothered me. The storytelling gets interrupted by the fact that the vampires sleep during the day. At two points the vampire telling the story from a first person point of view has to shift to a narrative role to recount what happened during the day. I found these shifts awkward, and not as well written as the rest of the novel. Also, the first half chapter of the book is written from a 3rd person P.O.V. but then it shifts to a 1st person, I did not understand why Jinks did not just start from the 1st person. But these are minor flaws in what I thought was a great story. Worth reading if you want a quick, light read that makes fun of the vampire genre more than anything else. As a youth pastor, I also thought there were some great points made in the book about resisting temptation, walking according to the flesh, and overcoming with the help of strong community. But that was just my take on some of the themes in the book. Interesting to me, maybe not to other people. All in all, The Reformed Vampire Support Group will deliver some chuckles, gives a fun story, and was worth reading. I'm sure a sequel will come out if this book is even slightly successful. There were plenty of fun characters to work with and their quirkiness is worth exploring in additional books. This is one book that didn't suck. (I couldn't help myself! I needed one great vampire pun). Favorite quote: "If being a vampire were easy, there wouldn't have to be a Reformed Vampire Support Group." (there were a lot of funny passages and dialogue, but I could not find any of them that made sense alone when trying to make this review, so you get this little gem) Stars: 4.5 out of 5. Final Word: Fangtastic.

I'm not swearing Catherine Jinks wrote The Reformed Vampire Support Group as a parody of the Twilight universe. I'm just calling it as I see it. If you hate Twilight, chances are you'll love this book. And if you're Twi-obsessed, well, then, I'll give you a 60% possibility of enjoyment. Consider it Twilight on a bad LSD trip. What's different you ask? Hmm. Well . . . imagine your mom as a vampire. The mom you know and love and shudder at when she walks around at seven in the morning in curlers and a hair-net, smoking like a moldy hay-stack and ever-complaining about her over-sized goiter. Except rather than a bottle of gin in hand, she's drinking blood. Weird, right? That's what I'm talking about. No Edwardian sparkles, no super-human strength, no poetic tangents professing the passionate need to resist the smell of the wine barrel, and definitely no Greek god-like physiques going on. The vampires in this universe never age, but their physical bodies do (or more specific--their physical ailments do). Toenails fall off and stay off, and one's breath is always bad. Add to that the issue of their being terrified of driving, choking, being killed, or interacting with human society on any level and you begin to get the general idea. They hide out in their homes watching TV re-runs and drinking the blood of guinea pigs (which they breed, mind you), attending their once-a-week "I promise to be ashamed of what I am" support group. Thus it is that when one of the members of The Reformed Vampire Support Group gets staked and winds up as a "pile of cat litter" in the bottom of his coffin . . . well, uh . . . maybe you should just read it.

I was thinking more along the lines of 4 and half stars, but since that's not possible I'd rather give slightly more credit than deserved than any less. BEWARE: Spoilers If I have any complaints about this book it's that it ends so soon, and that there is a certain couple that I wish to see a little bit more of. Also, it does occasionally exasperate the reader that the vampires are so averse to action, and we sometimes want to tell them to just do something already- but then that's the way that Nina feels as well. It's easier to relate to than most vampire books because the vampires are so....human. The only discernible superpowers are better night sight and an inability to die easily. Even those are limited: age and state at death always remain the same. In other words, old lady Bridget still has trouble with her hip, despite being a vampire, and other characters are described as middle aged near-balding vampires. It takes alot of the magic away from vampires, because this particular brand is basically all human except sicker and immortal. I do often wish that they had a bit more in the way of traditional vampire powers, but it's interesting to see this take on it: that being a vampire is like having AIDS (per a character in the novel). While we see many characters with the exasperation and real view of the main character, they're still decent: the former barmaid mother who doesn't abandon her vampire daughter, etc. I love David....he's an endearing combination of admitted cowardice and bravery. His interactions with Nina are interesting, especially in certain scenes... Overall I'd really recommend this book :]

If certain bestselling novels and hit movies are to be believed, vampires are passionate, glamorous, romantic and downright sexy. Not so, says Nina Harrison, the narrator of Catherine Jinks' dark comedy, THE REFORMED VAMPIRE SUPPORT GROUP. Nina, who has been a vampire since she was "fanged" at age 15, may write her own series of bestselling novels starring sexy vampire Zadia Bloodstone. However, in real life, Nina and her group of vampire "friends" (a term Nina herself would probably reject) are anything but glamorous or desirable. Instead, life with Nina and her companions is a lot like an AA meeting. In fact, the loose-knit group of vampires meets regularly at a church in their native Sydney, Australia, in meetings overseen by a (human) priest. (It turns out, by the way, that the whole thing about vampires despising crosses and garlic was a bit of an exaggeration.) Being a vampire, we find out, is kind of like being an alcoholic. The vampires effectively have an infection that's impossible to cure but possible to control, mainly by using willpower to overcome their desire for human blood and by fanging small animals (in their case, guinea pigs) and taking enzymes that mimic those in human blood. Nina still lives at home with her mother (who's now in her 70s), and she socializes by necessity with the other reformed vampires in her group. The only one she is at all fond of is fellow teenaged vampire Dave, a sensitive but moody soul who she likes in spite of herself. Nina can take or leave the other vampires, especially Casimir, the creepy instigator of the group. But when Casimir is staked through the heart and shot with a silver bullet, the Reformed Vampire Support Group must figure out which modern-day Van Helsing was out to get him --- and which of the other vampires might be the next target. Obviously, Nina's dysfunctional, unattractive vampire posse of losers and creeps is meant to be a deliberate alternative to smoothly slick vampires in other novels. Jinks' book is also a clever send-up of society's fringe elements --- just like criminals, prostitutes and addicts, the vampires lurk around the city after dark, keeping to themselves because they might endanger (or be endangered by) others. In addition to being a witty satire and a clever murder mystery with a most unusual set of detectives, THE REFORMED VAMPIRE SUPPORT GROUP is also very, very funny, whether you happen to be a fan of vampire novels or not: "Horace...had arrayed himself in a Gothic assortment of crushed velvet, black satin, and patent leather that shouldn't be allowed, in my view. He might as well have had I AM A VAMPIRE embroidered across the front of his watered-silk waistcoat. An outfit like that is going to get him staked one of these days; it's exactly what Boris Karloff would have worn, if he'd joined the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show." In passages like this, Nina's snarky, spot-on narration will win her fans, even if she's not the kind of vampire that g

I was rewarding myself for having such a productive week when I bought this and boy oh boy is this a swell treat. From the first page I was caught. No, not just by the clever turn of phrase and the hilarious lives these vampires lead, that's a given. I read Evil Genius and loved it too. No, it's the careful way that the characters are revealed and the absurd things they have to do to survive. The plot is pure gold; Imagine going to a support group for thirty years. Thirty years of seeing and listening to the same small group of people talking about their problems. Now add to that someone who is permanantly in the body of a 15yr old and is the beneficiary of peptalks and advice about her situation; "you are in the denial stage of vampirism, etc." At it's heart this is a mystery. In the grand tradition of mysteries (at least the ones I like), the heroine has several handicaps, not the least of which is that she lives at home with her mother and cant go outside during the day. She spends her time writing vampire adventure stories. I don't want to give anything away, truly this is a book to be savored (I devoured it in two days, what can I say, I have no self control).