I love a good vampire story so I went into this anthology already feeling good about it. And then it blew me away with its fantastic writing and effortless diversity. LGBTQ+, disabled, BIPOC characters, yes, please!

And the diversity of vampires - every story was quite different in the author's approach to vampires. So well-written and intriguing. I'd like to see several of the stories expanded into novels. I hope the authors plan to revisit these worlds/characters in the future.

Plus, the cover is spot on!

I'm already recommending this anthology to people.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for the DRC

*Thank you to the publisher for an E-ARC of Vampires Never Get Old in exchange for an honest review*

I was SO EXCITED to be able to read this amazing anthology! The author's stories are so immersive and wonderful that I sometimes forgot that each story was only a couple pages long. My favorite had to be Kayla's story, just because I love her writing and hello? DISABLED! VAMPIRE!

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to first state that I am a sucker (get it?) for a good vampire story. Funny, serious, bloody, scary, full novel or short story - you name it, I'll read it. Starting with Sunshine by Robin McKinley, I have always loved a good bloody vampire tale with fresh bite.

So you can believe me when I say that this anthology? Is absolute perfection in storytelling. The stories are all incredibly well written and structured, focusing on an element of classic vampire fiction, but they all offer a new take on the traditional tale. The world is no longer a place where only the white, cis, hetero, European men (and occasionally women) can be vampires. This anthology features queer vampires, Desi vampires, Hispanic/Latinx vampires who blog, black vampires in New Orleans, the vampires on social media, old vampires, young vampires, people questioning their desire to become vampires....truly something for everyone. And they're all so enthralling (often literally). Each story is followed by a central, essential question about the vampire mythos - would you want to live forever? Who is reflected in the vampire stories we read? How are vampires a symbol of privilege? Which means not only are we getting new and different takes on the vampire myth, but also the questions that we should be asking about who is being seen in our stories.

Do you want to know what to do if you wake up the morning after being bitten by a British vampire tourist? Samira Ahmed has advice in "A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire". Want to know about being a vampire in New Orleans and wanting to fall in love? Dhonielle Clayton paints a dark dreamscape in "The House of Black Sapphires". Want to see what happens when a vampire and a slayer find themselves strangely attracted to each other? You'll definitely enjoy the gay love story by V.E. Schwab "First Kill". 12/10 would recommend this anthology to anyone who loves vampires, loves great stories, and love a new take on an old myth.

Vampires Never Get Old is not so much an anthology as a bound collection of love letters to those of us who miss the Barnes and Noble paranormal romance section circa 2008. If Stephanie Meyer and Melissa de la Cruz were right up there on your shelf next to Bram Stoker and Anne Rice, this book might be right up your dark alley. If you, like me, spent the Great Vampire Renaissance that was the late aughts writing Lestat fan-fiction and wondering why vampirism only seemed to happen to white, straight, cis, skinny, able-bodied young women or tried to figure out the logistics of how the Volturi kept track of all vampire kind— yeah, you’re going to love this one.
This anthology is as diverse in its authors as in its subject matter. Each author seems to have taken on their own issue with the vampire mythos— from making the important first kill to taking selfies when you have no reflection to the trauma of having to finish high school as an immortal (or never getting to finish). A stand out in the collection is Rebecca Roanhorse’s spooky (seriously don’t read it before bed) “The Boys from Blood River” in which an ostracized gay Native American teen accidentally summons a gang of murderous vampires with a cursed song from a diner jukebox. This story explores the idea of the vampire as the permanent outcast in a way that deftly looks at the pain of marginalization and the temptation to simply check out of an unjust society— consequences be damned.
Heidi Heilig’s “The Boy and the Bell” takes a slightly more traditional approach in its familiar historical setting— Victorian England at the height of a tuberculosis outbreak, a time when people were buried with bells to alert the living that they had been buried alive. This story captured my attention with its eerie mood and exploration of the vampire as a symbol of hunger and privilege that is ultimately parasitic. Will, the valiant protagonist, must decide whether to fight this monster or aid it in exchange for keeping his trans identity a secret.
Other stories in this collection, like “Bestiary” and “A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire” are more interested in the future than the past. Laura Ruby’s “Bestiary” reminded me of Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy’s Once and Future duology in that it asks questions about the use of immortality in a world dying from the disease of capitalism where billionaires horde natural resources like water. Samira Ahmed’s “Guidebook” was certainly the most innovative and humorous of the collection, literally written in the form of a guidebook for a young vampire (probably turned by a gross colonizer on a blood-thirty vacation). Ahmed’s voice is hilarious and incredibly strong as she paints the picture of a young person’s future as a vampire, one in which they can still be set up on dates by concerned vampires aunties— “because being undead never stopped an auntie dead set on getting everyone married.”
It must be said that Kayla Whaley’s “In Kind” was the most poignant exploration of the vampire myth yet. In the iconic Interview with the Vampire Brad Pitt’s sulky Louis recalls his improved eyesight upon being turned, “The statues seemed to move but didn’t. The world had changed yet stayed the same.” In Twilight, Meyers’ Edward Cullen is saved from the Spanish flu with the bite. The vampiric transformation has become shorthand for the end of not just mortality, but almost all physical limitations. Whaley’s protagonist, Grace, is a wheelchair-bound young woman who is saved from a “mercy killing” by a sympathetic vampire. Her newfound power, however, does not make her magically walk again and she learns to control her power while taking revenge on her murderer. Whaley’s story is a powerful dialogue with the inherent ableism of the vampire fantasy, and for that story alone, this anthology is well worth the read.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.
Alright: a short story collection novel about VAMPIRES and poc/lgbt diversity. I’m generally not a short story reader but why not! I figured I could do little sentence summaries of each story so people know what to expect.
1. Seven Nights for Dying by Tessa Gratton. A bisexual girl meets a vampire and has a week (how long the transition takes) to decide whether or not to become an immortal vampire.
2. Mirrors, Windows, & Selfies by Mark Oshiro. A gay Hispanic born-vampire is completely isolated by his parents for their “safety” and he struggles to find out why that may be as well as his own identity, appearance and place in the world. They have no mirrors and he doesn’t even know what he looks like.
3. The House of Black Sapphires by Dhonielle Clayton. A family of black vampires who move around when their family firebird tells them to. They move to New Orleans, a city where their parents have a past, into a ward full of other immortal creatures such as shifters, Fae, witches, and Shadow Barons (crossroad keepers, soul takers). The main character is Bea, one of the many daughters, and she’s bisexual.
4. The Boys from Blood River by Becca Roanhorse. A gay Native American boy hears a ghost story about a group of serial killer/vampire boys and decides to summon them with their song. They come to save him, but with heavy price.
5. Senior Year Sucks by Julie Murphy. A wlw girl in high school is a trained vampire slayer who encounters a teenage vampire after a football game.
6. The Boy and the Bell by Heidi Heilig. This is a story about how people used to put bells attached to strings in graveyards in case any of the corpses weren’t actually dead as well as how people would dig up corpses for medical schools back in the day. It’s about a trans boy who digs up someone who was ringing one of the bells.
7. In Kind by Kayla Whaley. A single father caring for his severely disabled teenage daughter decides to “put her out of her misery” with a lethal morphine injection, but she’s saved and turned by a vampire, and later returns to address the father. This story deals with controversial topics like caregiving responsibilities, ableism, euthanasia. Important to note that the vampire transition does NOT “cure” her disability, as it is a part of her identity.
8. A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire by Samira Ahmed. It is exactly what the title describes. It is written as a guidebook addressing the reader as if we were the newly sired Desi vamps reading the guide ourselves. Lots of Desi culture comments/quips throughout the story.
9. Bestiary by Laura Ruby. A young girl who had been turned into a more monster/beast-aligned type of vampire against her will. She works at a zoo and can communicate with the animals.
10. Vampires Never Say Die by Zoraida Cordova & Natalie C Parker. Two girls, a white vampire leader named Brittany (first book I’ve ever read with a Brittany character!!!!!) and an Ecuadorian teenager named Theolinda, befriend each other on Instagram and decide to meet after a couple years of communicating online. Thought it was going to be gay but they consistently called each other friends or BFFs so....... yeah
11. First Kill by VE Schwab. A story about two wlw girls in high school, fated to be enemies. Juliette is a vampire and Calliope is a trained monster hunter. Juliette has a crush on Calliope, but Calliope is trying to net her first kill.
So, all of them were pretty diverse in characters but also how they used the vampire mythos. Some I liked more than others, but all were interesting. While I definitely picked it up for the VE Schwab story, my favorite was actually House of the Black Sapphires because the mythos was so intriguing. All of the types of immortal creatures and the party and the Turner sisters and the Shadow Barons.... it really felt like it easily could be turned into a full novel and I would’ve ate it up. Ms Clayton please!!!!

I miss vampires too - and these vamps are like no others you've ever seen! The description of this book includes the word "delicious" and truly that is the perfect word for it. The collection deserves more than 5 stars!

I raced through this book but also didn't want it to end. Each of the stories in this collection is unique and will re-imagine everything you've read about vampires before. We have a transgender grave digger, a disabled girl who turns into a revenge-seeking vampire, vampires on social media, vampires waiting for their first kill, vampire families, cheerleader vampires, slayers and much more.

So many amazing authors contributed to this! Vampires Never Get Old includes stories by authors including Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley.

This is everything I wanted in a vampire anthology and more. The hard part will be waiting for it to come out in the fall of 2020!